By Luke Voogt
A Bellarine community group has taken its fight against two “unsafe” road proposals to the Victorian Ombudsman following a “non-response” by the authorities responsible.
“We hope the Ombudsman can influence the powers that be,” said Drysdale Clifton Springs Curlewis Association (DCSCA) president Neil McGuiness.
Mr McGuiness urged VicRoads to reconsider its plan for the western intersection of the Drysdale bypass, which he said would create an “unsafe bottleneck”.
The proposed Option 3a involved “blocking off Jetty Road” and building two signalised intersections and one roundabout, he said.
Currently there are two separate exits for Jetty Road and High Street at the Portarlington Road roundabout.
The VicRoads proposal would force motorists travelling to both Clifton Springs and Drysdale to use the same exit with the new intersection, Mr McGuiness explained.
“When a crash occurs, it will virtually paralyse the traffic flow into and out of Drysdale and Clifton Springs and compromise the operation of emergency services vehicles.
“Further, the bottleneck includes an excessively high number of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian conflict points that could result in serious injury.”
“It will create an unbalanced and inefficient traffic flow and increased travel times.”
The DCSCA proposed another option involving two twin-lane roundabouts, but VicRoads decided against the alternative, Mr McGuiness said.
The Traffic Accident Commission’s Towards Zero website states roundabouts are “safer than stop signs or signals at an intersection”.
Mr McGuiness wrote to the Ombudsman after VicRoads failed to respond to the association’s questions about the intersection in 28 days, he said.
He also wrote to the Ombudsman about a “dangerous” council-proposed road to the Jetty Road growth area.
‘We’ve got nowhere asking the city of Greater Geelong,” he said.
The DCSCA proposed an alternative but council had so far failed to respond to the association’s requests to assess the safety of the proposal, Mr McGuiness said.
“We’re saying it’s more dangerous than necessary and a comparative safety assessment would show that,” he said.
“I don’t think they’re taking our alternative seriously.
“If they’re serious about safety they should be doing these comparative safety assessments.“
Six weeks ago Bellarine MP Lisa Neville made an additional request to City Hall.
“Lisa Neville has been on our side,” Mr McGuiness said.
The council-proposed connector involved additional traffic signals on the Portarlington Road.
“We believe it’s not a very good place for a signalised intersection at the bottom of the hill,” Mr McGuiness said.
“We believe it will introduce potential collision points.”
The DCSCA instead proposed upgrading the intersection of Hermesly Road and Portarlington Road.
“What we are saying is that will be much safer because it will get rid of that uncontrolled intersection which is dangerous.”
