Mount Evelyn traders Emma Prescott, Rae Wright and Jeff Impey have welcomed a move that will save parking spaces as part of the town’s bus stop debate. 49334
By Tania Martin
MOUNT Evelyn traders have been divided over a council decision on the controversial bus stop debate.
Yarra Ranges Council last week approved a move that would see two bus boarders placed in the centre of town in a bid to save car parking from the chop.
The bus boarder will be placed near the pedestrian crossing adjacent to the town’s chemist shop and library in Wray Crescent.
It means the kerbing will be widened to create a platform to meet the bus and new traffic lights will be placed at the crossing.
Similar to a tram, when a bus pulls up at the stop, the lights at the crossing will turn red to allow passengers to get on and off the bus and also give them enough time to safely cross the road.
This latest plan is expected to cost more than $100,000 and comes just weeks after the town’s traders group slammed an alternative plan that would lose five parking spots near Melba Support Service.
Fruit shop owner Jeff Impey and Aliandra’s hairdressing staff, who are not members of the traders group, have welcomed the move but the traders group has slammed the decision saying it was an eleventh-hour call which had not been one of the options on the table.
For the past 18 months the council has been in negotiations with the traders over the need to relocate two bus stops.
It all started because the current eastbound bus stop needed to make way for the proposed York Road and Wray Crescent intersection.
Traders have raised concerns over the loss of parking spaces to make way for the new bus stops.
The Mail reported in its story, Talk Stop, earlier this month, how the traders group was furious more consultation wasn’t being undertaken. At a council meeting last Tuesday 22 June, Mr Impey said losing the five parking spaces near his business would be detrimental.
He said every night the shop was open until 6pm and his customers pulled up out the front raced in, leaving their kids in the car.
Some even left their cars running.
“They grab a bag of spuds and a bunch of flowers and they are on their way … it’s that quick,” Mr Impey said.
He told the council that moving the bus stop in front of the hairdressers, op shop, accountant, and his shop would have dire consequences.
Mr Impey has since welcomed the council’s decision to bring in the bus boarder concept and save the car parking spaces.
But Mount Evelyn Central Business and Landlords Incorporated said approving a plan not yet discussed was both dishonest and deceitful.
Group president Steve Deakins said the location of this option had been the same site as one of nine options put to the group in September which had then been rejected.
Billanook Ward councillor Tim Heenan said the bus boarder concept had been one of the original plans but had been considered further down the street near the Chinese take away shop.
He said after further discussions with the fruit shop and the hairdressers it was revealed that the traders were not opposed to the idea of a bus boarder.
