Lower Heidelberg Road Pedestrian Safety Improvements

We’re improving safety along Lower Heidelberg Road in Ivanhoe East by installing a set of traffic lights and a raised pedestrian crossing, as part of the Australian Government’s Road Safety Program, being delivered in partnership with the Victorian Government.

Project update - February 2023

We’ve installed new traffic lights and a raised pedestrian crossing at East Ivanhoe Village to give pedestrians a safe place to cross Lower Heidelberg Road, east of Carmichael Street.

Crews will be back for one day over the coming months to complete minor public lighting works at the new traffic lights.

We are working with the power authority to switch on the lights as soon as possible. We anticipate the new traffic lights will be switched on in early 2023.

We’d like to thank the community for their patience while we complete these important safety improvements.

What we're doing

To make Lower Heidelberg Road in Ivanhoe East safer for school children, shoppers and other pedestrians, we’ll:

• install a set of traffic lights and a raised pedestrian crossing at Lower Heidelberg Road between Carmichael Street and Wilfred Road in Ivanhoe East
• carry out kerb and pavement works on Lower Heidelberg Road
• resurface parts of Lower Heidelberg Road between Carmichael Street and Wilfred Road.

The new traffic lights and raised pedestrian crossing on Lower Heidelberg Road will complement the existing pedestrian crossing east of Burton Crescent and the location has been chosen as a priority, based on safety and accessibility.

We’ll program the new traffic lights to keep traffic flowing on Lower Heidelberg Road until a pedestrian is detected at the traffic lights. 

The traffic lights will also include technology that automatically adjusts crossing times and detects pedestrians waiting to cross the road.

Changes to parking 

To make these important safety improvements, we will need to remove five parking bays on Lower Heidelberg Road near Carmichael Street.

We worked with Banyule City Council to ensure the location of the new traffic lights and raised pedestrian crossing aligns with future streetscaping plans to revitalise East Ivanhoe Village and minimise parking removal.

In the five-year period ending December 2019, four crashes occurred on Lower Heidelberg Road in Ivanhoe East between Carmichael Street and Burton Crescent and two crashes caused serious injury. Fortunately no lives were lost.

A breakdown of trauma shows us that in 2015, an average of 7 per cent of deaths and serious injuries in Victoria were caused by crashes involving cyclists and 
11 per cent of deaths and serious injuries were from crashes involving pedestrians. 

Research shows that if a pedestrian or cyclist is hit by a car travelling at 60km/h they are unlikely to survive. In fact, a pedestrian’s or cyclist’s risk of death or serious injury increases where vehicles are traveling at speeds of 30 km/h and upwards.

Mistakes happen, which as humans we can’t always avoid. What we can do is build more forgiving road infrastructure so that when a mistake does happen on the road, it doesn’t cost a life.

These upgrades will be made as part of the Australian Government’s $3 billion Road Safety Program, being delivered in partnership with the Victorian Government to deliver safer, connected journeys in Victoria, while supporting our economic recovery.

This $830,000 project is jointly funded with both the Australian Government and the Victorian government with each committing $415,000.

For more information about this project, please get in touch.

Email: [email protected]