14th December 2025 was a huge day for Melbourne’s inner west with no-truck zones introduced on Moore St, Buckley St, Somerville Rd, Francis St, Hudsons Rd and Blackshaws Rd. A night and weekend curfew was introduced on Williamstown Rd.
These streets, built as residential streets in the 1800’s, lined with houses, schools, parks and childcare centres slowly, over many decades, morphed into some of Australia’s busiest truck routes. This should never have happened. It was terrible for residents and terrible for industry.
This issue became one of Australia’s longest running examples of environmental injustice, in a community with some of the country’s highest hospitalisation rates for asthma, respiratory disease, heart disease, stroke and lung cancer – all diseases with a correlation to air pollution. The community did not have any of the usual risk factors for these statistics, with average socio economic, smoking and obesity rates and an average age of just 35.
Living with these trucks has been an absolute nightmare, creating huge amounts of stress and anxiety. Over the decades, residents have moved out of the area, tired of waiting for a solution while watching their children battle chronic asthma. The health impacts have been huge, but the psychological toll has also been very high.
The community has been campaigning for a solution for over 25 years, ever since the Yarraville Residents Traffic Group took to the streets in the early 2000’s. In 2005 MTAG formed and for the past twenty years we have pressured government after government to address the problem, while it became a political football as project after project was announced and then replaced by another project by each new incoming government.
Finally these streets have been returned back to what they were built for – servicing local residents.
The no-truck zones will be monitored and enforced by smart camera technology and new legislation has been passed to allow these cameras to monitor compliance, ensuring the days of trucks ignoring curfews are over.
We thank the Allan government for delivering on its promise: truck free zones, enforcement cameras and a direct freeway link to the Port. But the work isn’t over. We need more freight on rail, the old dirty trucks removed, improvements in pollution related health outcomes, filtration for tunnel stacks and a long term solution for Williamstown Rd.
On the first day of the No Truck Zones, MTAG held a little community celebration/media event with some of the classic signs and banners from our protests over the decades. Some of the adults had photos and signs from when they were children and one resident remembers talking to the media about the issue 38 years ago!
The tunnel opening and launch of the No Truck Zones were reported on in The Age, TV nightly news, ABC Melbourne’s Conversation Hour and Drive
Since opening, we have received a massive amount of positive messages on the life changing improvement to people’s lives. The reduction in trucks from day one has been huge. One resident said she had not known such peace and quiet in over 40 years, commenting “who knew we have birds on Francis St!”
Thank you to the countless MTAG supporters who for 20 years have written letters, turned up to protests, hung signs, held signs, called politicians, spoken to neighbours, posted on socials and donated. Without you, these bans, cameras and safer, cleaner streets would not exist.
Thank you for the part you’ve played in this huge win for inner west communities – we did it!
