The North East Link mega-highway will permanently divide Watsonia, according to locals who are bitterly disappointed that new designs for the $16.5 billion toll road leave an eight-lane trench splitting their community.
Victoria’s largest-ever road project will stretch 10 kilometres from Bulleen to Greensborough when it opens in 2028, and include 6.5 kilometres of underground tunnels as well as widening the Eastern Freeway to up to 20 lanes.
Hesham Mobarek, a local pharmacist and president of the Watsonia Traders Association, said the new designs failed to properly connect the east and western sides of the community – which was a key object of the project’s own urban design strategy. “For years they’ve been talking about amazing big green bridges to connect the communities, but this falls really far short of that– especially relative to other areas of the project,” Mobarek said.About 40 to 50 per cent of customers at the shopping strip come from the other side of Greensborough Road, he said.Watsonia Station has a small footbridge across the rail tracks leading to the local library and has also been earmarked for a new multistory carpark.
Mobarek said the fact that efforts to enhance community amenities in other sections of the project were not being made in Watsonia showed the community was being treated like “second class citizens”.
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