Hansard debates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (2334)

My adjournment request is to the Minister for Roads and Minister for Road Safety and the TAC. The action I seek is a report on the Victorian government’s feasibility study concerning the duplication of Somerton Road.

The duplication is feasible and required. Somerton Road is an essential part of economic development in Melbourne’s north, as outlined in the strategy, Creating Opportunity: Postcodes of Hope.

The section of Somerton Road from Roxburgh Park Drive to Aitken Boulevard in my electorate is a single lane, but because of booming population growth causing congestion another lane is needed urgently.

One in 20 Australians is predicted to live in Melbourne’s north within two decades, where an increase of half a million people means the population—already more than four times the size of Victoria’s second-largest city, Geelong—will match the population of Adelaide.

The road duplication is significant in the crucial transport network for new industries and jobs where they are needed most. It will help improve links between the two largest employment hubs in Melbourne’s north—the curfew-free international airport in Tullamarine and the Melbourne Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market in Epping.