The Nationals’ Member for Morwell, Martin Cameron, has expressed dismay after learning delivery of traffic lights at the Bank Street intersection in Traralgon has been delayed again.
The long-promised safety upgrades, initially scheduled for completion in 2019, have stalled since intersection upgrades were finished in 2022.
Nearly 20,000 vehicles pass through the notoriously dangerous intersection every day, and several serious crashes have occurred including a collision between a school bus and a truck last year.
“We’ve waited nearly eight years for much-needed traffic lights at the Bank Street intersection, but unfortunately we’ll have to wait even longer,” Mr Cameron said.
“After promising the lights would be operational mid-2026, the Minister for Roads has shifted the goalposts again and now says they’ll be delivered by the end of 2026.
“The community has waited too long for this project to be completed, and it should be the highest priority, but it’s not for the citycentric Allan Labor Government.
“Turning right onto the Princes Highway from the Traralgon Golf Club is a genuinely frightening prospect, and lives are being put at risk every day.
“I have raised the issue of the Bank Street intersection 11 times in Parliament and still the Minister for Roads can’t grasp the urgency of finishing these upgrades.
“If Labor can remove 88 level crossings across metropolitan Melbourne in the space of five years, then surely it can extend the same courtesy to the people of the Latrobe Valley who have waited nearly a decade for this one single project to be finished.
“Labor can’t manage money, can’t manage roads, and regional Victorians are paying the price.”
