Footscray residents say truck bans introduced “in someone else’s neighbourhood” are sending hundreds more trucks past their homes day and night.
Buckley Street resident Craig Williams said curfews introduced last year during school crossing times on Somerville Road, Yarraville, combined with night-time bans on Moore Street in Footscray, were sending vastly more trucks down Buckley Street.
“In the past five years the volume has increased by so much,” he said.
“When will someone say enough is enough?”
Mr Williams said diesel emissions were one of his main concerns, along with the inability of residents to sleep, as hundreds of trucks drive past their bedrooms every night.
He is calling on the state government to ensure that any further bans of trucks on local streets that are introduced as part of the Western Distributor freeway project include Buckley Street.
“The port is going to triple in size, and there are going to be about 800 new residents in place with new apartments being built on Buckley Street,” Mr Williams said. “There doesn’t seem to be any planning around this.”
Western suburbs Greens MP Colleen Hartland said a proposed daily cap on truck tolls of $80 showed the state government was massively underestimating the number of trucks that would “rat run” through residential streets to avoid taking the new freeway.
“All trucks taking the rat run would be funnelled on to Buckley Street, Moore Street and Geelong Road,” she said. “These are residential streets and home to Footscray Primary School.”
Ms Hartland said only 24-hour curfews on all local streets would solve the problem and tackle the high child asthma rates across the Maribyrnong council area.
A spokesman for Roads Minister Luke Donnellan said the truck curfews aimed to strike a balance for the local community and local truck operators.
“The Andrews government has already taken action to remove trucks from inner-west streets and the Western Distributor will take 6000 trucks off local roads,” he said.
“There’s a lot of work to be done and that’s why we’ll be going through an in-depth planning and consultation process.”
