Page 1813 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 June 2021
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the sound of wailing sirens. They are sick of promises. They are sick of inaction. Many of them said that they just do not want their P-plate-driving children to die in an accident just around the corner from home.
The David Mitchell petition does not specify the traffic engineering solution for this blackspot; rather, it calls for safety improvements to the intersection. I would like to refer to the government’s own blackspot feasibility study on this intersection that was completed in September last year. The study indicated that in the five-year study period, which was from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2018, there were 20 collisions at this intersection, including seven resulting in injury. The collision frequency at this intersection is around 0.75 collisions per million vehicles entering. According to the report, this is very high for a T-intersection.
The report suggested five possible solutions, ranging from traffic lights to reducing the speed limit or converting the intersection to a roundabout. The roundabout option was the only one that was absolutely dismissed by the report, purely for practical reasons.
I applaud Peter Philippa, who, coincidently, was running a very similar pure paper petition on this matter. It is unfortunate that the two petitions are just a little different in their wording. In total, the David Mitchell e-petition and paper petition, together with the Peter Philippa paper petition, have gathered in excess of 500 signatures. Having 500 signatures combined on the one petition would have resulted in this petition being automatically referred to a committee.
Madam Speaker, I seek guidance from you as to whether I can now move, pursuant to standing order 99, that this petition relating to traffic improvements on Tharwa Drive and Lawrence Wackett Crescent be referred to the planning, transport and city services committee for further consideration.
MADAM SPEAKER: You need to do it as a separate item after people have spoken on the petitions.
MR DAVIS (Brindabella) (10.12): I rise to thank Mr David Mitchell, the petitioner, and Mr Parton, the sponsor of the petition, for calling on the government to implement traffic improvements at the western intersection of Lawrence Wackett Crescent and Tharwa Drive.
My experience of this intersection is both professional and personal. I will speak to the professional first.
During the election campaign, as I doorknocked in Theodore and spoke to our shared constituents, I found that road management in this area, and this particular intersection, was a recurring theme of conversations that I was having with members of the community. A number of people raised with me serious concerns about safety, lights, road management and the like at that intersection. The figures are particularly stark if we reflect on Mr Parton’s contribution and reference to 20 collisions during a four-year period, seven of them resulting in injury. Those are numbers that should impel us to give a swift response.
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