Melburnians warned to brace for traffic chaos when lockdown ends

Traffic on Melbourne’s roads has plummeted as the city endures its second lockdown, but there are concerns about how infrastructure will cope when lockdown ends.

Honorary Professor of Planning at the University of Queensland, Neil Sipe, says trends in every other Australian capital city suggest that traffic on our roads will spike beyond pre-pandemic levels when Melburnians come out of lockdown.

“People are leaving public transport and they’re using their car,” he told Dee Dee.

“In the other capital cities driving is now well above what it was at the baseline.”

Professor Sipe said public transport usage in Melbourne is currently at just 81 per cent of January levels, and that’s not likely to pick up significantly while concerns about coronavirus remain.

“We can see that people don’t really feel safe riding public transport, at least according to these figures,” he said.

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