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Freight link is best way

Janice TeoMelville Gazette

WORLD’S best practice for freight on rail is just 30 per cent, so Perth needs an efficient and effective road freight network.

The benefits of the Perth Freight Link will include 2400 jobs created and reduced traffic on critical sections of South Street by 20 per cent and Leach Highway by 10 per cent.

It will also remove an estimated minimum of 500 trucks a day from Leach Highway by 2031, provide a $8.15 productivity saving per trip for freight vehicles and a 9.5-minute travel time reduction between Kwinana Freeway and Fremantle alone.

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It will bypass 14 sets of traffic lights, provide $2.5 billion in travel time savings, $840 million in vehicle operating cost savings, 450,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent saved by 2031, over 400 hectares of environmental offsets (10x project’s footprint), $164 million in safety benefits, $244 million in reliability benefits and significantly improved emergency access to Fiona Stanley Hospital and St John of God Hospital.

The Perth Freight Link and connected Gateway WA and Northlink projects will together service seven strategic activity centres.

WA Labor and the Greens say freight on rail is the alternative solution to the Perth Freight Link.

That is not a solution because at least 70 per cent of freight will need to be moved on our road network in a city whose population is expected to double in just 35 years.

WA Labor and the Greens are fighting to have at least 500 more heavy trucks per day over the next 15 years travelling among local traffic along Leach Highway, stop-starting, up and down hills, six metres from houses (and Booragoon Lake), rather than along a non-stop, dedicated freight freeway to be constructed in a wide road reserve strategically set aside since 1955.

MATT TAYLOR,

Bateman MLA.