Last week he had the chance to take those concerns further when Nationals Leader, Danny O’Brien was in town.
“There's been major concerns about the safety of this intersection here, and the residents are worried somebody's going to get killed,” James said.
“There's already been a few accidents here.”
While there’s general agreement that traffic lights or a roundabout are needed at the intersection, it’s a long-term proposal.
Mr McCurdy says there was a short-term solution that could be put in place in the meantime.
He says the service road in front of Bunnings is wide enough for two lanes and in the short term could be utilised by traffic turning right and potentially avoid accidents on the intersection.
“The long-term will either be traffic lights or a roundabout or something more substantial, but in the meantime, we can do a short-term fix,” Mr McCurdy said.
“It would mean cooperation between VicRoads and Moira Shire because at the moment the service road is one way, but it’s wide enough to be made two-way and then there could be two exits.”
If his party is successful at the September election, Mr O’Brien and Liberal opposition leader, Jess Wilson will inherit one of the state’s most pressing problems, the state of the roads.
He says it’s about priorities and putting priorities where they’re needed.
“We’ve got a government that's spending billions of dollars on tunnels in Melbourne, and regional Victoria gets left with goat tracks and potholes everywhere,” Mr O’Brien said.
“And it's not just the spending on the projects in Melbourne, it’s the waste and corruption that we've seen, at least $15 billion of money lost to corruption.
“If we had that money, think what we could do for roads in Ovens Valley, think what we could do for this intersection.”
Leading into the election, the Liberals and Nationals have launched a Fair Share Guarantee which would see regional Victoria receive 25 per cent of infrastructure spending, compared to the current 12 per cent.
“If we had that sort of investment, that sort of share, we'd be able to do projects like this far more quickly and actually improve the road movement,” Mr O’Brien said.
In the meantime, Mr McCurdy has launched a petition calling for urgent safety improvements at the intersection.
He said with Yarrawonga continuing to grow and traffic increasing around Bunnings, Aldi and Coles, it's clear the intersection needs action before someone is seriously injured.
“I’ve been pushing for improvements in Parliament, and now we need support to show just how important this issue is,” he said.
The petition can be signed online at https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/.../the-intersection.../ or on hard copy at Yarrawonga Newsagency in Belmore St.
