An Altona Meadows resident is calling for pedestrian crossings at a major intersection before someone is hurt or killed.
Brett Sause says he walks to Aircraft station at Laverton every morning, weaving through traffic across a main thoroughfare that leads on and off the Princes Freeway.
“I have to cross three extremely busy and dangerous intersections on the corner of Point Cook Road and Central Avenue,” he said.
“There are no pedestrian crossings.
“I have nearly been hit by a car several times and have also witnessed school kids come very close to being collected by trucks, especially at the double crossing near McDonald’s – the off-shoot from the freeway.
“We’ve just been lucky that no incidents have occurred, but the amount of trucks and buses … it’s pretty full on sometimes.”
Mr Sause said Hobsons Bay council had advised him to direct his concerns to VicRoads as the responsible authority.
He said VicRoads gave him a “generic” response, that it was aware of the issues and pedestrian safety projects were checked and prioritised accordingly.
“Not to be too derogatory, but if this happened in Toorak, they’d probably whack in a crossing straight away,” Mr Sause said.
In the 12 months to last December 31, two crashes were recorded at the corner of Point Cook Road and Central Avenue. No one was injured.
VicRoads acting regional director Bryan Sherritt said a number improvements had been made to increase safety at the intersection in 2013.
“These included modifying traffic islands to slow down approaching vehicles, modifying turning lanes at the roundabout and relocating a pedestrian island to reduce the distance required to cross the road,” he said.
“As part of this project, we installed more fencing to provide greater protection to pedestrians and cyclists, a new dedicated bicycle lane, increased street lighting and resurfaced the intersection.”
