If I was the one who runs Victoria’s rail infrastructure, I would have installed those pedestrian gates at Racecourse Road instead. There’s currently none at the location and I’ve seen a lot of pedestrians cross the rails on the Gippsland side of the crossing. One day someone’s going to trip over the tracks and end up injuring themselves, but logic doesn’t seem to apply when it comes to upgrades at Victorian crossings.McK&H.Aust wrote:That's sad news about the Westinghouse pedestrian gates being replaced. It sure is difficult to understand why some crossings are upgraded before others.TrickyMario7654 wrote:Got some more bad news out of Pakenham. The Westinghouse Pedestrian Gate Mechs at McGregor Road are about to be replaced by modern swing gates. Just drove over the crossing tonight and spotted the new gates midway through installation. I had a bad feeling about this because they had closed the pedestrian crossing about a week earlier for works and while I had my intial doubts, it’s turns out my fears were realised.
I don’t know why they’re doing this because I can’t recall seeing any mention of a pedestrian crossing upgrade at McGregor Road, and it doesn’t seem to be as utilised as the one on the other side which was installed back in 2012.
Also found this on the LXRA site, looks like they’re going to prioritise 25 more crossings for future removal (most likely after 2022).
https://levelcrossings.vic.gov.au/media ... g-removals
Some of the candidates are no surprises (like Old Geelong Road, Hoppers Crossing and Union Road, Surrey Hills), but there’s still some I don’t think there’s any point to removing (like Reynard Street, Coburg).
Seems like the Andrews Government feels it is on a winner (politically speaking) with their level crossing removals, so they want to announce more. I fear there is political influence involved in selecting which crossings are being removed, and the money doesn't always go where it is needed most.
The aforementioned LXRA page also has this PDF on it explains the framework for prioritising extra crossings for removal, I suggest giving it a read for a better understanding of why they’ve selected those crossings shown on the page.
https://levelcrossings.vic.gov.au/__dat ... mework.pdf
Also of note is the inclusion of Oakover Road, Preston which is unfortunate because the crossing has one of the few surviving black and white boom gates in Melbourne. Chances are though it would have been replaced by the time they get around to removing it (which is probably still many years away).
