Opinion | Waranga Basin crossing: Locals demand safety fix

By Contributed

Jul 22, 2024

Readers may remember my opinion piece in The News edition of July 2, in which I presented my thoughts about the dangers posed by the current single-lane crossing over the Waranga Basin Western Outlet. That article included a preliminary analysis of the faults inherent in the current approach to risk mitigation — 30km/h speed limits for more than 500m — and described several everyday scenarios in which great risk attaches to traffic flow over the crossing and on its approaches.

Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content

State Member for Northern Victoria Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell was moved to raise the issue of the crossing in parliament, posing a question based on the article to Roads and Road Safety Minister Melissa Horne.

Mrs Tyrrell asked:

“My question is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety.

“For many years constituents who travel the Rushworth-Tatura Rd have been faced with the dangers of a one-lane bridge that crosses over the Waranga Basin Western Channel. The crossing sits atop the outflow gates for the basin and has been in desperate need of replacement since the days of the Kirner government.

“So far, the best solution the government has is to lower the speed to 30 kilometres per hour. This lower speed limit has unfortunately resulted in a number of near misses and collisions, and sadly, the bridge was the location of a fatal motorcycle collision in 2023.

“The dangerous conditions of this crossing are often exacerbated by the heavy rain, fog and sometimes even smoke in the event of grass fires in the area. This crossing carries everything from cars to trucks, school buses and pushbikes from one side to the other multiple times a day. The pavement is uneven and broken, and the guardrails are flimsy.

“The question that my constituents want to ask is: will the minister commit to consulting with the local community on how this crossing can be improved for the safety of all road users?”

A B-double makes its way over the current single-lane crossing on Rushworth-Tatura Rd. Photo by Contributed

Ministerial response

Mrs Tyrrell later received the following written response from the minister:

“The Rushworth-Tatura Rd narrows to a single lane to allow motorists to use the G-MW structure to cross the Waranga Western Main Channel. This important piece of infrastructure has continued to provide irrigation water to vast parts of Victoria while enabling a road connection for over 100 years.

“Goulburn-Murray Water is the responsible authority for the irrigation structure. The Department of Transport and Planning will commit to working with G-MW when it is determined that the irrigation structure can no longer facilitate traffic movements. At such time, DTP will ensure that any replacement structure meets the traffic demands of all road users in the safest manner possible.

“In the interim, DTP officers will undertake a site inspection to ensure that all the regulatory and warning signage and line marking meets the respective standards.”

Personal reaction

I personally found the minister’s response to be disappointing. It did not respond in any way to the key question, “Will the minister commit to consulting with the local community on how this crossing can be improved for the safety of all road users?”

Ms Horne’s response also avoids the issue of the current poor state of the Rushworth-Tatura Rd and the multiple risk factors specifically associated with the outlet crossing. Instead, it talks about how “(t)his important piece of infrastructure has continued to provide irrigation water to vast parts of Victoria while enabling a road connection for over 100 years” and cites G-MW as “the responsible authority”.

Deflecting answers to mission-critical questions is — I submit — unseemly when written by — or on behalf of — a minister of state.

Moreover, the minister’s added comment that the Department of Transport and Planning “will commit to working with G-MW when it is determined that the irrigation structure can no longer facilitate traffic movements” seemingly ignores the fact that people have been killed and injured at the crossing for many years. There is bidirectional disruption to the hundreds of vehicles that use it each day.

Playing G-MW off against a succession of state road authorities to defer deciding on the crossing has been a strategy that governments have used for decades. To date, it seems to have worked, but it is factually false and should no longer be permitted as any semblance of justification for further delay.

The minister’s response also ignores the fact that the crossing is already unsafe — it does not require a joint G-MW and DTP working group to address the problem “when it is determined that the irrigation structure can no longer facilitate traffic movements”. Every driver who uses the crossing faces the risk of a collision today, tomorrow and into the foreseeable future, and that is an unassailable fact.

Importantly, it is also possible that talk of G-MW and DTP eventually “working together” to come up with a solution to “traffic movements” while sidestepping the immediate, critical issue of human safety may abrogate ministerial responsibility, given that one of the minister’s many portfolios is ‘Roads and Road Safety’.

Having alerted the government to our fears, if a significant accident were to occur on the crossing over the coming months, as a community, we should not let responsibility be confined solely to the vehicle or vehicles involved.

Acting responsibly

In the 1980s, the Kirner government proposed and funded a single-lane bridge for northbound traffic, plus a low-cost modification to the G-MW crossing for southbound traffic. For reasons unknown, funding was withdrawn, the proposal stalled and nothing has happened since.

What is needed to meet today’s traffic mix and density is a new dual-lane road bridge that is relatively close to — but wholly independent of — the Waranga Basin outlet control facilities. This problem is squarely in the court of the Department of Transport and Planning.

It has little to do with G-MW, except perhaps as interested onlookers and advisers. To suggest otherwise is to perpetuate a myth and give credence to an excuse that has already been purveyed for far too long.

I have asked our members of parliament to pursue this issue on behalf of Rushworth residents and others who use the Rushworth-Tatura Rd and who, therefore, face the risks associated with the current hundred-year-old Waranga Western Channel Outlet crossing.

This issue should not be allowed to slip back into obscurity once again, and I’m grateful to Mrs Tyrrell and our other parliamentary representatives for acting on our behalf to ensure that it does not.

Cass Alexander, Rushworth