A well-placed source said the driver was believed to have suffered a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lungs, before collapsing at the wheel. Three of the five pedestrians injured were taken to hospital, while the driver of the truck was trapped in the vehicle for about 45 minutes before being rushed to hospital in a critical condition. The scene of the truck crash at Green Square. Credit:AAP Mr Hoenig said if the truck had been 50 metres in the other direction then it would been a catastrophe. "There's nothing else that can be done other than restricting the access of heavy vehicles during peak pedestrian times," he said. "If you are walking down Botany Road you see the narrowness of the road, the volume of vehicles is just a gridlock.

"I am proposing that heavy vehicles should not have access to Botany Road during peak periods on the footpath because there is nothing else that can be done. You can't put a concrete barrier up because the footpaths are too narrow. "Having time restrictions on heavy vehicles on major routes has not been done in Australia, but it is done in a number of countries overseas." Hundreds of cities and towns across Europe restrict access to areas using a range of criteria in what are known as urban access regulations. Pedestrian congestion around Green Square is believed to have worsened since the recent closure of a pedestrian underpass for train commuters. Green Square pedestrian underpass closed Credit:SMH

Mr Hoenig recently warned Parliament of the possible impact of temporarily closing the underpass. "As a consequence, I have been advised that residents are sneaking through the barrier fences and running across Botany Road in peak hour to make their way across to their train station because the tunnel under Botany Road is closed. God forbid anyone is injured because of it," he said. Ken Taylor, who has lived around Green Square for six years said his main concern was overcrowding. "Everything is catered to the traffic," Mr Taylor said. "You’re standing and waiting for the traffic lights for three minutes. You’re always taking two to three steps back at the traffic lights because trucks and buses are always coming past. "The train station is going to suffer - there’s only one escalator going up and one going down. The planning hasn’t been there for the amount of people they’re wanting to put in.” Martin, another user of the road, took to Twitter: "I was about 2 mins behind the incident this morning. It was only a matter of time - I bike this route every day into the city and the speed of the heavy trucks down Botany Rd is insane. Just a few weeks back I saw a B Double clip a small car and carry on oblivious."

Loading The Green Square development encompassing Waterloo, Zetland, and parts of Alexandria and Rosebery is just over half complete but will become Australia's most densely populated precinct within a decade when 61,000 residents are forecast to call it home. Figures from the state’s roads agency show about 6700 vehicles travel on O'Riordan Street near Green Square station between 6am and 10am each weekday, up from about 6000 a decade ago. And in a sign of the growing pressure, staff at Green Square station have on occasions in the past year been forced to stop passengers from entering platforms due to overcrowding. The number of passengers using the station on a weekday has surged by almost 80 per cent over the last three years, from 11,680 in 2014 to about 21,000 in 2017, figures from the state's transport agency show.