Midland Highway getting a safety make over

MINISTER for Roads and Minister for Road Safety and the TAC Jaala Pulford recently announced the Midland Highway between Buninyong and Meredith is one of eight regional roads to be made safer.

The A300 has been identified for priority safety upgrades following extensive investigations, including assessing each road’s crash history, topography and roadside environment.

The upgrade will include flexible safety barriers and rumble strip line-marking, aimed at reducing the risk of head-on and run-off-road crashes.

Already there are improvements taking place on the Midland Highway with sealing works underway on the new overtaking lanes of between Lethbridge and Meredith and a further 2.5km is also being resurfaced from Meredith to Bannockburn.

Member for Buninyong, Michaela Settle, welcomed the works. “The Midland Highway has been identified as a high-risk road in regional Victoria, so we’re taking action to make it safer,” she said.

“The evidence is clear that safer roads save lives, that’s why we are investing more than ever in our highest-risk roads.”

On the section of the highway between Wiggins Road Buninyong and Scotsburn to Yendon no 2 Road the erection of flexible safety barriers has now been completed.

The barriers prevent run-off-road and head-on crashes with research showing flexible safety barriers reduce injury and fatality from those crashes by 85 per cent.

When a vehicle hits a safety barrier, the impact of the crash causes the barrier posts to bend at the base while the flexible ropes remain intact and catch the vehicle like a net.

The Ballarat to Creswick section of the Midland Highway, from the Western Freeway to South Street Creswick, has also been identified as one of Victoria’s highest risk rural roads.

VicRoads is currently undertaking several measures to improve safety on that stretch of road with two new roundabouts to slow traffic to safer speeds and reduce the risk and severity of collisions are being installed as well as adding wide centre line markings to ensure a safe distance between vehicles.

Other high-risk safety improvements taking place on that section of the highway include the installation of rumble strips to warn drivers if they veer from their lane, widening road shoulders and installing left-hand side safety barriers.

The projects are part of the State Government’s $1.4 billion Towards Zero Action Plan which aims to reduce road deaths to less than 200 a year and serious injuries by 15 per cent by 2020.

The City of Ballarat has welcomed the announcement to upgrade the Midland Highway between Buninyong and Clarendon.

City of Ballarat mayor Samantha McIntosh said the safety improvements on the road would improve the road link between two of state’s key regional cities.

“Connectivity between Geelong and Ballarat is becoming increasingly important, with these two cities being major economic drivers for Victoria and the nation,” she said.