By MELISSA MEEHAN
MOST nights Megan Marshall hears tyres screech outside her house… and then she waits for a bang.
Luckily, the second sound doesn’t happen too often, but Ms Marshall fears if speed reduction tools like speed humps or roundabouts aren’t built in Channel Road, the result could be deadly.
“All built up residential areas in Victoria have a speed limit of 50, so I don’t understand why our road has become a racetrack, “Ms Marshall said.
“The same rule applies to Channel Road, but the general public don’t seem to follow it here.”
Ms Marshall said there had been a number of near misses in the past few months involving children walking alongside the park with speeding cars.
“And by speeding, I mean in excess of 70 kilometres an hour,” she said.
“Cars and buses feel like they need to cross onto the wrong side of the road to overtake a turning car, even on a blind corner – they use it like a race way.”
Ms Marshall said she had reported the issue to the Yarra Ranges council four times in the last few months, and said the council acted quickly to put up speed limit signs and placed speed markers on the road.
“We have people speeding most days, it’s not just a quiet road, a lot of people use it as a thoroughfare,” she said.
“I think its become a bit of a favourite spot for local hoons at night, too.”
Yarra Ranges Council director of environment and engineering Mark Varmalis said the council established a Local Area Traffic Management Program in response to a large number of requests for traffic calming projects.
“While Channel Road is listed as a priority project as part of this program, there are other projects listed as a higher priority,” Mr Varmalis said.
“Channel Road will be considered as part of budget preparations for the 2014/15 Capital Expenditure Program.
“However, based on other commitments, priorities and funding availability, funding may not be available for at least three years.”
