A long fought battle to ban trucks on residential Yarraville and Footscray streets has been won but the transport industry and residents of adjacent suburbs have slammed the decision.
Premier Daniel Andrews announced the 24/7 truck bans in Footscray on Sunday while unveiling the final design for the rebranded $5.5 billion West Gate Tunnel.
The toll road project includes twin tunnels beneath Yarraville, from the West Gate Freeway to the Maribyrnong River, and an elevated freeway above Footscray Road to CityLink and the city.
It’s to be built from early 2018 by a consortium led by John Holland and CPB Contractors.
Once construction is complete in 2022, trucks not travelling to or from local destinations will be banned on Yarraville’s Francis Street and Somerville Road and Footscray’s Buckley and Moore Streets.
The Maribyrnong Truck Action Group, which has campaigned for a decade to reduce trucks on local roads, has celebrated the bans as an end to “the unjust and toxic situation”.
Secretary Martin Wurt said MTAG would now campaign for quality tunnel filtration.
But the announcement has stirred anger in the trucking industry and among Spotswood residents who say they will be paying for Yarraville’s protection from trucks with increased pollution from a widened West Gate Freeway and a new truck ramp adjacent to Donald McLean Reserve.
Better West spokeswoman Christine Harris said the consultation process had been “a sham” and that Transurban’s unsolicited freeway proposal was designed to attract rather than reduce truck traffic in the area.
“Why is the Andrews government facilitating a multinational profit-driven road monopoly that locks in the people of the west because they have no other transport choice due to decades of neglect in providing decent public transport?” she asked.
The Victorian Transport Association has warned truck bans will increase pressure on freight operators already slugged with heavy CityLink toll increases.
Williamstown MP Wade Noonan said the West Gate Tunnel would create 6000 jobs and be the biggest infrastructure investment in the west since the West Gate Freeway.
He welcomed the truck bans, cycling infrastructure spending and the creation of new open space in Altona North and Footscray, saying it would transform the liveability of the inner west.
Mr Noonan moved to assure Spotswood residents there was still a chance of further truck bans being announced for their streets through the Environment Effects Statement process.
He also called on the Greens to explain how they would remove trucks from local roads without supporting the Western Tunnel project.
Western suburbs Greens MP Colleen Hartland said putting more freight on rail could remove 3000 trucks from local streets and that the $500 million West Gate Distributor project that Labor took to the last election could have had a similar impact while saving Victorians $1 billion, had it been built.
