The scene in Main Street Rutherglen with the truck colliding with car, power pole and The Other Place café.
The ongoing fight to have a heavy vehicle bypass hit a further frustrating chapter on Friday when a truck smashed into a car, shop front and power pole in Main Street Rutherglen.
Member for Northen Victoria Wendy Lovell with Bill Tilley, Indigo Cr Roberta Horne and Rutherglen’s Herb Ellerbock recently discussing Main Street, Rutherglen.
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The truck ploughed into local resident Herb Ellerbock’s Kia Stinger GT car then knocked over the power pole outside The Other Place café at about 5pm.
Fortunately, no-one was injured in Friday’s accident but businesses took a hammering.
Fortunately, no-one was injured. Businesses took a hammering. Power was out in many businesses until at least the following night.
It meant The Other Place café closing for a few days following the smash. The crash knocked down the building’s verandah. With fridges and freezers out of action, a substantial amount of money has been lost on food. It’s the same with other businesses.
Part of the Murray Valley Highway, Rutherglen’s main street is a thoroughfare for B-double and stock trucks. All sorts of vehicles move along Main Street, with estimated truck numbers alone over 500 a day.
The driver of the truck was a 50-year-old man. “Investigations are continuing,” Sergeant Narelle Peterson of Rutherglen Police Station told The Free Press.
For decades, local residents have wanted a bypass route for the heavy vehicles.
Member for Northen Victoria Wendy Lovell with Bill Tilley, Indigo Cr Roberta Horne and Rutherglen’s Herb Ellerbock recently discussing Main Street, Rutherglen.
Local resident, Indigo Shire Councillor Roberta Horne has been the strongest advocate for a bypass route.
“I’ve been looking for a martyr for this dreadful safety risk for many, many years and I never thought it could have been my mate Herb Ellerbock,” she told The Free Press.
“I just thank the gods it wasn’t the week before when the street was full of people at the Tastes of Rutherglen festival.”
Cr Horne is totally frustrated at the complete lack of action towards a bypass route and hopes she never has to hear of a fatality in Main Street before a bypass occurs. She will never give up seeking a bypass route.
A Rutherglen bypass has been sought for at least the last sixty years.
“It has been enormous frustration over many decades,” Cr Horne said.
“The Rutherglen community came together in 2016 and $4 million of funding was allocated in 2017 for a study to be undertaken only to have the Federal Government withdraw their money. It’s always been a community-driven project.
“What will it take to have government support, not only for a study but the actual bypass? Will it take a disaster? Human lives? A bus load of children?
“So many people have said the situation is a disaster waiting to happen. There have been many near misses and people don’t enjoy crossing the street.”
Benambra MP Bill Tilley has been arguing for a bypass route because; “Main Street was designed for horse and buggy, not B-doubles”.
“An amount of $2.3 million remains unspent on the study that was supposed to make the people of Rutherglen and visitors safe when parking and as pedestrians in Main Street,” Mr Tilley said.
It was last November when the Federal Government withdrew its support for a project that has been glacially slow, among missteps and handballing since first funded in 2017.
In State Parliament on February 28 this year, Member for Northen Victoria Wendy Lovell called on the Roads Minister to explain what will happen to the unspent money on the Rutherglen bypass and about the $42 commitment to McKoy Street.
“This was a joint Victorian and Federal Government investment aimed at improving the safety of pedestrians and motorists on Main Street, in one of our major tourist and wine towns,” Ms Lovell said.
“The Commonwealth and State committed $1.93 million each in a funding announcement in 2017. It was the start of a process best described as shambolic.
“It started out as $4 million to examine the option for the bypass, got hijacked by the roads authority to be used for roadworks, and at one stage would have re-routed traffic, B-doubles and all, off Main Street and down a residential road past the town’s major sports ground and a unit block for the elderly.”
What will it take for positive action? Locals want to see positive action now.
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