Connecting our communities SUBMISSION NO: 322 - ATTACHMENT 2 Country Roads Your insights, our actions Contents 06 Introduction01 What we’re doing Rebuilding16 Country Roads region by region 06 Where02 we went Barwon Road18 Safety South West 04 26 What you told us 08 Enhancing regional Grampians Victoria 10 30 Gippsland Road maintenance 12 32 Hume Next steps 14 Loddon Mallee Introduction Your feedback is now shaping the most signifi cant period of planning, construction, maintenance and uplift of the regional road network since World War Two. The senior leadership team at VicRoads The desire for better links Not accepting that you’re four times has visited every part of Victoria this between regions, safer more likely to die on country roads in year, having frank conversations about Victoria than on metropolitan roads, the state of the roads and what can be overtaking opportunities we will explore a star road safety rating done to better support regions to grow and investment in sealed system to encourage travel on the and thrive. shoulders were commonly safest routes and target road safety improvements. This has been the biggest public raised, along with concerns engagement that VicRoads has ever about poor roadside We’ll also be making a much bigger done in its 100 year history. Your insights drainage and pot-holes. eff ort to reduce our environmental are now helping us put sensible plans impacts, from recycling a million tyres So what happens now? to government to support the future to re-vegetating roadsides. growth of regional Victoria. Your feedback is shaping the most signifi cant period of planning, Victorians told us they want much With the population outside Melbourne construction, maintenance and uplift greater transparency about what is expected to double to two million of the regional road network since happening on their roads. VicRoads people within 20 years, now is the time World War Two. Work is ramping will produce a State of the Roads to begin the modernisation of the road up across every region: from major report to be clear about current road network for the next generation, to highway duplications to improving conditions and better inform future strengthen links between and around signage, cycling paths and road safety decisions by government. growing centres. treatments that will make it almost And it won’t stop there. As part of Country Roads sums up what we heard impossible to run off the road or hit Transport for Victoria’s development and saw and what is now being done another car head-on across all major of an integrated regional roads to rebuild the regional road network to interstate highways. strategy for medium and long- support a new era of regional prosperity. Alongside the doubling of road term improvements, your feedback will be considered by the Victorian You have told us plainly: fi x the roads maintenance this year, planning is Government as we prepare projects that need fi xing because they are our underway for improvements that for funding consideration in the future. lifelines; make it safer and easier for will set regional Victoria up for us to move around without hurting continued growth. We will work much Thanks to everyone for their invaluable ourselves or damaging our goods; and more closely with local regions to feedback that is informing a sensible help set our regions up for tourism and understand changing traffi c volumes plan of action for country roads economic growth while giving people and regional economies, and we will in Victoria. better connections to job opportunities partner with Visit Victoria to develop John Merritt and each other. new tourist drives to attract more tourists to stay longer. Chief Executive, VicRoads Connecting our communities / 1 Where we went Mildura NSW Wemen Swan Hill Sea Lake NSW Kerang Wodonga Warracknabeal Charlton Nhill Shepparton Wangaratta SA Dooen Bendigo Bright NSW Stawell Maryborough Mansfield Omeo Broadford Ararat Woodend Ballarat Hamilton Bairnsdale Stratford Bannockburn Geelong Morwell Warrnambool Colac Portland Anglesea Korumburra Port Campbell Lorne Wonthaggi Apollo Bay 2 / VICROADS COUNTRY ROADS Country Roads statewide engagement Mildura NSW Connected with Met with Spoke with more more than 11,000 30 councils than 700 people Wemen country Victorians Engaged with freight operators, transport industry, businesses, tourism operators, environmental and wildlife groups, cycling enthusiasts, motorcycle groups, government agencies, the Victorian Farmer’s Federation, RACV and Regional Development Victoria. Swan Hill Sea Lake NSW Kerang Wodonga Warracknabeal Charlton Nhill Shepparton Wangaratta SA Dooen Bendigo Bright NSW Stawell Maryborough Mansfield Omeo Broadford Ararat Woodend Ballarat Hamilton Bairnsdale Stratford Bannockburn Geelong