By Charlene Gatt
TRAFFIC ground to a halt at one of Footscray’s busiest intersections last week as residents took to the streets to protest trucks roaring through residential areas.
Footscray Police blocked off traffic in all directions briefly from 8am at the Moore St and Hopkins St intersection for the protest.
Up to 70 residents from Moore St and neighbouring streets waved placards reading ‘Truck Off’ and ‘Let me sleep’ to demonstrate their objection to trucks increasingly using Moore St as a rat run between Ballarat Rd and Hopkins St.
Residents are calling for night curfews between 8pm to 6am Monday to Friday and from 1pm Saturday to 6am Monday, banning the use of truck air horns and engine brakes and a 50km/h speed limit.
“There’s other roads that they (the trucks) could be taking that they’re not,” Lynch St resident Amber Stuart said.
Traffic counts completed by the council and VicRoads in March this year show freight on Moore St had skyrocketed 47 per cent in the last year between the hours of 8pm and 6am, with an average 479 trucks roaring down the residential street each night.
Trucks are also increasingly using Moore St during daylight hours, with figures up 25 per cent from last year.
The protest also drew in incumbent Footscray MP Marsha Thomson and State Election candidates Ken Betts from the Liberal Party, Margarita Windisch from Socialist Alliance and the Greens’ Janet Rice.
Ms Rice said the State Government needed to put the Truck Action Plan into place to get trucks off residential streets.
“It’s an issue that we’re really sick of,” Ms Rice said.
