Tram line extension welcome, but not Whitehorse Rd 'slalom run'

News Release - 2nd May, 2003

The opening today of the long awaited tram line extension to Box Hill - signed up with Yarra Trams by the Kennett Government in 1999 and originally due to open in June 2002 - is welcome news for Box Hill.

However not so welcome is the "slalom run" being created in Whitehorse Road between Elgar Road and Union Road by the Government's ill-considered decision to press ahead with installing its "kerb access" tram stops despite strong resident opposition.

The Government is now considering installing these or similar stops along the rest of Whitehorse Road to Kew, and possibly throughout the metropolitan tram system.

The extension of the tram line to Box Hill will bring the tram service close to Box Hill's busy train and bus interchange and its major retailing, hospital, TAFE, office and civic activities.

The extension is a project I have been supporting ever since I was first elected to Parliament in 1988. I was delighted when the project was finally able to be signed up by the Kennett Government in 1999, with Yarra Trams committing to build the extension as part of its franchising contract.

However, even before trams start running, the kerb access stops in Mont Albert are causing traffic disruption and diversion, and raising safety concerns, particularly at night when they are poorly lit and hard to see.

These stops are different to the "superstops" installed in Collins St CBD and at Elgar and Union Roads, Box Hill. Kerb access stops require the road to be narrowed to a single lane in each direction. The tram line is then "bent" 700mm or so to the left, and a platform is built out into the road, leaving just enough width for the single lane of traffic to pass around it. When a tram is approaching a stop, all the traffic will have to merge right and bank up behind it.

These stops were not part of the original tram line extension project. They were decided on by the Government as a late addition as part of an overall Government project to make all tram stops in Melbourne disability accessible over time.

It has cost the Government some $350,000 or so to rip up recently laid tracks and re-lay them for these stops, after the Government abandoned an even worse design they had tried to force through last year.

The Government has rejected numerous calls by me and by local residents to open the extension using conventional stops until there can be a thorough investigation of all the available options.