Page 538 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 21 February 2018
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MS FITZHARRIS (Yerrabi—Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Minister for Transport and City Services and Minister for Higher Education, Training and Research) (5.10): I welcome the opportunity to speak again with members today about road safety in the ACT, notably at this intersection of Ginninderra Drive. Indeed, we spoke about it only last week, as we have on a number of occasions in the chamber, as well as in our annual reports hearings.
As members well know, the ACT government takes road safety and residents’ amenity seriously and encourages all road users to share responsibility for road safety. As I said last week, a number of integrated speed management measures, including engineering, enforcement, encouragement and education are part of the ACT road safety strategy and action plan. Another one of these measures is to implement local area traffic management treatments in residential areas.
Transport Canberra and City Services has developed a traffic warrant system to identify the need for and prioritise traffic management measures in residential areas. High ranked streets in the traffic warrant system are investigated and measures implemented where practicable.
An important part of any project is to seek feedback from local residents and the surrounding community about what issues might exist and what potential improvements should be considered. As members are aware, the ACT government conducts extensive community consultation. In this case, it conducted extensive consultation to develop options to improve traffic conditions along Tillyard Drive and the surrounding streets. In November and December of 2016, feedback was collected about issues from residents of Charnwood, Flynn, Fraser and the wider community. In addition to seeking community views, the study included a technical component which analysed traffic speed, traffic volume and crash data.
The major areas of concern raised by the community included: safety at intersections, particularly at the intersection of Tillyard Drive and Lhotsky Street; speeding, particularly on Tillyard Drive, Kuringa Drive, Moroney Street, Spalding Street, Lhotsky Street and Bingle Street; pedestrian safety issues and visibility issues at mid-blocks; peak-hour congestion issues, particularly at the Tillyard Drive intersections with Lhotsky and Daley streets; and safety around the Fraser Primary School.
Feedback from the community consultation included concerns regarding the Tillyard Drive intersections with Ginninderra Drive and Lhotsky Street. These concerns were also validated by the technical analyses of traffic data at these intersections. Following the consultation, TCCS progressed a more detailed investigation on the Tillyard Drive intersections with Ginninderra Drive and Lhotsky Street.
As was part of the discussion in the annual reports hearings, with Mrs Kikkert present at those annual reports discussions, it was made very clear, but I am happy to state it here, that the original consultation on Tillyard Drive expressly did not include consideration of major intersections—I certainly acknowledge that that could have been made clearer in the consultations from TCCS—and further work on local area traffic management planning, which more often than not does not include major
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