Knox Environment Society (KES) opposes extension of the Eastern Freeway to Ringwood for three main reasons:

Freeway building erodes Melbourne’s “liveability”

There is an overwhelming imbalance between the provision of road infrastructure and public transport in Melbourne. In the last ten years (1991–2000) the Victorian Government has spent over $2 billion on road capital investments and less than $1 billion investing in public transport. In the years 1994–1997 only 25 % of what was spent on roads was spent on public transport.

KES believes it is now time to scale down the dominance of the motor car within our transport system. Continual freeway building will encourage further increases in greenhouse emissions and pollutants. Transport planners need to entrench environmental and social requirements into the planning equation.

Urban consolidation policies of recent years have created an environment in which public transport systems could become more effective and efficient. However, by building more freeways and keeping public transport substandard, there has been an increase in vehicle numbers on local road systems, with negative impacts on health and general liveability.

Implications for the Scoresby Corridor

KES believes that building the extension will just move the traffic problem from one suburb to the next. The new traffic problem in Ringwood will create pressure to build the Scoresby Freeway.

In 1990 VicRoads indicated that the Eastern Freeway extension and the Scoresby Freeway should be built at the same time. They wrote: “A decision on the construction of the [Mullum Mullum] section should be deferred until the Scoresby route is programmed for construction”.1

KES regards the proposal to extend the Eastern Freeway now without any clear plans for the road network south of Ringwood Bypass as an example of freeway building by stealth.

KES’s view is that the Scoresby Freeway is unnecessary; it will be environmentally destructive in the short term through habitat destruction and waterway degradation, and in the long term through the increase of greenhouse emissions by 20 %. The group will continue to lobby for public transport improvements well ahead of any freeway extensions.
 

Environmental damage to Mullum Mullum Creek

KES believes that a freeway through the Mullum Mullum Creek system will seriously damage or destroy this sensitive environment.

 Mick Van de Vreede, President
 

Reference

1 “Submission to Eastern Arterial Extension and Ringwood Bypass review panel for public hearings”, January–February 1990, p. 5.12, Conclusions.
 

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