There are six lanes of heavy traffic outside Lilly's boutique flower shop in Bayswater, a noisy and dangerous barrier for any person who might want to cross the road to buy one of her bouquets.
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A 22-year veteran of the shopping strip (the council even named the walkway next to her shop Lilly's Lane in her honour), Lilly has witnessed pedestrians being hit by cars on the road and even by cyclists who prefer to barrel down the sloping footpath than mix it with traffic.
"It's dangerous to cross the road … and to leave the shop, I tell my customers to be careful," she said.
It is for these reasons she thinks the plan to narrow Mountain Highway from six to four lanes is a good one, despite protests from the RACV that it will inevitably choke traffic.
The highway at the foot of the Dandenongs is among the busiest roads in Melbourne's outer east, used by about 36,000 vehicles a day, but this month will be narrowed where it bisects Bayswater shopping village, in conjunction with the $177 million project to remove two level crossings.
In place of two lanes of tarmac, footpaths will be widened, native trees planted and on-road bike lanes added, as part of a long-held Knox city council plan to revive and beautify Bayswater village.
The council launched this plan in 2004 and has leapt at the Andrews government's imminent removal of the Mountain Highway and Scoresby Road level crossings as a way to finally make it happen.
Work will begin this month building an overpass across the rail line, including the third track that leads into the Bayswater train depot opposite the station, a source of heavy congestion on Mountain Highway as trains are moved in and out of service on either side of the peak.
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An artist's impression of the future Bayswater station and Mountain Highway overpass. Credit: Level Crossing Removal Authority
VicRoads, which is managing the roadworks, says the new streetscape "will not only encourage the traffic flow, but also make a more livable community area".
Its suggestion that removing lanes will improve traffic flow has been met with derision by the RACV.
Brian Negus, the group's director of public policy, joined an army of critics in the comments thread of VicRoads' own Facebook page this week when he lambasted the roads authority for what he said was "the most inane proposal that we have seen in recent years".
"We are dealing with a major highway in Melbourne's east that is important to all travellers, including business groups, industry and the freight sector, not some local road," Mr Negus said.
VicRoads has analysed the impact the lane reduction and the level crossing removal will have on traffic flow and estimates there will essentially be no change for Mountain Highway. It will carry about 36,000 vehicles a day, the same volume it has seen for the past 10 years.
The argument makes sense to Lilly.
"If you have two lanes but they flow, it is much better than if you have six lanes but the traffic piles up, because the booms are down," she said.
