Light on leaked paper

By Casey Neill
LEAKED documents have given hope to a pressure group which is fighting for traffic lights.
Peter Cole from the Tormore Road Lights Action Group said the documents exposed a potential VicRoads liability.
He said it stated that if during any four hour period more then 600 cars used Boronia Road and 200 were recorded on Tormore Road, VicRoads was legally required to install signals at the intersection.
He said he was tld that VicRoads was liable for any accidents. “If VicRoads don’t install traffic signals then they are liable for any smashes or deaths,” he said.
The group met with Boronia MPs Jason Wood, Nick Wakeling and Heidi Victoria yesterday (Monday).
“All MPs were very supportive of the action group and all agree that the intersection is very dangerous and needs to have traffic signals installed,” he said.
Last week La Trobe MP Jason Wood said the intersection ‘desperately needs reviewing’.
“We need something done about this intersection before someone is seriously hurt,” he said.
Members of the group also met with VicRoads south eastern director Steve Brown to present the findings of a traffic count conducted at the intersection on Friday. VicRoads last week responded in writing to a number of questions raised by the group at a meeting with VicRoads engineers on 24 April.
“Vehicles were observed entering Boronia Road from Tormore Road and Narcissus Avenue in a safe and timely manner, assisted by the presence of ‘Keep Clear’ markings at the intersection,” the response read.
It said proposals for improvement projects were considered and prioritised on a state wide basis and ‘any improvements at this intersection will be considered in this context’.
Mr Cole said the VicRoads response was ‘a disgrace’, and appeared to be aimed at getting rid of the group.
He said the road authority could not care less about how the community really felt about the intersection.
“We are now more determined than ever to mobilise the community and get this dangerous trouble-spot cleared up once and for all,” he said.
MP James Merlino has organised a meeting with the group and an adviser from Transport Minister Tim Pallas’s office on Friday 20 June.
The action group will hold an open forum on the issue at the Boronia Football Club rooms at 7.30pm on Wednesday 21 May.
VicRoads was unavailable for comment by the time the mail went to press.