The Road Management Plan guides how how we manage and maintain Council-controlled roads and pathways in Merri-bek. We are required to use our Road Management Plan to outline standards that are reasonable, achievable and affordable. We are also required to outline how we will inspect the roads and pathways.
We recently reviewed the Road Management Plan and identified some changes that could improve our service. The changes improve the way we describe defects in our roads and pathways. There are also some changes to how we define intervention levels and inspection regimes in the plan.
Glossary
Road and path categories
We give our roads and footpaths different category names to help prioritise them.
Often the higher priority roads or paths have more frequent inspections and are fixed more quickly.
Our road and footpath categories align with the Moving Around Merri-bek Transport Strategy.
The road categories, in order of priority are:
- Link
- Collector
- Access
- Right of Way or constructed laneways
The footpath categories, in order of priority are:
- High Use 1 - these are paths in activity centres and shopping strips
- High Use 2 - these are paths in our Streets for People network
- Standard - these are all other footpaths
Road management terms
Here are some words we use when describing how we manage our roads and footpaths:
- Defect: a problem with a road or path like a hole, a crack or a place where the surface is uneven. It could also be a problem with a sign or linemarking.
Hazard: a defect that could be dangerous
Intervention: work that we do to fix a defect or hazard
Response time: how quickly we inspect a defect or hazard after it has been reported to us
Linemarking: the lines painted on our roads to show how they should be used
Depression: a place where the height of the road dips down, like a dent.
Kerb and channel: the edge of a path where the footpath meets the road and the channel or gutter that water drains into.
Proposed Changes
Amendments to the Road Management Plan have been proposed that align with the Municipal Association Victoria recommendations. In some cases we have proposed higher levels of service than Municipal Association Victoria recommends.
Proposed Changes:
- Adding night-time inspections to check the visibility of road signs and linemarking in the dark.
- Roads, paths and retaining walls over 1 metre will be inspected in the daytime at least once every 24 months. This is down from 37 months for several categories.
- Inspecting link roads for and High Use 1 paths for defects every 6 months. This is down from every 13 months.
- Less time between inspections for access roads with shimmies.
Proposed changes:
- Potholes in roads are defined as a hazard when the diameter is 300mm. This is reduced from 400mm.
- Depressions and deformations in roads are defined as a hazard when the depression is 50mm deep. This is reduced from 100mm.
Instead of responding within 30 days for the following hazards, we are proposing:
- Potholes and depressions that are defined as hazards will be responded to on Link roads within 2 weeks.
- Potholes and depressions that are defined as hazards will be responded to on Collector roads within 3 weeks.
- Missing pieces of pathway or potholes on High Use 1 paths will be responded to within 2 weeks.
- Missing pit lids on roads will be responded to in 1, 5 or 10 days depending on the road category.
- Missing pit lids on paths will be responded to in 1 or 4 days depending on the path category.
We will now consider the following elements when assessing the need for upgrades:
- Trees or plants that overhang roads and paths.
- Trees or plants that block sight distance for roads and shared paths.
- Cracks that run across, or at right angles to, the direction of travel on pathways.
- Loose and unstable pavers on pathways.
- Missing tactile tiles on pathways.
Currently we only respond to trip hazards on High Use 1 and High Use 2 paths if they are over 30mm in size.
We propose including trip hazards that are 25mm in size and over. We will divide trip hazards into 2 tiers with the following response times:
- Tier 1: Over 30mm. We will respond to tier 1 trip hazards within 4 weeks.
- Tier 2: between 25mm and 30mm. We will respond to tier 2 trip hazards within 6 months.
We will reduce the level of service for the following items:
- Level 2 bridge inspections will be done ‘as needed’
- Response times for signage issues in Right-of-way or constructed lanes will increase. This aligns with quicker response times for higher priority roads.
- Response times for damaged or missing guard rail will reduce for lower priority roads.
- If water pooling occurs we will assess the need to rebuild the kerb and channel as needed and remove the service from the plan in line with the Municipal Associate Victoria template.
- The measurement for when we address unevenness in footpaths will increase to align with the Municipal Association Victoria definition.
- Previously it was 30mm over a 1.2m straight edge.
- This will become 75mm over a 1.5m straight edge.
- Response times will increase for unevenness or missing pieces of path in standard footpaths. We will respond to these hazards within 8 weeks. This aligns with quicker response times for High Use 1 paths.
Get Involved
Your can share your thoughts on the proposed amendments to the Road Management Plan by completing the survey below. This survey will close at 11.59pm on Thursday 18 September 2025.
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- You can now continue with your submission
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