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Dongerous city for rood travellers

MELBOURNES 232 LEVEL

CROSSINGS SHOULD GO

By Frank Fitzgerald

COMPULSORY stop-

ping by road vehi- cles oí railway level cross- ings, as proposed by the Victorian State Govern- ment, may be expected to reduce the accident and death rates on this State's roads and railways, but they will not solve the great traffic problems caused by these dan- gerous old relics of a past

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Victoria has been cursed from the beginning by par- simonious Governments. It has more level crossings on its railways than any other State, and compared with other capi- tals, Melbourne is a most dan- gerous city for road travellers.

Statistics compiled shortly be- fore the war showed that Vic- toria had 3,674 level railway crossings throughout the State, compared with about 3,000 in the whole of New South Wales; and that while only six of these crossings were in the Sydney metropolitan area there were no fewer than 232 in the elec- trified railway area of Mel- bourne and suburbs.

The situation is much th« same now, for although the Victorian Railways Commis « sioners have been working on

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a policy to replace level cross- ings by tunnels or overhead bridges shortages of labour and materials caused by war con- ditions have prevented them from making much headway.

Serious traffic congestion is caused by level crossings ini

many suburban roads. Great |

traffic delays are caused at five crossings-at Napier st., Foot- scray; Melbourne rd., Newport; Heidelberg rd., Clifton Hill; Glenhuntly rd., Elsternwick; and Pt. Nepean rd., Moorabbin.

There are other crossings nearly as bad on the Dandenong line, beyond Caulfield, at Grange rd., and at Carnegie, and on the Frankston line at Moorab- bin, where bayside traffic at peak periods is often queued up in lines half a mile long waiting for trains to pass through.

In 1928 the Parliamentary Standing . Committee on Rail- ways inquired into proposals for constructing a subway for road traffic at Heidelberg rd., Clifton Hill, in place of the level cross- ing. It was estimated then that the cost of a subway would be £77,700, and in view of the non-productive nature of the expenditure proposed, and of

the depleted state of the Trea- sury (a chronic condition in Australia's wealthy "Garden State"), the committee recom- mended against the proposal. It was estimated at the same time that the cost of abolishing all railway level crossings within the inner suburban electrified railway area would be about

£2 million.

Prospects look

worse than ever

TN recent years the Rail-1

ways Commissioners have co-operated with the Coun- try Roads Board in an endea- vour to abolish a number of level crossings on country and outer metropolitan highways. Two awkward crossings on the Hume Highway, at Mangalore and Broadford, have been re- placed by bridges, and similar works at other places are con- templated, but nothing has yet come of a proposal, announced 12 years ago, for abolishing the level crossing at Moorabbin.

However, the prospects of getting on with the job of abolishing Victoria's level cross- ings look worse now than they did before the war. Finance was the only problem then. Now there are two additional problems - shortage of man- power and shortage of mate-

rials.'

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