By CASEY NEILL
ROAD blocks would improve safety in a Springvale ‘rat run’, residents say.
Greater Dandenong Council last month received objections to traffic calming measures at the Kemp and Gove streets intersection.
The anonymous authors of the identical letters called for half road blocks to deter drivers from using the streets to avoid Springvale Junction – Princes Highway and Springvale, Centre and Police roads.
Engineering Services director Julie Reid said the council had in the past received complaints about traffic using the Kemp Street, Gove Street and Gray Street area as a ‘rat run’.
She said the council in March last year installed platform traffic calming measures at Kemp and Gove streets in response to several casualty crashes at the junction in recent years.
Ms Reid said this had increased driver awareness of the intersection and slowed vehicles.
She said there had been no further casualty crashes at the location since the installation, and that the road blocks residents were now suggesting would restrict access and impact traffic flow.
The council has conducted several traffic surveys to determine traffic volumes and speeds in the area, she said, which had “consistently returned results identifying that both vehicle speeds and volumes are appropriate for the local environment”.
