Road Space Management

One of the issues that is obviously of great importance in Victoria is how best to manage or ration road space. As the city has grown and continues to grow, obviously enormous pressures have been placed on our road system. In many parts of Melbourne there is not a capacity to extend roads. A lot of issues now depend on what we define as the priorities for those particular roads. That will make for a more integrated and efficient use of transport.

On some roads the priority may well be public transport. We have what we call the principal public transport network. This refers to the ability to designate priority on roads. We can create a hierarchy and define a hierarchy of road users on roads. If those roads are on the principal public transport network -- they are roads that have buses and trams on them -- we make explicit what gets priority; those vehicles are a priority on that road space.

As a result of that you can make a whole lot of decisions about how that road space should be best allocated. Some of the roads in my electorate on which trams run are Nicholson Street, Sydney Road and Lygon Street. By designating the priority of those roads to be trams, it means we can ensure that those roads have good tram priority and that we move the trams along in that system. That is very important.

The no. 96 route in my electorate is the busiest tram line in the city. It carries something like 6 million passengers a year. It is a significant tramline, and it is really important for us to recognise that in the hierarchy.

Equally important is defining the importance of bicycles and pedestrians. I recently looked through some of the work that has been done by Port Phillip City Council. It has strongly emphasised that importance, and it has ensured that pedestrians and bicycles get priority on its roads.

There are consequences of that for the design and marking of those roads.

Clearly, what follows from the ability to define the priority of roads is how you then reorganise the roads and ensure you have the hierarchy you want. That will be different for different roads. There will be greater preference given to either motor vehicles, commuter vehicles or freight on some roads.

We should not forget the importance of the freight network in the city. After all, we are the centre for freight movements in south-eastern Australia. We have the most important container port in the country. We have more than our fair share of movements of freight vehicles. We obviously service the freight needs of south-east Victoria. We service the imports and exports of goods for a vast area, including Victoria, southern New South Wales and South Australia. We want to ensure that freight vehicles are given priority on those roa

With designated priorities you ensure that that is how roads will be managed on a day-to-day basis.

There is an important and fundamental element of creating, maintaining and defining what is a road hierarchy. It comes down to rationing road space. By 'rationing' we mean that not everyone can use all of that road space at the same time. Decisions have to be made about whether you allow, for example, for parked cars and where you do not, or whether you allow for on-road bicycle lanes and where you do not.

At the moment discussions are occurring about Sydney Road, for example, and whether we should have a peak-hour bike lane down Sydney Road, because it has been defined as part of the principal bicycle network that has been prepared by VicRoads. As a defined part of that network Sydney Road should therefore be eligible for a bicycle lane.

That then would have a limiting effect on the amount of through traffic you could have, because you would have priority for trams and bicycles.

As I said, this bill is small but significant. One of the other important things it does is better recognise public transport. Currently under the Road Management Act public transport has no separate definition and is seen as part of utilities organisations such as the providers of gas, water and electricity. Providing public transport with separate recognition highlights its importance in the network and ensures that it will be taken into consideration in the management of our arterial road system, so it works for better provision of public transport.

Another element is the bus stop infrastructure. Part of the purpose of this small but significant bill is to ensure that we facilitate a network-wide approach to bus stop infrastructure. That means the Secretary of the Department of Transport has explicit power to install bus stop infrastructure, remove or relocate bus stopping points and develop guidelines on bus stop locations. The provision will stop other parties from removing or relocating bus stops. Obviously over a period of time bus stops have been one of those areas for which local and state governments share responsibility. Stops are moved and have been moved over time without there having been consideration of the impact on the network or the system. This provision will stop that.

When there is significant change to bus stop infrastructure, the relevant local government will have to inform and therefore deal with the state government through the Department of Transport.

That provision relates, as I said, to installation, removal and relocation of bus stop infrastructure, which is a very significant area. When one looks at the orbital bus system being rolled out at the moment in Melbourne, one sees a significant amount of effort going into the location of the bus stops and the infrastructure around them, such as working to ensure that they are disabled compatible and that they provide electronic signage, which gives timely information to passengers. Any amount of research indicates that that infrastructure is essential in terms of creating a sense of public transport as a system. We do not want that compromised by local decisions or by local government.

This legislation will ensure that the Department of Transport and the secretary have to be informed and that the secretary is ultimately responsible for that infrastructure.

This legislation also has elements to do with marine safety. It will amend the Marine Act to expand the options available to the director of marine safety and the sanctions available to a court when marine safety laws are breached. This aligns the Marine Act with the various pieces of legislation that deal with rail and heavy vehicle sectors. The intention is to ensure that we do not compromise marine safety and that the director of marine safety has sanctions available in the areas of rail safety and heavy vehicle safety.

As I said, this is an omnibus bill with changes that are quite small but very significant in terms of our transport agenda in this state. I commend the bill to the house.