A Thomastown speed hump installed six months ago is to be removed.
Whittlesea councillors voted against the recommendation of the council’s officers to keep the “road cushions” in Darebin Drive after learning about the plight of one of the street’s residents.
Coral Purcell and her husband are retirees and full-time carers of their 39-year-old daughter. When one of six speed humps was installed in front of their family home in August, Ms Purcell said noise reached ”distressing” levels whenever trucks, trailers, four-wheel-drives and utilities passed their house.
“It’s enough to wake everyone up,” she said. “Four-wheel-drives are built to navigate them, so they fly over them outside school hours.”
The Purcells, who are in their late 60s and early 70s, were losing valuable sleep. Coral started a petition requesting the removal of all the Darebin Drive speed humps. It was lodged with the council last September and contained 50 signatures.
As a result of the petition the council conducted a traffic survey that showed the speed humps had brought about a reduction in speeding and the number of cars and trucks that use Darebin Drive.
However, a recent noise survey showed that over a two-week period, average noise levels of 61 decibels were recorded outside the Purcells’ house, just shy of VicRoads’ recommendation that average noise levels not exceed 63 decibels.
The results were enough for Cr Rex Griffen to suggest the speed hump’s removal.
His motion was passed, and council officers will now undertake additional independent noise assessments close to the other speed humps and look at alternative “traffic calming” measures such as chicanes and slow points.
It would cost the council $20,000 to remove all six speed humps and $800,000 to install roundabouts and slow points.
Traffic problems have been an ongoing issue in the street for almost three decades. Kerbs were extended in the late 1990s to manage speeding cars, and then roundabouts were created in 2003 to further stifle lead-foot motorists.
