By Jessica Micallef
Sunbury Road is a “catastrophe” according to Hume’s deputy mayor.
Cr Jack Medcraft is calling on the state government and VicRoads to duplicate Sunbury Road, from the corner of Oaklands Road to Melbourne Airport, to ease traffic congestion.
The council has written to Roads Minister Jaala Pulford and VicRoads to reinforce its view and the “need” to duplicate Sunbury Road to the north end of the airport.
Cr Medcraft said traffic on the popular road wasn’t going to improve.
“With the new works they have got [at the airport], the traffic is going to be fed onto Sunbury Road which means you are going to have four lanes going into one lane which is causing a whole lot of bank up … into the airport precinct,” he said.
“We had a meeting with Melbourne Airport and we both … agreed that this is going to be a massive problem in the future.
“With the airport expanding, traffic will double there. How are they [motorists] going to get out of the airport?
“What we have asked is for the government and VicRoads to look at duplicating it from where the freeway goes to two lanes … until it gets to Oaklands Road.
“This is not a council road. We can advocate for things to be done but we can’t do them ourselves, it’s not our place to do that.”
The Jacksons Creek ward councillor said residents in surrounding suburbs were using Sunbury Road to avoid “bottlenecks” in their area.
He said infrastructure, including roads, was not keeping up with residential development.
“In the morning, we are having … residents of Craigieburn … using that road to get in because they don’t want to go down Mickleham Road and get caught up in the bottlenecks there,” he said.
“If we can get this road done, it’s going to ease the congestion you are going to experience over
the next how many years.
“It should take 12 to 15 minutes to get from Sunbury to Melbourne Airport. During the peak periods, it can take you over an hour just to get through the bottleneck.”
