Off the wire
• Women's World Cup winners  • S. Korean sex slavery victim during WWII passes away  • Foreign car sales in S.Korea hit record monthly high  • Argentina qualifies for FIVB World League's Final Four  • China Hushen 300 index futures jump Monday  • World Cup award winners  • China treasury bond futures open higher Monday  • First group of Cuban athletes travel to Toronto for Pan-American Games  • Nigeria sacks national team coach Keshi  • Market exchange rates in China -- July 6  
You are here: 　 Home

Melbourne's rapid growth to reveal grossly inadequate transport infrastructure by 2031, says VicRoads

Xinhua, July 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Melbourne's reputation as Australia's most livable city is under threat, after VicRoads research revealed the city's highways and major thoroughfares could come to a standstill by 2031.

The data predicts that nine of Melbourne's major freeways will face overcapacity within 16 years while major roads will also be heavily affected, prompting VicRoads CEO John Merritt to issue a warning about the city's current congestion woes.

He said drastic measures needed to be enacted now to make sure Melbourne doesn't grind to a halt in the future.

He said the city cannot simply "build its way out of congestion " and that more roads were not the only answer.

"We need to invest heavily in public transport, which we are, through Melbourne Metro and we need to encourage people to cycle or to walk and make that feel as safe and as practical as we can," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday.

Melbourne's population is expected to soar in the next 30 years, with experts predicting that it will overtake Sydney as Australia' s most populous city by 2060.

Merritt told 3AW that Melbourne's highways were already experiencing delays at peak times, and that the projected future growth would only cause "a lot of pressure on all of our transport systems."

"Our freeways run close to capacity all the time," he said.

"The fact is, with Melbourne's projected growth, whatever capacity we build will get taken up."

The state government released a statement detailing a "range of transport projects" that were being implemented.

The government last month detailed the removal of 50 level crossings which delays motor traffic, and recently announced the first stages of the Melbourne Metro Rail Project which will improve the city's network capacity from 2018.

But an opposition spokesperson said the government didn't recognize the levels of growth and the current infrastructure plans were "an indictment" on its tenure.

"We are growing at around 100,000 people a year and Premier Andrews' plan for our state is to say to Victorians put on your walking shoes or get on your bike. It's not good enough," the spokesman said. Endi