MADDINGTON Caltex is busy early Tuesday morning. Truckies are coming and going, filling up on fuel, coffee and fried food.
Peter Dawson from Fremantle Container Specialists has just dropped off a 25-tonne container filled with stoves for caravans, and heads back to base at Rous Head.
Dawson doesn’t look like a stereotypical truckie; clean-shaven, short hair. He has a fantastic ocker sense of humour, is married, and has spent close to 30 years making a dent in his seat.
On this occasion, Dawson is driving a six-metre tall semi side-loader to Fremantle, a journey that typically takes 50 minutes down Roe and Leach Highways—if he’s lucky. He sets off at 8.15am.
After decades of dormancy, the Roe 8 extension is back, with a serious chance of actually being built. Prime minister Tony Abbott has offered to chip in $600 million of federal cash to make it happen—“debt and deficit disaster” notwithstanding—on the condition a truckies’ toll is introduced, making it WA’s first pay-road. The total cost for the 5km extension is estimated at $850 million.
“I reckon the extension will be a good idea,” Dawson says as we rumble down Roe.
“Just to take the traffic off Leach Highway. But I don’t appreciate this toll. Everyone should be tolled, because everyone will use it.
“Put it this way, Clare, this is the thin edge of the wedge. We haven’t got tolls in WA, I don’t think we need them.
“I won’t be paying for it, the boss will be paying and he is just going to pass it onto the consumer, so everyone will end up paying for it.”
At 8.30am Dawson gets off the highway and points to where the extension will start. You can see the trees and wetlands in the distance, which environmentalists want to save. The extension will run for 5km, starting at Kwinana Freeway, trammelling through the Beelier wetlands to meet up with Stock Road at the intersection of Forrest Road in Coolbellup.
“Look, in this day and age,” Dawson says, “they’re pretty good about the environment. They’re not going to just go in with dynamite and start dropping things on the ground, they would sort of protect the environment I think.
“It’s a catch-22. Some people are going to like it, other people are not. I don’t think they can put it anywhere else.”
Traffic starts to bank up on Kwinana Freeway before South Street as it merges into two lanes.
“This is a great invention,” Dawson says, dripping with sarcasm “Why they didn’t make it [three lanes in the first place]”he says, shaking his head.
“Well it’s cost again,” he says answering his own question.
“But that’s the problem, they build for now and not the generation to come, in 20 years’ time the roads will be chock-a-block.”
• Truckie Peter Dawson reckons Roe 8 will be good—but not if a toll is charged. Photo by Matthew Dwyer
He points out the signs “trucks use left lanes.”
“Well everyone is bloody in the left lane so you can virtually work out when they make this extension everyone is gonna be on it,” he says.
“So why should just heavy vehicles pay for it.”
Once on Leach Highway, 22 minutes into the journey, cars whiz past. Dawson nods to his fellow truckies, some doubles and 40-feet high, others are semis like his. Morning traffic is building. Dawson isn’t driving fast, not at the 70km speed limit at least. A car cuts in front.
“See that? That happens every day, you just cop it all the time.”
“You’re virtually driving for three people ‘cause you’re higher up, so you can keep an eye on what the car in front is doing.”
On any given day without the extension, trucks hurtle down Leach through Bateman, Brentwood, Melville, Myaree, Willagee and into Fremantle. Dawson says if a toll is put on Roe 8, nothing will change.
“They call it a rat-run, that’s what they’ll be doing.
“Unless they just put in a ban and say trucks aren’t allowed to come off this road, so they have to use Roe Hwy. But people will always find another way around.”
Once Dawson passes Carrington Street, the lanes merge into two again so he slows right down. Traffic behind builds up. Cars continue to cut in front: he’s travelling 45 in a 70 zone. He passes his favourite coffee kiosk on the left, but doesn’t stop for his usual Muzz Buzz this morning. Just past it are houses that could be bulldozed if plans to widen High Street go ahead.
Dawson says trucks need a wider turning circle than there is now: “A couple of trucks have tipped over. If the containers are doubles and top heavy, if they turn a [sharp] corner they will tip over, it’s not just about speed.”
He turns onto Port Beach road, just before 9am. The journey is quicker than usual, but Dawson says runs never usually go this smoothly.
“Look around you,” he says as we cruise through the terminal. The expansive area is littered with towering container stacks, some 40 or 50 metres high.
“This was all ocean once, where we are driving now. Keep your photos, it will be interesting to see what it will look like in 20 years’ time.”
Dawson gets his next job from CCS: “Gidgegannup!” he says excitedly. “They have great pies out there.”
by CLARE KENYON