Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber visited Victoria Road Northcote today, to join Trent’s call for a change to the rules governing the location of new pedestrian crossings – to save lives, prevent injuries and encourage walking for health.  

“Many communities have lobbied for safer crossings and been stonewalled by VicRoads perverse rules. Until the death or injury toll starts to rise, your request can’t qualify. I thought it was VicRoads’ job to prevent road injuries,” Mr Barber said.

“Any council that produces a ‘walkability’ plan should get approval for its new crossings, overriding VicRoads guidelines. The Greens will cut through VicRoads’ red tape, to save lives, reduce injury and make it safe and convenient to walk, which will be good for everyone’s health.

Trent McCarthy said “As a Councillor, I’ve fought alongside residents for safer pedestrian crossings and we keep hitting the same brick wall – VicRoads bizarre rules. Local families want to walk and ride to school and the State Government should be supporting that.”

“If I’m elected as the MP for Northcote in November, I’ll fight to have these rules changed.”

Trent and Greg were joined by Alex Bhathal, Support Candidate for Northern Metropolitan region, who noted that she had personally witnessed several near misses and narrowly avoided accidents at this spot, and that it was time this dangerous situation was fixed.