By KATH GANNAWAY
LAUNCHING Place residents who have endured years of trauma on their doorstep have welcomed a $3.2 million road safety announcement last week.
Gembrook MP Brad Battin announced the funding for improvements to the Warburton Highway at Launching Place last week saying it aimed to address a history of run-off crashes along the stretch of highway from Lester Street to Don Road.
The funding will come from the Safer Road Infrastructure Program
Mr Battin said in the five years to September last year there had been 22 casualty crashes on the stretch including two fatalities and 16 which resulted in serious injury.
He said many Launching Place residents had contacted him over the last two years calling for improvements to the highway.
The statistics are not news to residents including Paul van Kaathoven and Martin Chadwick who have been part of a lobby group that ramped up a long-standing campaign for road improvements following the death of 19-year-old man on the notorious section between Allsops and Lusatia Park roads in March last year.
VicRoads announced in July that they had identified the works that needed to be done and submitted the project for funding. Residents who met with Mr Battin on Sunday said they were relieved the government had acted quickly to fund the project.
He said the work which would be carried out starting early next year was the result of a combined effort of local politicians, Yarra Ranges Highway Patrol, VicRoads and residents who had all had input into the process in the hope that crashes and injuries would be reduced and lives saved.
Mr Battin said the project would include about two kilometres of wire rope safety barriers and sealing of shoulders in both directions, including sealing of driveways and side roads where they intersect with the highway.
He said the notorious curve would also be widened for consistency on the westbound carriageway and raised reflective pavement markers installed.
“There will also be new guideposts to alert motorists of curves in the road and a painted median at the Bellbird Avenue curve,” Mr Battin said.
Speaking with Mr Battin on Sunday residents shared horror stories of crashes, and of near misses which they said were not included in the statistics.
“There are many times when it’s just a tow-truck that is called – there’s the ones that never get recorded and it’s only fate, the fact that there isn’t another car coming the other way, or that a driver is able to avoid a collision,” Mr van Kaathoven said.
In response to the observation that the VicRoads report had been successful in making the case that something had to be done in Launching Place, Mr Chadwick looked just 100 metres down the highway.
“There’s something on that tree down there that says it has to be done,” he said, gesturing to the floral tributes to last year’s victim – hopefully the last person to die on ‘their’ corner.
