Let there be light

ACCORDING to the King James Bible at the creation of the world God said “Let there be light”. The Book of Genesis goes on to state: “And there was light.”

Things are proving a bit trickier for the Victorian Roads Minister.

First, a brief recap on some of the very average traffic services our region has been receiving from VicRoads which is ultimately answerable to Roads Minister Luke Donellan.

We have had sets of traffic lights running on diesel generators because of unspecified electrical faults.

We have had reports of the same diesel generators being left to run out of diesel and being vandalised.

We have had, as a result, traffic lights not functioning properly and chaos and uncertainty — and danger to pedestrians and motorists — as a result.

We have had lollypop people deployed to deal with pedestrians and traffic when the lights aren’t working properly.

In the case of the Leopold lights we have had VicRoads trying to pass the buck to Powercor and the private company doing the same to the public body.

This has all stretched on for far too long. And while it is heartening to see works being performed on the Leopold intersection (there seems to be a dispute over who’s holding up progress on the Armstrong Creek lights) none of the lights are yet fixed, connected to the grid and running.

Little wonder the Mackinnon family are shocked at how long this bureaucracy has taken. We all should be.

Lachlan Mackinnon was hit by a vehicle at the Leopold site when running for a school bus in 2016 — leading to calls for the construction of traffic lights.

He stands as an example of how dangerous our roads can be when the authorities don’t keep pace with development.

We don’t expect the Roads Minister to be omniscient. He just needs to quickly get the Melbourne-centric bureaucracy of VicRoads to get serious about our region and fix this mess. Now that would be a miracle.