City of Yarra – Media Release: Yarra rejects Hoddle Street overpass proposal (10 December 2008)*

Proposed multiple overpasses on Hoddle Street would only worsen gridlock on the arterial and create local eyesores, the City of Yarra said today. City of Yarra Mayor Cr Amanda Stone said the local community would be horrified with the Government’s proposed “spaghetti” solution to fixing congestion along Hoddle Street.

“I would anticipate that we are going to work hard as a community in the next 12 months to make sure that the overpass plan meets the same fate as the now-dumped East-West road tunnel proposal,” Cr Stone said.

“The City of Yarra is working to develop Hoddle Street into a boulevard and then the government comes out with a proposal that would only make it even more of a traffic sewer,” she said.

“We don’t want concrete eyesores plonked along one of our main arterials, with no consideration for how they impact on our residents’ visual amenity or how they create physical divisions between our communities.

“Melbourne cannot build its way out of congestion through creating new roads.

“Research as well as real life has shown us again and again that new road projects might work for a while, but in the long term, you end up with roads just as congested as what you started with.

“The only lasting solution to traffic congestion comes when you create real public transport alternatives.” Continue Reading…