Goya Dmytryshchak
By Goya Dmytryshchak
Seabrook residents fighting to stop motorists using local streets as a rat run to dodge Point Cook Road traffic are celebrating a win, with pop-up bollards to be installed.
Hobsons Bay council last week voted to install the municipality’s first remote-operated bollards at the southern entrances to Seabrook
Boulevard and Shane Avenue from Point Cook Road.
The automated bollards will prevent traffic entering from Point Cook Road during morning peak times.
A petition to council, with 169 signatures, had opposed the construction of a permanent barrier between the north and south sections of Seabrook Boulevard.
Lead petitioner Peter Gavaghan, who lives in a street running off Seabrook Boulevard, said motorists had been using the thoroughfare to jump the queue in Point Cook Road during peak hours.
He said most Seabrook residents would be happy with the bollard solution, but not all.
“But the Homestead Run part, which is the southernmost part of Seabrook, are not going to be very happy because they’re going to have to go into Point Cook Road,” he said.
“As far as the real Seabrook is concerned, people will be happy.
“The council deserve a pat on the back – they’ve been everything you could wish a council to be.
“They’ve responded, they had the public meetings and they listened to people. They’ve shown an understanding that you don’t expect from public authorities.”
Cr Sandra Wilson told last week’s council meeting that if the state government had improved Point Cook Road, the intervention may not have been necessary.
“Perhaps if Point Cook Road had better treatment and attention from the state government, we might not have to intervene in this way to actually take the pressure off the local streets but something needed to be done,” she said.
“There’s a lot of angry people about having to put up with this.”
