URGENT ACTION NEEDED ON BRIDGE TRAFFIC ISSUES
Endorsed by Council on June 17 as an urgent matter, the City is also seeking the support of local Members of Parliament and the wider region to lobby the State and Australian Governments to trial two lanes of northbound peak hour traffic in the mornings from Monday to Friday and this two-lane priority to be switched to southbound for peak hour traffic in the afternoons.
Mandurah Mayor Paddi Creevey said recent traffic management issues and congestion, especially at peak hours, highlighted that the current three-lane configuration of the Estuary Bridge was inadequate for current traffic and future traffic loadings.
“With the increasing population in the City’s southern areas, our major concern is that if the region ever faced a major emergency the traffic-carrying capacity of the bridge could be a ‘life or death’ matter,” Mayor Creevey said.
“We are confident that a trial of two priority northbound lanes for peak hour traffic in the morning will help take the pressure off the Old Traffic Bridge while the City continues to implement its City Centre Traffic Management Modifications.”
In 2003, analysis of Main Roads WA traffic modelling on Mandurah’s Estuary Bridge showed that only about 20 per cent of vehicles would be diverted to the new Perth to Bunbury Highway when it is completed in late 2009, indicating that the majority of traffic movements are local.
Mayor Creevey said the City would request an update from Main Roads on forward works planning for duplication of the Estuary Bridge to four lanes.
“Initial State planning documents recommended that the bridge be duplicated between 2011 and 2021, and we agree with the 2006 recommendations of the Peel Region Infrastructure Plan that duplication of the Estuary Bridge be brought forward,” she said.
“This is the only two-lane bridge on the Perth to Bunbury route so the State Government and Main Roads need to recognise the vulnerability of this significant regional road access in emergency situations, especially with the need to replace the Old Mandurah Traffic Bridge by 2013.
“Otherwise, we will have no choice but to close the old bridge to vehicles and this could be disastrous with only one bridge to service our rapidly growing population.”
RELEASE ENDS
25 June 2008