JANE AGIRTAN INDEPENDENT

I’m pleased to report that myself and Georgia Erevnidis, an Independent candidate for Wattle Ward have escalated your concerns regarding pedestrian safety on the dangerous intersection of Warrigal Road, Voltri Street and Oak Avenue to the Minister and DTP.

“Enclosed is a letter from Minister for Transport – direct result of our advocacy efforts DTP will upgrade signage on the approaches to the intersection, alerting drivers to pedestrian activity at this location“

It is anticipated for the signage upgrade to be delivered in October 2024: Georgia and I would like to thank Cheltenham community and Brad  Rowswell MP who wrote to the Minister calling for community concerns to be considered by the Department of Transport – which occurred within two weeks.

We did reach out to relevant councilors within city of Kingston as Voltri Street and Oak Avenue are municipal roads managed by council and Warrigal Road is managed by DTP – incumbent for Wattle took a month to handball the request to someone else and incumbent for Chicquita did not respond at all – while DTP acted quickly and efficiently to address the issue.

Part of the proposed we asked DTP to look into making this intersection a protected turn – Minister advised this is not possible and would impact the wider road network resulting in significant delays to traffic, including priority bus services.

DTP has also contacted Victoria Police regarding this intersection to discuss enforcement to address the incidence of driving through a red signal and to determine other measures of improving driver behavior, including the installation of safety cameras at this intersection.

As long term local residents and mothers, Georgia and I were both very concerned following two serious traffic incidents involving pedestrians, one of whom was hospitalized and decided to address this issue – as a team.

If elected, I look forward to working with Georgia and other independent candidates to make Kingston safer and better for our residents.