THE health effects of failing to act on truck traffic has driven residents to decide on blockading Footscray’s Shepherd Street next Tuesday.
Residents will be protesting against the increasing volume of port truck traffic and highlighting the health risks associated with diesel fumes.
Maribyrnong Truck Action Group’s ‘Deliver us from Diesel’ protest blockade, rescheduled from November to 8am on Tuesday, will call for immediate work to build on/off ramps linking the West Gate Bridge with the port.
Group president Samantha McArthur said the area had Melbourne’s highest level of hospital admissions for respiratory illness, while night-time truck traffic in some Footscray streets had increased 400 per cent in recent years.
“These ramps would take 10,000 trucks a day off our streets and they have been on VicRoads’ books since the Kennett era,” she said.
Ms McArthur said the recently approved port expansion, which will lead to freight doubling within 20 years, meant MTAG could no longer “play nice”. “We’ve been to countless meetings with VicRoads, the government, the EPA and council, and our very reasonable requests are ignored. We don’t expect truck-free streets, but 20,000 a day and rising is too many so we’re taking to the streets again until something is done.”
A 40-piece street band will play alongside a mass singalong and puppets from the company Snuff Puppets.
Freight operators’ peak body, the Victorian Transport Association, has slammed the protest.
Chief executive Neil Chambers last month said trucks were vital for moving freight.
The protest comes at the same time as the deadline closes for submissions to a Senate inquiry into the impacts on health of air quality in Australia.
Western suburbs Greens MP Colleen Hartland said her submission highlighted the 21,000 trucks travelling through the residential streets of Melbourne’s inner west every single day and their effect on residents’ health.
