Australia’s famous urban sprawl has been captured in one photo as residents of a new outer suburban housing estate queue in their cars each morning just to leave the suburb.
Residents of Kalkallo, 50km north of Melbourne, can take an hour just to get out of the estate – but it’s far from just being a Victorian problem.
Kalkallo’s regular one kilometre tailback happens before drivers even reach the road that will then take them to work, school, shops and everything else beyond the estate.
The problems have been caused by a lack of roads in the newly developed area, where the infrastructure has not kept pace with the rapid population growth.
In the 2016 census, there were just 105 people living in Kalkallo. Five years later, the 2021 census found there were 6,466 living there.
ABC reporter Margaret Paul highlighted the huge problem by tweeting pictures showing dozens of cars banked up trying to get out of their estate.
Residents of Kalkallo, 50km north of Melbourne, have a commute from hell every morning, when it can take an hour just to get out of their Cloverton housing estate (pictured)
She said she had ‘seen people overtaking on the wrong side of the road and driving onto the grass to turn left. The frustration is intense.’
At 8am on Tuesday morning she tweeted: ‘This queue goes 500m back into the housing estate.’
But just 15 minutes later she said she’d ‘found the back of what locals say is the completely everyday traffic queue to get out of this housing estate in Kalkallo.
‘It is one kilometre long!’
Paul also tweeted about the lack of transport options in the area, saying the massive traffic jam was a ‘completely average Tuesday morning … I’ve (only) seen three buses in the hour I’ve been here.’
Ramy Najmeddine and his family live in the huge Cloverton estate in Kalkallo – where there are more than 2,000 residents, but only one road in and out.
Construction on a second road started last October but is not due to be finished until mid-2024.
Margaret Paul said in a tweet (pictured) that the tailback in an outer urban housing estate was one kilometre long
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Even on the best day, it takes Mr Najmeddine 20 minutes just to get out of Cloverton, giving him plenty of time to think while he waits in traffic.
‘Sometimes you do get thoughts of, ‘did I make the right move buying here?” he told ABC.
‘That does come across sometimes, because there’s more frustration than there is ease when it comes to taking kids to school, driving to work, all the peak-hour stuff that people are doing in the estate. It is quite frustrating.’
Mr Najmeddine dreads to think what would happen if there was an accident during one of the daily periods of traffic chaos.
‘I can’t imagine for the life of me if there was an emergency that was to happen and an ambulance needs to come in and come out,’ he said.
Evan Mulholland, who was elected to the Victorian upper house for the Northern Metropolitan Region last November, said the area has suffered from ‘a lot of neglect’.
‘As someone who has lived in the northern suburbs my entire life, I recognise the need for strong local advocacy on issues, particularly roads and public transport,’ he told the North Central Review.
Mr Mulholland is a Liberal, though, and the state government is Labor – but that will not stop him from advocating for his constituents.
‘I’m keen to fight for locals for a greater share of funding. We’re taxpayers as well in the outer suburbs, but under the current state government we’re seeing a lot of money spent in the eastern suburbs and not a lot in the outer north,’ he said.
The issue of lack of infrastructure is not just a Victorian problem, with similar situations in the outer suburbs of cities across the country.
Ian Wright, a professor at Western Sydney University, said while the ‘great Australian dream’ of affordable housing draws people to an an area, ‘poor planning’ is letting them down. Pictured is a huge queue to get out of the Cloverton estate 50kilometres north of Melbourne
Ian Wright, an associate professor in the School of Science at Western Sydney University said while the ‘great Australian dream’ of affordable housing draws people to an an area, ‘poor planning’ is letting them down.
‘I think there is this absolute desperation for families (to get) a roof over (their) head. That Aussie dream, having a family, having your own house,’ he told Yahoo News.
‘Then there is this promise of ‘yeah, the high schools are coming, the shops will be coming, the train line will get extended’.
‘It’s all these promises and it’s just awful,’ he said.
