Disability advocates have criticised state government plans to build new tram stops in North Melbourne that don’t allow wheelchair users to access trams, despite a legal requirement to do so.
The Department of Transport last week revealed proposed changes to stops on Victoria, Errol and Queensberry streets that are required for larger G-class trams to operate on route 57 to West Maribyrnong.
Andrew Bretherton, an advocate for better public transport access for people with a disability, is disappointed with the government’s plans.Credit: Jason South
The plans do not include raised platforms that allow wheelchairs or prams to roll onto the new low-floor trams, which were designed to promote accessibility.
A department spokesperson said level-access stops were still planned in the future after the North Melbourne stops were redesigned, but could not say when.
Wheelchair user Andrew Bretherton said the government should just build accessible platforms now.
Victoria has already missed a deadline set by federal law to make all tram stops accessible by 2022.
An elevated platform and a model of a G-class tram at a Melbourne depot.
“You can tell they clearly have not consulted anyone with a disability on this,” Bretherton said.
“They see us as a cost-benefit analysis, and I think they’ve determined that we are not worth the cost of making it accessible, which is frustrating.”
The planned changes to the North Melbourne tram corridor, released for consultation last Wednesday, included merging some stops and removing 40 car parks to accommodate 25-metre long G-class trams.
The new trams are almost 50 per cent longer than the oldest trams on route 57.
The government proposal considers changes to heritage bluestone kerbing to allow pedestrians and cyclists to safely cross to the upgraded tram stops in the middle of the road with pedestrian crossings.
Bretherton, however, said the absence of elevated platforms meant people with wheelchairs, elderly passengers and parents with prams would remain excluded.
“When people can’t come into these spaces, it only leaves one option, which is a car,” he said. “It’s just putting more pressure onto other stressed transport systems like taxis.”
Bretherton, an advocate from the Disability Resources Centre, said accessible taxis were already unreliable and hard to find.
Andrew Bretherton at the tram stop outside North Melbourne Town Hall on Errol Street. That stop does not allow him to access trams.Credit: Jason South
Without elevated platforms, there was no easy alternative to access trams, he added.
“You can either get onto trams from platforms, or you can’t,” Bretherton said.
An auditor-general report released last month revealed there had been “little improvement in tram network accessibility” in the last five years, and the government would miss another deadline to make the entire tram fleet accessible by 2032.
The planned tram changes in North Melbourne on Victoria Street would merge stops at Howard and Chetwynd streets into one.
On Queensberry Street, existing stops at Curzon and Abbotsford streets would be merged into a station at Union Street.
Two options are offered for Errol Street: existing stops at the Queensbury Street and Victoria Street intersections may be extended, or a new kerbside stop may be created between them at Raglan Street.
A Transport Department spokesperson said: “The proposed new stop locations and treatments in North Melbourne will set the foundation to build level-access stops in the future.”
The spokesperson said new platforms were recently built on La Trobe Street in the CBD, and construction is under way on Droop Street, Footscray, but added: “We know there is more to do.”
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