Deputy Lord Mayor Arron Wood swipes Lord Mayor Sally Capp over ‘rat run’ gibe
Lord Mayor Sally Capp stirred things up last week when she accused motorists of driving through the CBD to get to other places of “rat running”. This is what her deputy thinks of it all.
VIC News
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A senior Melbourne councillor has taken issue with a claim by Lord Mayor Sally Capp that people driving through the city to get to other destinations were “rat runners”.
Deputy Lord Mayor Arron Wood said the council had to try to get as much public support as possible for its new transport plan, which aims to slash by half the number of cars driving through the city.
Last week, Cr Capp said it was crucial to deter through traffic in the CBD.
“There are 200,000 or so (a day) coming in at the moment, and almost half of those are using the city as a rat-run, and they are the people we are trying to deter,” she told 3AW.
Asked how drivers should get to their destinations, the Lord Mayor said: “Avoid town all together, avoid the CBD”.
At a council meeting this week, Cr Wood didn’t name Cr Capp, but clearly referred to her controversial comment.
“Viewing people who come through the city as rat runners, I don’t think serves us well, because there are people without those options to get to work in a timely manner, get home to their families - and that is the current situation,” he said.
Cr Wood, who is considering whether to run against Cr Capp at next year’s council election, said that mass transit was the key to solving congestion problems, but the city’s public transport system was still in a transition phase.
“We don’t have a state-of-the-art world-first public transport system, there is a long way to go with integration,” he said.
It’s understood that Cr Wood’s lobbying behind the scenes led to the council backing away from looking at a 30km/h speed limit in much of the inner city in favour of a 40km/h limit proposed now.
The transport strategy, which advocates less space for cars and more for pedestrians and cyclists, was passed unanimously by the meeting.
Transport portfolio chairman Nicolas Frances Gilley said the city needed to have an “adult” debate about an inner city congestion charge given that the number of people walking on CBD streets was rapidly rising.
“We’re not suggesting a congestion charge today, we are suggesting that this city needs to think about the fact that if we grow from 900,000 to 1.4 million people (a day) in the next 15 years, and we’ve already got not much pavement space, we’ve got to think creatively about that,” he said.
Cr Capp, who is overseas, said last week that a congestion tax was off the table due to lack of support from the Andrews Government.
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