Councillors will vote to adopt the Roadmap to Zero: Safe Travel Strategy at the council meeting at 6:30 pm on Wednesday 5^th of August. This will be your last chance to influence councillors by speaking at the council meeting. See details below.

RoPP Position

Residents of Port Phillip (RoPP) supports a safer urban environment for residents and visitors alike and our advocacy has seen this achieved by way of council adopting the anti-encampment laws and bringing to the attention of council a resident -commissioned independent expert report highlighting the dangerous nature of the state government sponsored pop-up bike lanes that were implemented with council approval – and then removed, after a good deal of RoPP advocacy and widespread community objection.

• Unfortunately, we consider that the approach taken by council in respect of the Safe Travel Strategy does not support the safety concerns of residents in a manner that they would be comfortable living with – as evidenced by the petition submitted to council with nearly 600 signatures – and consequently ROPP’s position is that item 10.1 of the meeting should not be approved by council. The papers attached to the agenda also do not acknowledge the petition which creates a perception of bias.

Council Meeting Agenda & Commentary

The Agenda for the meeting and papers concerning Safe Travel Strategy was released on Friday afternoon and time has been taken to review the documentation prior to corresponding with you (see: Agenda of Meeting of the Port Phillip City Council – Wednesday, 5 August 2026, item 10.1).

Our commentary is:

• Council has materially changed its approach – however, the recommendations for approval by councillors are now at best described as vague, which we find concerning;
• In prior documentation, streets were named and road “treatments” identified – whilst this was poor given inadequate consultation with residents,¹ it at least indicated what the council’s transport team was thinking about; and
• What we now have is a set of vague statements “for noting” that are being put to councillors to vote on. The critical one being: “All future road safety projects will be subject to Council governance, approvals and the Community Engagement Policy 2025.”

We can only infer that council is seeking for us to trust it and its processes and unfortunately, we are all far too aware of what this looks like from prior “engagement” experience:

• consultation is limited and not well publicised;
• online surveys have multiple choice answers that are biased in their options;
• response time periods for residents and businesses are limited; and
• implementation often falls well short of what was approved (e.g. reality does not match the plans/pictures that were approved and there is nil consequence/rectification for poor execution).

In summary, council asking us to “trust it” when it has such a poor record of consultation and implementation is a huge red flag – we highlight the botched rubbish collection transition as another poorly handled council-wide project.

Additionally, residents typically stay in the council area as residents for far longer periods of time than councillors stay on council, so even if this approach was to be adopted and current council was trustworthy there is not much to prevent a new regime from taking a different approach.

For good order we also note that no budget, costings, nor relevant timeframes are provided and as this is a council led item (not the state government), it will be your rates that pay for this – how will it be paid for: via a services reduction or an increase in rates?

As such:

• RoPP does not support approval of agenda item 10.1; and
• RoPP will encourage the council in future periods to use the Roadmap to Zero: Safe Travel Strategy as an opportunity to listen to the concerns of the community and implement safety measures that are welcomed by residents in agreed locations for reasons supported by both data and activities in those locations.

Wednesday 5 August Council Meeting (6.30pm St Kilda Town Hall)

• We encourage you to attend the meeting on Wednesday night and voice your opposition (or otherwise) to the approval of agenda item 10.1. Register via this link before 12 noon on Wednesday: https://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/about-the-council/council-meetings/participate-at-council-meetings/. Please familiarise yourself with the protocols of speaking at the council meeting and we highlight the 2-minute time window per speaker.

• Please remember that council takes most notice of people turning up and speaking to issues – if you leave it up to others then that is one less voice in the room and a greater chance that your street will be one of those that council looks to make one-way or block off in the future.