Traffic

TRAFFIC SURVEY IN VICTORIA STREET AND ALBERT STREET

Brunswick Residents’ Network members living in and near Victoria and Albert Streets have launched a new initiative, to survey traffic problems and possible solutions.

According to planning documents from our local council, Victoria Street and Albert Street in Brunswick are supposed to be a “pedestrian friendly corridor”. The Moreland Integrated Transport Strategy stresses that walking, cycling and public transport should be encouraged and the Brunswick Structure Plan says that the two streets should be a major east-west link to encourage residents to walk between homes, shops and parks.

However, many residents have raised concern about the impact of traffic in the area. New high-rise development projects near Victoria and Albert Streets will increase traffic flows into residential streets, adding to existing traffic that cuts through the neighbourhood to avoid build-up on major arterial roads like Sydney Road.

Council planners don’t see traffic management in these streets as a priority, telling a local resident last year that “the speed and volume characteristics in Albert Street are considered to be acceptable for a local road in an inner city location”, and therefore “Council cannot justify intervening by installation of traffic management devices in Albert Street ahead of other streets with higher speed, volume and casualty statistics.”

But it’s clear to all residents that traffic is affected by increasing construction along the Albert Street / Victoria Street corridor, as old factories are re-developed:

• the 11-storey Elvera apartments already built in Lygon Street between Albert and Victoria;
• the proposed 9-story building on the corner of Victoria and Lygon Streets (next to Elvera);
• the apartment / town house complex under construction at 201-207 Albert
• the proposed 14-story shopping and residential complex at 284-294 Albert Street (near Sydney Road);
• the major re-development of the Tontine site between Nicholson Street and John Street.
• the proposal for a 7-story re-development of the Sires factory opposite Fleming Park in Albert Street (knocked back by Council but under review);
• proposals for a “landmark” building near Brunswick Station, between Albert and Victoria;
• the likelihood that other factories in Albert and Victoria Streets - the giant Fitwear Hosiery factory and buildings at 92-94 Albert Street (currently up for sale) - will be demolished and rebuilt as high density housing.

It’s not hard to see that all these projects will affect the vision of Albert and Victoria Streets as a “pedestrian friendly corridor”. But where’s the initiative from Council, to conduct long-term analysis of how traffic from these projects will combine to affect local safety and amenity?

For this reason, the Brunswick Residents Network has developed a short survey to collect resident’s views on traffic and traffic management along this east-west corridor. We plan to take your views to Moreland Council – how you see the problems and how to deal with them. After trialling the survey in Brunswick East, we hope local residents will to try it in other areas in Moreland. Please let us know if you’re interested for your neighbourhood.

For residents living in Albert and Victoria Streets, please take a few minutes to complete this survey online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZSTV5GX

For those without the internet, a hard copy is available by calling Pam on 0458 690 074

If you’d like further information about the survey, or to get involved in our Traffic Working Group, email albertstreet2020 AT gmail.com