With a friendly community and picture postcard appeal, Maldon may be one of the most liveable towns in Australia. Nothing’s perfect, however, and in Maldon’s case one of the irritants is the constant stream of trucks through the town centre.
But most importantly, the passage of heavy vehicles via the Allans Road/Lowther Street truck route through to High Street is also potentially dangerous.
An informal group of local residents has come together over the truck problem, with a particular focus on the issue of safety along the High Street corridor. There are six people in this group: three long-term residents and three recent arrivals. The [Tarrangower] Times met with two of the recent arrivals, Peter Veenhuizen and Rosalie Hastwell, to discuss their progress to date.
According to Peter, who lives around the corner from High Street, the trucks start rolling through town at around 2am and continue on through the night and day until mid-evening.
When the quarry site out at the Blue Hills is up and running, Peter estimates that there will be an additional 120 40-tonne trucks using Allans Road each day.
Rosalie, while acknowledging that heavy vehicle transport was a vital part of the economy, said that the passage of heavy vehicles through Maldon did not sit well with the village-like character of the town.
Safety first
Both Peter and Rosalie listed the downside of heavy vehicles moving through Maldon: noise, safety (by far the most important issue), high volume of truck traffic and vibration causing damage to heritage buildings.
When it comes to safety, the group sees two points in High Street that are potentially the most dangerous. The two most at-risk groups of pedestrians in the town have been identified as young children and the elderly.
The first hot spot is the school crossing. “School crossing supervisor Ray Stevenson does an amazing job,” Peter said, “but it only takes a small child to dart across that road for a tragedy to occur.”
The second problematic point on High Street is the ‘pedestrian-lite’ crossing outside the Bank. It is not a pedestrian crossing in the true sense of the word, but it is a point that is regularly used by the elderly to access the Bank and other businesses on the west side of High Street, as well as Tarrangower Village.
Peter pointed out that the Post Office is also a tricky precinct, with pedestrians nipping across to pick up their mail. There is also some rather creative driving here as cars pull out quickly and often don’t see vehicles turning right into High Street from Francis Street. U-turns at this intersection are also common.
“The way I see it,” Peter said, “each day that goes by, we are one day closer to when there is an accident.”
Peter believes that in an ideal world the solution to heavy vehicle problems would be a truck bypass that would reroute the trucks. “We know that’s not going to happen,” he said. “There’s not enough money.”
Petition
What the group is aiming for is a broad-brush review at a State level of traffic flows within the town, with an emphasis on B-doubles. To this end, the group of representatives have met twice with Bendigo West MP Maree Edwards, who suggested that a petition be circulated to gauge support within the town.
That petition reads:
The petitioners request that the Legislative Assembly of Victoria take action to permanently divert heavy vehicles from the town. This to include the diversion of trucks to and from Newstead to Carisbrook and Bendigo and / or to and from Newstead via Castlemaine to Harcourt.
The group is also in the process of opening up the lines of communication with VicRoads as well as discussing their concerns with local Councillors.
If you’d like further information, or are interested in assisting the group in some way – such as helping to distribute copies of the petition – you can get in touch by emailing maldontraffic@gmail.com.
This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 31 May 2024.
