Safety proposal for slower traffic

SLOWER traffic through Lonsdale Street will make people feel safe, VicUrban says.
VicUrban’s Transit Cities general manager Dominic Arcaro said plans to slow traffic and slash the number of vehicles using Lonsdale Street would create a ‘surveillance’ safety blanket to keep shoppers and residents traversing the street feeling safe.
Mr Arcaro said slower traffic would also tempt drivers to pull over and shop in central Dandenong, instead of zooming past its retail and dining delights.
Illustrations of Lonsdale Street in VicUrban’s Draft Urban Master Plan, launched last week, show a Lonsdale Street with increased landscaping, wider footpaths to cater for alfresco dining and entertainment and crossings that will give pedestrians greater priority over cars.
The plans are aimed at making Lonsdale Street more pedestrian friendly and removing the ‘barriers’ that Mr Arcaro said currently discouraged shoppers to cross from one side of Lonsdale Street to the other.
Star asked Mr Arcaro if VicUrban was aiming to emulate Melbourne’s Swanston Street.
But he said the plan was never to remove traffic entirely. Mr Arcaro said the revitalised Lonsdale Street was planned to include slow moving traffic whose ‘surveillance’ effect would give people a feeling of safety.
“Traffic, per se, is not a bad thing,” he said.
“It gives a feeling of surveillance because it is slowly moving. Like Chapel Street – it is choc a bloc with cars but people love it.”
VicUrban is hoping to start work on Lonsdale Street late next year, after the EastLink tollway opens and relieves the street of a number of trucks and cars.