A group of residents in Mitchell Park fears it's only a matter of time until they fall victim to an "extremely dangerous" and increasingly used road on their doorstep.
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Dowling Road, which runs between Remembrance Drive in the south and Sunraysia Highway in the north, is unexpectedly narrow, riddled with potholes and has several dangerous crests, the group said.
In particular, residents are concerned about the unsealed section between Blind Creek Road and the Western Freeway.
But while the road is hazardous, this does not mean it's any less busy.
Indeed, the group said they were seeing more and more vehicles use the road, as it provided a direct link to the Western Freeway from growing areas such as Lucas.
Former City of Ballarat mayor John Philips is leading the push for council to improve the road's condition.
"On the edges it's washed out, it's over a foot deep in some of the sides of it," he said.
"[There's] a lot of potholes on it, and it's just getting worse and worse and worse."
Traffic increasing in growth areas
Mr Philips said residents wanted to see the road sealed and have some of the crests smoothed to improve visibility, but City of Ballarat had told them they wouldn't do so until the road is used by 250 or more cars per day.
In council documents seen by The Courier, a 2021 Dowling Road traffic survey found the average daily number of cars using the road were between 143 and 193.
But in the two years since this surveying occurred, Mr Philips said traffic had increased owing to the growth in Ballarat's outer suburbs.
"It's not just local people that are using it," he said.
"It's a north-south connector road for people who dodge around Ballarat instead of having to go through either the Ring Road or Link Road or Gillies Street, which is fairly congested.
"It's been like this for probably the past six or eight years, it's been just getting busier and busier and busier all the time."
This increase in traffic has meant locals are having to contend with drivers who are unaware of the road's dangerous sections.
Mr Philips' wife, Michelle Philips, said the crests in the road were "extremely dangerous", as they occurred in narrow sections where it was impossible to see cars coming in the opposite direction.
"Those of us that live on it, we know to slow down and to stay to the left, because we know there's going to be other idiots that will come over those crests right in the middle of the road," she said.
"Every single one of us has had a really close shave where we thought we were going to have a head on."
According to Victorian accident data, there have been nine incidents on Dowling Road, since 2012.
In these accidents, seven people have been seriously injured and one died in 2014.
It's something resident Ian Dance has become accustomed to seeing through his work with the Country Fire Authority.
"I've lost count of the number of accidents I've been to along Dowling Road and this intersection [with the Western Freeway], including fatalities," he said.
Funding boost for Ballarat's roads
While the group are unhappy with the current state of the road, they also fear it will deteriorate further during the coming winter.
In wet conditions, they said it becomes slimy and slippery as there is not much gravel covering the surface, and sludge also runs off the road and builds up on the exit to the Western Freeway.
After putting up with such conditions for years, the group believes now is the ideal time for City of Ballarat to fix Dowling Road, as it received $13 million over the next five years in extra road funding in the recent federal budget.
"We've raised it with council and they reckon they've got no money, but they've got 13-and-a-half million dollars being thrown around," Mr Philips said.
In a statement to The Courier, City of Ballarat director infrastructure and environment Bridget Wetherall said there were no plans to seal Dowling Road, but re-grading works would take place in the coming weeks.
"When deciding whether to seal an unsealed road, we look at the traffic volume and speed, what the maintenance levels of the road are and would be, and what types of vehicles are using the road," she said.
"Traffic counts along Dowling Road were last conducted in 2021 and we will soon conduct further traffic counts to compare results."
