Funding should include Outer Melbourne Connect blueprint, group urges

<p>The Road Users Collaborative (RUC), a Victorian coalition of freight and other vehicle groups, called yesterday on the State Government to incorporate the RACV’s Outer Melbourne Connect blueprint into its imminent Integrated Transport report.</p> <p>Connect listed new road, rail and public transport projects, including 85 arterial road projects across outer Melbourne, totalling $3.2bn, suburbs needing new or expanded bus services, and level crossings requiring grade separation.</p> <p>RUC comprises peak groups including the Victorian Transport Association, Yarra Trams, Victorian Taxi Association, Victorian Motorcyclists Union and the RACV.</p> <p>RACV public policy general manager Brian Negus said his organisation believed the State Government should first seek federal funding for the appropriate road and public transport projects before delivering the remainder of the backlog, with an ongoing program of works through the private sector. </p> <p>"These works could be built within about five years and paid for via ‘shadow tolls’, where a private contractor constructs roads then recoups costs from government during a 20- to 30-year period based on vehicle usage of roads," Mr Negus said. </p> <p>"Let me make this crystal clear: a shadow toll is not an extra tax, in fact there would be no additional charge to motorists using these new roads."</p> <p>VTA chief executive Brian Lovel said swift and proactive action could see 30 years’ worth of much needed infrastructure in as little as five years.</p> <p>This would provide "a boost to road safety, the economy, employment market and productivity" and the state "simply cannot afford another 20 years of drip feeding only a handful of improvements each year", he said.</p> <p>&#8220Connect is an ideal vehicle to achieve this outcome outer Melbournians are increasingly choosing to work closer to home, and many industries have relocated to the middle and outer suburbs to benefit from the ready land supply and growing workforce,&#8221 Mr Lovel said. </p> <br />