Speed hump spat

By Shaun Inguanzo
RATEPAYERS will fork out $26,000 to replace a new traffic island with a speed hump despite an officer’s report showing the island forced drivers to slow down.
The controversial decision to replace Foster Street East’s traffic island with a speed hump was one that divided Greater Dandenong councillors at last Monday’s meeting.
One councillor slammed the move as a waste of ratepayers’ dollars, while another said it made a mockery of the city’s traffic management program.
The council installed a traffic island near properties 194 and 196 Foster Street East at the beginning of this year in response to residents’ concerns about speeding motorists and drivers using the street as a ‘rat run’ to arterial roads.
But in May, the street’s residents signed a petition requesting a speed hump be installed in place of the traffic island because it failed to slow traffic.
Dandenong Ward councillor Jim Memeti said ‘young hoons’ were treating the chicane-like island as part of a racetrack instead of a slow point in the road.
But an officer’s report to council this week recommended that the request for a speed hump be refused.
The council’s traffic and road safety team leader Mary Dallas wrote that traffic surveys conducted before and after the island’s installation proved it was effective.
Statistics in the report show that 85 per cent of drivers had travelled at 47.2km/h since the device’s installation, as opposed to 56.2km/h in 2004 and 52.5km/h in 2005.
“Based on the above information and the results of the traffic surveys showing that the installed traffic treatment has a positive effect on speed reduction in Foster Street East, it is proposed for the installed slow point treatment to remain,” Ms Dallas wrote.
Dandenong North councillor John Kelly opposed the move and said council had an ‘obligation not to waste ratepayers’ money’.
“How will it look when we start the jack hammers up in the near future?” he asked.
Cleeland Ward councillor Paul Donovan said the move would make ‘a mockery’ of the council’s traffic management program.
Greater Dandenong chief executive officer John Bennie asked councillors to consider deferring the item so that the council could reach a mutual agreement with residents.
“It seems to me there are issues in the area that will benefit from further discussions between officers and residents,” he said.
But a deferral motion was lost, and Cr Memeti’s alternate recommendation was passed eight votes to three, with councillors Donovan, Kelly and Herring opposing the move.
“The whole street signed the petition and said it no longer wanted (the traffic island),” Cr Memeti said.
“It is our job to listen to them and support them.”
The $26,000 will be drawn from the 2007-08 City Improvement Program budget.