After a meeting with Steph Cooke MP, local advocate Maddie Bott has secured support from the Member for Cootamundra to produce her petition to the NSW Parliament.
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"The amazing Stephanie Cook is wanting to take our petition to NSW Parliament - unfortunately I had to make another petition specific to parliament," Maddie said.
"500 signatures get a minister response, 20,000 will create a debate in the NSW Parliament."
Within only the first 24 hours there were already 1616 signatures on the petition with a number of locals sharing Maddie's post on Facebook helping her reach the 20,000 signature goal.
"We are reaching our goals to achieve change," Maddie said.
The Change.org petition Maddie had set up has reached over 15,557 signatures and has garnered a lot of attention with both the media and on social media.
"Please take a few more minutes to sign this new petition," Maddie said.
"Thanks to my amazing support network for helping me.
"I love you mate and I promise we are not going to give up!"
Maddie said on February 23, 2021 at a passive level crossing her fiancé and his work colleague lost their lives when their truck collided with a train.
"As a passive crossing it only had a stop sign. Visibility at this crossing was affected by many factors including over grown grass, trees blocking the view, and the road they approached the crossing from is not at 90 degrees to the track," Maddie said.
"Had this crossing had lights these factors would have been irrelevant as they would of been notified of the oncoming train and would not of proceeded to cross the railway track."
According to Maddie there are 1,363 public level crossings in NSW with only 30 percent of these having active warning controls, the rest are passive.
"By 2030 heavy vehicle traffic is predicted to increase by 50 percent and rail freight to increase by 90 percent," Maddie said.
"These numbers are from predictions made in 2012 as part of research for the Level Crossing Closures Policy. However this predates the inland rail project which will lead to more traffic and greater risk of these types of collisions."
To sign the petition visit https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/la/Pages/ePetition-details.aspx?q=QQUGJ0/mWLyBeBBwd9XfOw==
