{"id":20181,"date":"2026-05-28T13:57:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/20181\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T13:57:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:57:03","slug":"people-trapped-in-new-housing-estate-traffic-bottlenecks-welcome-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/20181\/","title":{"rendered":"People trapped in new housing estate traffic bottlenecks welcome funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

For locals in Melbourne’s booming outer northern suburbs the traffic issue dominates discussion like no other.<\/p>\n

Mustafa Aljburi recently moved to the area and said driving is a daily headache.<\/p>\n

“Every morning me and my wife will have an argument about how we go to work,” he said.<\/p>\n

He pointed out the window of his van to a line of stationary cars and trucks, in each direction, on Donnybrook Road in Kalkallo.<\/p>\n

It is a notorious 8-kilometre single lane stretch of road where thousands of people live in housing estates to the north and south.<\/p>\n

“I think if you video for 30 seconds it’s enough,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Cars<\/p>\n

Traffic along Donnybrook Road in Melbourne’s outer north is consistently bumper-to-bumper at peak hour. (ABC News: Margaret Paul)<\/p>\n

The population of Kalkallo has boomed<\/a> from about 100 people in 2001 to more than 10,000.<\/p>\n

Council data shows traffic volumes have grown from 2,900 vehicles a day in 2017 to 35,562 vehicles a day in 2025.<\/p>\n

The ABC went for a walk inside one of the housing estates where the line of traffic to get onto Donnybrook Road snaked back 500 meres during the morning peak.<\/p>\n

It was moving so slowly we could walk along beside and interview people while they waited to drop their kids to school.<\/p>\n

“Do you know how many times I leave my car in park? I just put it in park because I’m not moving, it’s crazy,” one resident said through their window.<\/p>\n

Others described leaving earlier and earlier to drop children at school, or changing work hours to try to avoid peak times.<\/p>\n

\"Tugce<\/p>\n

Melbourne motorist Tugce Gedik says she’s often delayed by traffic jams in the city’s outer north. (ABC News: Margaret Paul)<\/p>\n

Tugce Gedik said she lives a two minute drive away, but with traffic the childcare drop off regularly blows out.<\/p>\n

“Honestly it’s really hard,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I come here in an hour and 15 minutes. It’s always backed up here,” she said.<\/p>\n

Councils welcome funding, say more is needed<\/p>\n

This month’s federal and state budgets contained a combined $45 million for the next stage of upgrades to Donnybrook Road.<\/p>\n

It includes a second bridge over the Hume Freeway and footpaths so more people can safely walk to Donnybrook train station.<\/p>\n

The funding builds on earlier commitments to upgrade a roundabout and build a new bridge over the Kalkallo Creek.<\/p>\n

The deputy mayor of Hume City Council, Ally Watson, lives in Kalkallo and said Donnybrook Road is a “lifeline” for thousands of people.<\/p>\n

Cr Watson welcomed the next stage of funding but said the community needs clarity around when roadworks will happen.<\/p>\n

\"Ally<\/p>\n

Ally Watson says funding for Donnybrook Road is welcome but clarity over its rollout is needed. (ABC News: Margaret Paul)<\/p>\n

“That is progress but really we need to see shovels in the ground. We need to see things happening for my community to believe that this is happening,” she said.<\/p>\n

Cr Watson said it’s a lovely community to be part of, but they need better infrastructure.<\/p>\n

“There’s new estates popping up on Donnybrook Road every week, it feels like, so we’ve got new families moving in. We just can’t get them in and out.”<\/p>\n

The deputy mayor pointed to the council’s advocacy strategy where four of the six projects related to local roads.<\/p>\n

“It tells you the outer north is really doing the heavy lifting in terms of housing, supporting new communities,” she said.<\/p>\n

“But we don’t have the road infrastructure, so people can’t move around in the way they should be able to move around in our new communities.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Whittlesea mayor Lawrie Cox says a planned upgrade to Donnybrook Road isn’t expansive enough. (ABC News: Steve Kelly)<\/p>\n

In the neighbouring municipality Whittlesea Mayor Lawrie Cox said the planned upgrades do not go far enough.<\/p>\n

“Donnybrook Road is already under significant strain and demand will continue to grow rapidly,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We urgently need a complete, coordinated upgrade of the full corridor so it can safely and efficiently support the communities that rely on it every day.”<\/p>\n

Call for reclassification of growth zones<\/p>\n

The chief executive of the National Growth Areas Alliance (NGAA), Bronwen Clarke, said Donnybrook Road was emblematic of poor coordination in outer suburbs of all major Australian cities.<\/p>\n

“It is happening every day in every outer metropolitan growth council in every Australian state and territory,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

National Growth Areas Alliance chief executive\u00a0Bronwen Clark. (ABC News: Barrie Pullen)<\/p>\n

Ms Clarke said housing data shows people want to live in detached homes in the outer suburbs, but the infrastructure is not there when they move in.<\/p>\n

“It’s an enormous missed opportunity because we have this capacity when new suburbs are being built to build them well,” she said.<\/p>\n

“At the moment with the housing accord we’re looking only at a house. But people need more than a house. Economies need more than people living in houses.”<\/p>\n

She welcomes a $2 billion local infrastructure fund in the federal budget, but said outer suburbs should be treated separately from metropolitan areas.<\/p>\n

“We actually need to classify outer suburban areas as growth zones,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They need different treatment, they need different investment, and while we’re grouping them in\u00a0as one metro region we’re going to keep up these missed connections.”<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Kalkallo resident Melissa Compton says locals are fed up with traffic delays. (ABC News: Margaret Paul)<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King described Donnybrook Road as a “vital link”.<\/p>\n

“Planning for the expanded Donnybrook Road upgrade is underway and we will continue to work with the Victorian government to deliver the project,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Design and cost works for stage two are underway and construction is expected to start in early 2028.<\/p>\n

The Victorian upper house Liberal MP for Northern Victoria, Wendy Lovell, said the state government should have upgraded Donnybrook Road years ago.<\/p>\n

“This is not acceptable for major estates where we have thousands of people living,” she said.<\/p>\n

“What we’re seeing is people with only one road in and one road out of their estate and it is not a road to the standard to service those estates, even if there was a second entrance.”<\/p>\n

The Victorian government has been contacted by the ABC for comment.<\/p>\n

In a video posted to social media, Labor MP for Yan Yean, Lauren Kathage, said the funding would help ease congestion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou asked us to expand the scope of our project to deliver more for the community, and together with the federal government that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For locals in Melbourne’s booming outer northern suburbs the traffic issue dominates discussion like no other. Mustafa Aljburi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,19403,19404,19400,19401,4993,19402,19399,19398],"class_list":["post-20181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-commuting","tag-melbourne-commuting","tag-melbourne-traffic","tag-road-bottlenecks","tag-roads","tag-roundabouts","tag-suburban-development","tag-suburban-expansion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}