Angry motorists call for action on worst bottleneck: Our daily nightmare

Jessica Benton
Motorists have labelled the roundabout at Portarlington, Jetty and Grubb roads as “chaos”, “mayhem” and a “nightmare” at morning peak hour.
Between 8am and 9am cars, trucks, school buses and bikes congest the roads, with motorists often banked for kilometres.
They must negotiate the roundabout to reach Geelong from Clifton Springs, Drysdale, Portarlington, Indented Head and St Leonards.
The motorists fear the snarl will become worse when developers open new subdivisions for hundreds of homes at Clifton Springs and Portarlington.
The Independent visited the roundabout on Wednesday morning.
Clifton Springs’ Des McKernan complained the roundabout was a “bottleneck” every day.
He said Vicroads should investigate a bypass, traffic lights or double lanes approaching the roundabout to alleviate the daily snarl.
A man on Jetty Road yelled from his car that the roundabout was a “disgrace” and demanded action from Vicroads.
In a letter to the editor last week, Clifton Springs’ Lisa Schorback complained of a “sea of brake lights” at the roundabout.
“It took me almost 20 minutes to move no more than one kilometre,” she wrote.
“This is a feat endured daily by the many residents endeavouring to make their way to work or to drop their kids at one of several schools in the area.
“There’s only one way to get to Geelong out of Drysdale and Clifton Springs – through the said roundabout – and on any given school day it’s nothing short of traffic chaos.
“With limited, poorly timetabled public transport available, residents have no choice but to drive through this mess.”
Ms Schorback feared the impact of the new residential developments.
“Will someone please explain how a further 800 housing blocks will alleviate this traffic nightmare?”
Vicroads regional director Duncan Elliott said the organisation and City of Greater Geelong were working on a solution.
“We’ve put together a proposal for improvement to the roundabout,” he said.
“An additional left-hand lane to get from Drysdale across to Grubb and Anderson roads is one option.”
Mr Elliott said Vicroads would consider the roundabout as part of its annual program process.
But it would be “prioritised with other projects around the state”, he said.
“The key issue seems to be the need to reduce the heavy traffic going through the roundabout at peak times.
“Traffic lights could assist with this but separating the traffic and adding a lane would better improve capacity.
“There’s certainly measures that can be done before you rip out the roundabout and replace it with traffic lights, which would be a much higher cost treatment.”
Bellarine MP Lisa Neville said she was “very aware” of the roundabout snarl.
“I’ve been working with Vicroads and the local councillor discussing options for improving the way the intersection works,” she said.
“There’s been some improvements as a result of work by the council at Anderson’s Road, which has improved traffic flows to and from the school.”