By BRIDGET COOK
A CRANBOURNE man has expressed his anger at the lack of action to address disabled car parking issues at local railway stations.
Robert Barrett has been fighting for more disabled car parks at Cranbourne railway station for more than a year, something he said was a problem across the train system.
Mr Barrett said regular car parking spaces had been added at the station, but no more disabled parks, with only four at Cranbourne.
“You can walk a good half a kilometre to get to the platform,” he said.
“For someone with a disability, that’s just not right.
“I have appointments in the city that I sometimes don’t go to as I can’t find a park.”
Mr Barrett said he had been lobbying the Minister for Public Transport Terry Mulder and Public Transport Victoria (PTV) for more than a year to rectify the problem.
In February this year, Mr Barrett received a letter from Mr Mulder’s office saying that line marking and related works for creating the additional disabled spaces at Cranbourne would start in March this year.
He said, as of yet nothing had been done.
“It seems no one is taking responsibility for this or doing anything about it,” he said.
“I also got a letter in 2013 from Mr Mulder’s office, saying then that they recognised a need for more disabled spaces and they were working through options to create more.
“It’s taken so long and something needs to be done soon and stop getting put off.”
Mr Barrett said it was a problem at many stations.
“There are lots of car park expansions going on, but they don’t seem to factor in extra disabled spaces,” he said.
“It used to be a requirement to have one disabled park, per 100 car parks.
“I’m not sure if that’s still true, but there are 641 car parks at Cranbourne and only four disabled spots, so there is definitely a need for more.”
A spokesperson for Mr Mulder said Cranbourne station would get an additional nine disabled car parking spaces.
“The Victorian Coalition Government, via PTV, is delivering $20m in accessibility upgrades across the network, including tactile ground surface indicators to assist passengers who are visually impaired, electronic passenger information displays, re-grading of access ramps and making available more accessible car parking spots,” the spokesperson said.
“Upgrade works are expected to commence in September and will deliver an additional nine accessible car parking spaces at Cranbourne station, taking the total number of accessible car parking spaces at the station to 13.”
