ALL traffic lights are to be removed along the Roe Hwy, Stock Rd, High St and Stirling Hwy route into Fremantle, and “grade separations” are to occur in order to speed up the journey for trucks.
As a result, many feeder road intersections are likely to be cut off and local traffic diverted.
The construction of Roe 8 through wetlands, “grade separations” along Stirling Hwy and the “trenching” of High St are set to change the face of the southern suburbs, effectively dividing the port city—something the deletion of the old eastern bypass route had been designed to avoid.
Grilled
At a senate estimates hearing early this week, Greens senator Scott Ludlam grilled federal transport department bureaucrats over the Perth Freight Link plans. Drawn up by WA government officials, the feds are kicking in $1 billion in funding.
The Fremantle-based senator expressed disbelief when told officials didn’t know whether Roe 8 was to be built at ground level or was to be elevated over sensitive wetlands: cost projections have already been published and that difference alone would run to hundreds of millions of dollars.
“You put a toll on there for the truckies,” one official suggested.
Senator Ludlam noted the federal government had committed funding despite the project having no business case, nor any planning, environmental or heritage approvals.
The WA government had refused to release key information to the public because it was a “top secret national security matter” he quipped.
When told of the plan for no lights along the length of the dog-legged route, he asked, “will you put a fly-over there, how are people going to get over Marmion Street?”
Officials replied the freight route could be sunk or it could pass over the local road.
“Sounds like you are going to close off Marmion Street, which the local community might be delighted with,” he said, drily, to no response.
Senator Ludlam later told the Herald he, “didn’t realise it was so flaky”.
“Abbott wanted to announce a freeway project and Barnett has been desperate to get this back off the ground without the faintest idea about how to build it or the strength of community opposition they are going to face. It sets up a pointless conflict.”
Senator Ludlam describes federal backing for Roe 8 as “a massive lapse of judgement and demolishes the last of the ‘budget emergency’ myth.”
With container traffic through Freo estimated to double by 2030, and Liberal governments putting all their freight planning into roads, not rail, he predicts “an utter nightmare” for motorists and North Fremantle residents.
“When it hits Tydeman Road it will be a catastrophe because suddenly you will hit a rank of several sets of traffic lights. It will completely seize up that part of town.”
Fremantle Labor MLA Simone McGurk says removing lights at Marmion St was never mentioned during consultation over the widening of High Street.
“As more is known about the Abbott government’s Perth freight link, the more worried taxpayers and the local community should be,” she warns.
“This is a massive change to the current design, and has never been part of the community consultation.
“The Perth freight link is a confirmation the Liberal plan for moving freight and dealing with congestion has one solution—just build more and wider roads.”
by CARMELO AMALFI