The State Government has announced its intention to build the long tunnel design option for the Western Distributor.On and off ramps will connect to the West Gate Freeway in Yarraville and Spotswood but the final design will not contain any flyovers and will be built as close as possible to the existing West Gate Freeway.
This is a significant win for the community and MTAG are pleased that the government has listened. The devil of course is in the detail but it appears as though the ramps will minimise the impact on Stony Creek Reserve and Emma McLean Kindergarten as much as possible.
However our two main sticking points remain. Without truck bans on all residential streets in the inner west this 5.5 billion dollar project will not work as a solution to the truck problem and trucks will continue to use our streets to avoid the tolls. We also need filtration on the ventilation stacks to protect the neighbouring communities from dangerous diesel exhaust.
The project team will be holding a series of information sessions in the area during July, August and September, the first being at Footscray’s VicRoads office from Monday 18th – Friday 29th July. More info on this and the project can be found here.
This story received a huge amount of media and MTAG were sought for comment from radio, print and TV news sources.
Read the Age article here.
Watch the story on Channels 7, 9 and ABC TV news here
Listen to MTAG’s Martin Wurt on 3AW here.
Read the Maribyrnong Star Weekly article here.