LONG-STANDING Yarraville residents say the trucking industry has been misleading the community over the history of truck traffic through the area.
Lola and Peter Anderson, who built their Finlay Street home in 1959, say Francis Street was never the major truck route now being claimed.
Mrs Anderson said their son used to play kick-to-kick on the street when it was little more than a simple track.
“About 60-odd years ago Francis Street stopped just near here; it didn’t even continue through,” she said.
“It’s so annoying when you get these people saying the trucks have always been here when they don’t know what they’re talking about. People need to get their facts straight before making wild statements.”
Despite a night-time curfew, Francis Street remains the area’s most truck-choked route with 5800 trucks a day — that’s one every 15 seconds.
Mr Anderson said the state of Francis Street, with its potholes, degraded verges and mud dragged out from container storage sites, was “an absolute disgrace”.
“We have been trying since the 1970s to prevent so many trucks going up and down Francis Street, but the volume has just skyrocketed and they’re far bigger trucks than they ever were.”
Mr Anderson said he had written to the Victorian Transport Association (VTA) to raise his concerns but never heard back. “They never had the decency to reply to us.”
Then-VTA CEO Phil Lovel last year claimed the existing truck route had been in place for 150 years.
He said money flagged for the Truck Action Plan to remove trucks from residential inner-west streets would be better spent buying residents’ houses along Francis Street.
The VTA weighed into last week’s planned blockade protest against port trucks by the Maribyrnong Transport Action Group. It was postponed due to heavy rain.
The protest, coinciding with the second anniversary of the election of the Baillieu government, was called to demand that work begin on building ramps on and off the West Gate Bridge at Hyde Street to provide a direct link from the freeway to the port.
The VTA asked Victoria Police to ban the rally, arguing MTAG didn’t represent the views of most residents.
But MTAG spokesman Peter Knight said the inner-west had Melbourne’s highest levels of diesel pollution and hospital admissions for respiratory illness. “There is a shovel-ready solution on the table (the truck bypass ramps) and Baillieu is doing nothing to make it happen.” —