Morwell Warrnambool Colac Portland Anglesea Korumburra Community session Port Campbell Lorne Wonthaggi Stakeholder session Apollo Bay Roads travelled Map not to scale Connecting our communities / 3 What you told us Grampians Loddon Mallee Hume Statewide feedback • Changing face of farming with • More river crossings • Signifi cant intermodal freight Road maintenance Regional economies bigger machinery • Support for tourism in Charlton, opportunities You want better road maintenance Understand the changing face of • Supporting more grain on to rail Echuca and Wedderburn • Shepparton Bypass a priority including more shoulder grading, farming with fewer and larger farms instead of road • Alternative truck routes • Road safety a critical concern better surface repairs, more vegetation with bigger machinery on the roads • Better connections for freight to avoid towns • More can be done to improve management and better quality long and growing export demands, including into Melbourne • Safer cycling routes key tourism destinations term fi xes. more opportunities for rail freight. • ouT rism growing th ough Silo • Protection of wildlife and native • Road signage is important Art Trail, the Grampians, Sea Lake plant species • Improve roads to keep pace with Road safety Environment • Wind farm development • Intensive farming of almonds, increased population, tourism You want sealed shoulders, smoother You expressed concern about native • Ballarat regional growth needs carrots and other produce and industry roads, widening of narrow roads, plant species being lost and wildlife in support has impacts • Interface with freight and growing more safe overtaking opportunities danger. We need to do more to protect • • Better connections for freight residential areas and safer speeds around schools the environment by minimising impact Melbourne and other regional from Mildura to Melbourne • Ccl y ing safety along the Great and shopping areas. on trees, revegetating the road reserve and use recycled materials in road works. centres • More freight to be moved by rail Alpine Road Tourism • New ways to inform drivers of • Bypasses along Western Highway • Removing trucks from Mildura’s Better support tourism by improved Road safety barriers unique weather conditions in • Importance of protecting town centre signage, more rest areas, use of You want to know why so much money Alpine region roadside native vegetation • Improve roads to keep pace with technology to share tourist information, is being invested in them and how they • Safety around schools and main • Growing horticulture increased population, tourism more road safety messages and save lives. streets on country highways • ouT rism potential of and industry upgrades to key tourism routes. the Grampians • Choke points in Wangaratta Cycling and Rutherglen Trucks You want more bike paths/lanes and You want trucks out of towns and wider better road maintenance for commuter shoulders where trucks, cars and bikes and recreational cyclists. share the road. Strengthen bridges, upgrade intersections, add rest areas and Connectivity provide more overtaking opportunities Better road connections between along key freight routes to enable bigger regional centres including Geelong, and more productive trucks. Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, Benalla, Mans fi eld and links in Gippsland. Gippsland • Better north-south connections Barwon South West • Alternative truck routes around growing towns • Major reconstruction of roads • G r owing number of commuters serving Port of Portland across Gippsland • Keeping Great Ocean Road Melbourne • Longer-stay tourism potential open for tourism Metro between Mt Baw Baw, Phillip • Widening narrow seal roads Island, Wilson’s Promontory used by freight, school buses and East Gippsland and tourists • • Multilingual signage for Phillip Island international tourists • G r owing freight task with • Enormous residential, commuter intensive agriculture and tourism growth • Growing demand for cycling • Safer cycling opportunities • Dairy farms getting larger with • More inland routes to relieve oversized equipment on roads Great Ocean Road congestion • Sealing of gravel roads Map not to scale 4 / VICROADS COUNTRY ROADS Statewide feedback Grampians Loddon Mallee Hume Statewide feedback • Changing face of farming with • More river crossings • Signifi cant intermodal freight Road maintenance Regional economies bigger machinery • Support for tourism in Charlton, opportunities You want better road maintenance Understand the changing face of • Supporting more grain on to rail Echuca and Wedderburn • Shepparton Bypass a priority including more shoulder grading, farming with fewer and larger farms instead of road • Alternative truck routes • Road safety a critical