Two years after the Hume Freeway speed limit was lowered to 80km/h at Wodonga’s McKoy Street intersection, Benambra MLA Bill Tilley has questioned if the change has been successful.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Police, VicRoads and Wodonga Council all welcomed the speed change when it was introduced on March 27, 2015, as a way to stop the trend of the crash hotspot.
“I am approached constantly by locals and visitors to the region who are astonished by that restriction,” Mr Tilley told Victorian Parliament last week.
I am approached constantly by locals and visitors to the region who are astonished by that restriction.
- Benambra MLA Bill Tilley
“I have not seen anywhere else where you will see a reduction in speed from 110km/h immediately down to 80km/h … I am asking the minister to actually have a damn good look at that.”
He said the government could not properly plan improvements for Melrose Drive and Sangsters Road until it had evidence of how the freeway speed restrictions worked.
“It is about how Wodonga interfaces with the freeway and making that work,” he said.
“We have got a local government area there, the City of Wodonga, that is working to grow the region and certainly there is a flow-on effect of not knowing how the freeway and the interchanges with the freeway will impact Wodonga.”
Senior Sergeant Darren Wittingslow said police had attended less crashes since the change was introduced between 7am and 7pm.
“We had an extraordinary amount of serious injury collisions at the intersection of McKoy Street and the Hume Freeway, primary with the fault of the driver at McKoy Street trying to enter the Hume Freeway,” he said.
“Enough got enough, the trauma couldn’t go on without us doing anything so we engaged with VicRoads, provided some stats and asked that we have a working group with (Wodonga) council and VicRoads to see what we could do about it.”
There have been zero serious injury collisions in the two years since the change.
“It has worked a treat,” Senior Sergeant Wittingslow said.