By Benjamin Millar
The Yarraville community has reignited a campaign for the return of a pedestrian underpass at the Anderson Street railway crossing as another lengthy gate closure last week led to people risking their lives to cross the tracks.
A fault that left boomgates down and pedestrian gates closed for more than 30 minutes on Tuesday caused traffic chaos and tempted pedestrians to go around the gates to cross the tracks.
As well as having major safety concerns, traders warn the problem is affecting their businesses. Sun Theatre owner Michael Smith, who has started a petition demanding a solution, says the gates can be closed for up to 20 minutes during peak time, leading to risky behaviour as people try to cross the lines to catch their trains.
“I started the campaign as someone who lives and works in the area and is very frustrated,” he said.
Mr Smith said the situation had become worse than ever after the pedestrian underpass next to the station was suddenly filled in back in 1997.
“Since then the number of trains has drastically increased. A simple task like walking to the post office and back can take up to an hour,” he said.
The Sun Theatre is showing newsreels highlighting the issue and Mr Smith is looking for residents to make their views known to local politicians.
He said a long-term solution such as a footbridge must be considered, but an immediate improvement could be made if the boomgates were reprogrammed to allow more crossing time.
Wee Jeanie cafe owner Iain Munro said running a business alongside the gates meant he had seen many examples of frustrated pedestrians racing across the tracks.
“This time it was over half an hour they were down,” he said.
“You had delivery guys trying to get across with their goods, you had old people dodging it with trains still coming and going; it was quite a long time before the police came.”
“People want to get to the other side, so they will run across.”
A Public Transport Victoria
spokesman said there were no plans for an overpass or underpass next to the level crossing
and funding for any future upgrades
would be considered in the context of level-crossing upgrade priorities across the network.
