THIS week a group of residents of Melbourne’s booming northern growth corridor began a sort of game on Facebook, comparing how long they spent on the road that day driving to and from work.



They also recorded the route they took, an exercise that had a distinct sameness to it. South Morang only has one north-south arterial road, and it has become increasingly choked as the suburb’s population grew by 32,000 in the 10 years to 2011, making it Australia’s fastest growing suburb.



For much of its length, Plenty Road has only one lane in each direction. A 2.4-kilometre stretch is being duplicated in response to the intense traffic growth, which leapt from 10,000 vehicles each weekday in 2008 to more than 17,000 last year, according to VicRoads.



But for now, the roadworks are only making the peak-hour commute even more arduous and some in the Facebook group reported that it took more than half an hour to traverse just one suburb.



Veteran Whittlesea city councillor Rex Griffin said the local roads were failing, and with tens of thousands of homes expected to be built in neighbouring Doreen and Mernda in the next 10 to 15 years, the area was in danger of traffic meltdown without major investment.



‘‘The roads aren’t working and people are in a situation where they’re trying to use public transport, but they’ve got to try to get to public transport,’’ he said.



South Morang has Melbourne’s newest railway station, which opened to much fanfare in April.



However, Cr Griffin said the station was not actually in South Morang, but just across the suburban border in Mill Park. Its 450-space car park is full by 7.30am each weekday.



Last week, the Labor-dominated Whittlesea city council that governs Melbourne’s northern growth corridor voted unanimously to pressure the state government to extend the South Morang line to Mernda. Neither the government nor the opposition has a policy to extend the line.



Mernda local Lyndon Summers, who is part of the Facebook campaign with a page ‘‘Extend the line to Mernda’’ boasting more than 1000 ‘‘likes’’, said the area remained under-serviced. ‘‘It takes me 45 minutes to drive to South Morang station from Mernda if I leave after 7am. If you’re going to build housing estates, you need to have public transport. Even if you’re not going to build something straight away, you need to think about the future,’’ he said.



One last thing about the Facebook campaign. It was kickstarted by a group member who posted an old rail map of Melbourne when the line extended as far as Whittlesea. Back then, the train from Flinders Street station to Mernda took about 70 minutes. Yesterday one group member posted that a similar journey by car had taken him 90 minutes.



With GEORGIA WILKINS



