Thursday, 12 September 2024

 Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (14:56): (829) My question is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. My question is: what powers and policies does the state government have regarding setting speed limits on local roads? As we were discussing yesterday in this chamber, there has been extensive townhouse development across central and eastern Reservoir, and as a result many of our 7-metre-wide local roads are now effectively one way because there are so many cars parked on either side. They also have poorer visibility than many of our through roads. Despite that, we have the unusual situation where Darebin council are planning to make some of our through roads like High Street 30 ‍kilometres per hour, and yet these effectively one-way local roads remain at 50 kilometres per hour, which would be a very dangerous speed for anyone to drive down them at. There is a suggestion locally that these roads should automatically go to 40 kilometres per hour if you cannot safely have two cars pass on the roads because of the parked cars on either side, and the minister’s answer will help us further address that suggestion.