The dire state of public transport in Melbourne’s west is being put in the spotlight in a campaign pushing for more investment ahead of the November state election.
Sitting MPs and potential candidates across the traditionally safe Labor heartland are being targeted to commit to greater spending on transport to keep up with the area’s rapid population growth.
The Time For The West campaign wants new bus services rolled out to better connect suburbs, new bike paths to allow more people to cycle safely and a region-wide study to identify the most urgent transport projects needed to meet growth of about a million extra people in coming decades.
Co-ordinated by LeadWest, an advocacy group backed by the west’s councils, the campaign is highlighting the causes of car dependency and difficulties residents have moving around the area.
LeadWest is collecting stories from residents such as William Pendlebury, who spends almost two and a half hours a day on the round-trip between his Altona home and study in Sunshine – a trip that would take little more than 20 minutes each way by car.
Mr Pendlebury said his existing options were to take two buses or a bus and two trains. Infrequent services and indirect routes all added to his travel time.
“The limits of the system mean it is quite slow,” he said. “A lot of it is the times in-between, waiting at a stop for the next bus.”
LeadWest chief executive Craig Rowley said transport investment in Melbourne’s west had fallen well behind the pace of growth.
“That makes it harder to spend enough time with our families, it’s harder to access job opportunities and too often there’s no option except to drive in congested traffic,” he said.
Mr Rowley said politicians needed to be doing more to make sure transport services met the needs of rapidly growing communities.
“It’s time for politicians to listen to us and fix transport in the west,” he said.
Mr Rowley pointed to a poll of more than 2000 voters conducted by Lonergan Research that found that poor public transport services would influence the vote of more than half of people in Melbourne’s west.
LeadWest wants people to send messages to their MPS, and share stories on poor public transport services, via timeforthewest.org.au/share_your_story
