The Victorian government has announced schools, councils, and not-for-profit organisations can now apply for a funding boost for grassroots road safety initiatives to drive down road trauma.
The $1.5 million Community Road Safety Grants Program is set to include targeted programs which consider localised solutions to road safety concerns.
The application process is open for the 2022/23 grants.
Minister for Roads and Road Safety Ben Carroll said the program aims to empower local communities to tackle their road safety issues, especially in educating young people and reducing high-risk behaviours.
“Supporting grassroots road safety initiatives is vital as we work to address the issues driving road trauma – including fatigue and high-risk driver behaviour such as speeding and drink driving,” he said.
The program includes education sessions on road safety for cyclists, drivers, passengers, motorcyclists, pedestrians and promoting safer vehicles as well as funding roadside signage initiatives and improvements.
The initiative has already allowed 72 organisations to fund programs such as Safer
Drivers and Passengers, Bike Education for children, Safe Routes to School and road safety for new arrivals. This resulted in more than 200 programs state-wide
Head of Road Safety Victoria Carl Muller encouraged local communities to equip themselves with the knowledge and skills to improve safety on roads by embracing the programs.
“These grants will help deliver hundreds of programs and invaluable road safety messages in our smaller regional communities, Melbourne, and right across the state,” he said.
In November 2021 last year, works began to remove the level crossings on Maroondah Highway Lilydale and Manchester Road Mooroolbark station, which are set to be completed in mid-2022. Two new elevated stations were built at Lilydale and Mooroolbark as part of the project. More than 53,000 vehicles traveled through these level crossings each day where the boom gates were down for up to a quarter of the morning peak. There has been one collision and 5 near misses across these 2 sites in the past 10 years.
The grants program supports the Labor Government’s Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030, which aims to halve road deaths and reduce serious injuries by 2030, and put us on the path to eliminating road deaths by 2050.
Applications close on Wednesday, 9 March 2022. For more information on the Community Road Safety Grants Program visit www.vicroads.vic.gov.au
