By Ruza Zivkusic
DAILY traffic bottlenecks in Keilor have been eased as 50 drop-off zones have recently been constructed at the Overnewton Anglican Community College at Overnewton Rd.
The project, valued at $2 million, was undertaken by the school during the past two years and has dramatically reduced the driving time for parents who take the 1300 students to school each day.
The recent years’ build-up of traffic has been described as a “headache” by the school’s principal, Jim Laussen. He said the growing number of children attending the school has resulted in delays for those dropping them off.
Locals have welcomed the drop-off zones and said they were “overdue”. They said it took up to half-an-hour to drive from the intersection of Sunshine Avenue and Old Calder Highway to the school.
“Now people are driving straight down the road and into the campus, almost,” Mr Laussen said cheer-fully.
The school worked closely on the project with the community and the Brimbank City Council’s planning and engineering department, using money collected from school fees.
“We hope that it’s an advantage, not only for our own school community but also for those people that access the Old Calder Highway who have been affected over previous years,” Mr Laussen said.
John Norton, co-owner of Overnewton Castle Receptions in Keilor, said the traffic hurdles had impacted on his business because deliveries had been restricted.
“We were always concerned that if we needed an ambulance or a fire brigade to attend to a problem here, they wouldn’t get in because of the chaos,” Mr Norton said.
The drop-off zones were constructed during last summer holidays after a new car park with 200 car spots was completed last year.
