News / Road Safety
Calls for new pedestrian crossing after Moreland Road fatality
A man was killed in a collision with a car on Thursday night
Mark Phillips
FOR years residents in Brunswick West and south Coburg have been warning that someone could be killed in the section of busy Moreland Road east of Melville Road.
On Thursday night, their worst fears were realised when a skateboarder died after being hit by a car near the corner of Gordon Street.
The tragedy has brought home just how dangerous is the 1.2 km stretch between the John Fawkner Private Hospital and Melville Road.
Although the the circumstances of Thursday night’s collision are still being investigated, it has given impetus to parents campaigning to install a pedestrian crossing outside the IGA Xpress supermarket less than 200 metres from the site of the accident.
Police have made an appeal for witnesses to the collision between a car and a skateboarder, which took place about 7.30pm at the intersection of Moreland Road and Gordon Street.
A 43-year-old man from Pascoe Vale South who was riding the skateboard died at the scene.
A man believed to be the driver of the vehicle was spoken to by police and has been released pending further inquiries.
The investigation into the cause of the collision is ongoing, and police on Friday called for anyone who witness the collision or with dashcam footage to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Tahlia Azaria, who with two other parents launched an online petition for a pedestrian crossing last year, said there were frequent near misses between pedestrians and cars on Moreland Road and there had been predictions someone would be killed one day.
Azaria, who lives on Moreland Road near Shaftesbury Street, said calls for state government investment in a pedestrian crossing had until now fallen on deaf ears.
“I get so angry thinking that someone has to die before the government takes action,” she said.
Azaria, who has two sons aged eight and three, said she and her husband deliberately chose to buy a house on the north side of Moreland Road because they did not want their children to cross such a busy road to get to Coburg West Primary School.
Although there are pedestrian crossings at the Melville Road intersection, near Shaftesbury Street and outside the hospital, she said they were each separated by several hundred metres and not convenient for young families, the elderly or people with mobility impairments.
The proposed site of a crossing outside the IGA is also a mid-point for students attending Coburg West and Brunswick North primary schools who may live on the opposite side of Moreland Road, she said.
Moreland Road is particularly busy because it is major route to and from the CityLink freeway and has a speed limit of 60 kmh, well above most neighbouring roads.
“We used to walk across the road to the IGA with the kids for a treat every now and then but we stopped doing it because it’s so busy with cars and so dangerous,” Azaria said.
“There’s also a lot of u-turns in this section because the traffic banks up and cars try to turn around. There’s general agreement this is a dangerous spot.”
Azaria launched the online petition with Philippa Lamb and another parent, who has since left the area, last year. When they began the petition they warned the section near Cornwall Road had the potential for a serious pedestrian accident.
Following Thursday’s accident, its numbers grew by more than 25% to approaching 1900 signatures.
Lamb lives about 50 metres north of Moreland Road in Saunders Road but her daughter and son, aged nine and six, attend Brunswick North Primary School in Albion Street.
“In spite of the walk to school being short and quite pleasant, I will often drive them there due to the danger and difficulty of crossing Moreland Road,” she said.
“The nearest crossing is 350 metres away, which might not seem like much, but with little kids it absolutely is.
“And if you are mobility impaired or simply laden with heavy groceries from the supermarket, this is a decent distance – especially as it’s not once but twice; down to the crossing and back to the IGA.
“I have seen children crossing by themselves after school which fills me with dread. I have seen the elderly trying to navigate their crossing with walkers.”
The online petition was launched 12 months ago as the result of shared frustration at the perils of crossing the road.
“We [Lamb and Azaria] would always remark to each other about how it’s such an issue and one morning we were both trying to cross at different parts and we were commenting how ridiculous it was and we said ‘let’s try to do something’,” Lamb said.
The current petition is not the first to have called for a crossing and the issue has been mentioned in Parliament several times since 2021.
Chris Slee, who has lived in Queen Street for about 30 years and organised a petition of more than 400 signatures in 2023, said he usually crossed Moreland Road once a day to visit the IGA Xpress and it was very hazardous because there was a lot of truck traffic and also cars turning out of side streets.
He said motorists’ visibility of pedestrians was hampered by the crest of the hill that rises from Melville Road.
“I was worried that something like this [fatality] could happen,” Slee said.
“I feel a bit frustrated and disappointed that no action has been taken … if that’s the case [that a crossing is installed], it’s regrettable someone dies for something to happen.”
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Andrea Bunting of Walk On Merri-bek said Moreland Road would benefit from both an extra pedestrian crossing and reduced speed limits.
“Currently, the distance between safe crossing points is over 700 metres, with a supermarket in the middle. Residents who want to cross Moreland Road safely around Queen and Cornwall Street and return need to walk around 1.4 km there and back,” she said.
“This means a 20 minute detour just to pop over to the shops.”
Bunting said there was a precedent for a lower speed limit in Moreland Road after similar changes were made in Holmes Street in Brunswick and Nicholson Street in Coburg and are also being proposed for Melville Road.
On Friday, Walk On Merri-bek wrote to Merri-bek Council asking for it to increase its advocacy for safety measures in Moreland Road. But the council’s powers are limited as it is an arterial road controlled by the State Government.
In February, the state MP for Pascoe Vale, Anthony Cianflone, directly raised the issue with the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, Melissa Horne, and received a reply in April that a signalised crossing was under consideration.
Any decision to fund a crossing would be based on analysis of traffic volumes, pedestrian activity levels, nearby land uses, the historical safety record of the site, and the effectiveness of proposed treatments to improve pedestrian safety, Horne said.
In the same letter, Horne flatly ruled out any change to the Moreland Road speed limit and said it was the responsibility of police to enforce safe driving.
Cianflone had already scheduled a visit to the site and to meet with residents later this month before Thursday night’s accident.
Merri-bek Mayor Helen Davidson said the council was saddened to hear of the fatality and offered its condolences to the family and friends of the man who died.
“This is the second death on our roads in as little as two weeks, with a motorcyclist losing their life on Bell Street just outside the Coburg Town Hall on May 6,” she said.
“Everybody deserves to arrive home safely.”
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