Notorious bottleneck rated worst for crashes, residents fed up

Jessica Benton
New statistics revealing a notorious traffic bottleneck as the Bellarine Peninsula’s worst roundabout for crashes have left a community group “fed up” with authorities responsible for the site.
The Vicroads figures revealed that motorists had almost three times as many crashes at the intersection of Jetty and Geelong-Portarlington roads as any other roundabout on the peninsula.
The roundabout had an annual crash rate of 3.25 per 100 million vehicles compared to 1.4 at other sites.
RACV has included the roundabout on the motoring organisation’s annual Redspot Survey of problem traffic sites.
The Independent has previously reported motorists’ frustration at vehicles banked up for kilometres when commuters converged on the roundabout during weekday peak-hour traffic.
The paper revealed last year that Vicroads and City of Greater Geelong had developed an upgrade plan to improve traffic flow through the roundabout.
However, Vicroads said the project would have to wait because other roadworks around the state had higher priority for funding.
Vicroads has since carried out “remedial work” including a treatment to limit skidding on each approach and removal of landscaping in the centre island.
Drysdale Clifton Springs Community Association president Roger Lavingdale said residents were “fed up” with the lack of attention to the roundabout.
“We believe State Government and council should get stuck into improving it because we’ve been speaking about this for over 12 months and virtually nothing has been done,” he said.
“There have been promises made but nothing done.
“It’s not a priority and we have to compare against Melbourne projects for funding.”
Mr Lavingdale called on Vicroads to separate regional Victorian and Melbourne projects when setting funding priorities.
RACV chief engineer Peter Daly said roundabouts were useful at intersections but had a “shelf life”.
“As traffic volumes increase, roundabouts may need to be modified or be replaced with traffic lights,” he said.
“As with all growing areas and as traffic volumes increase, it may well be that a roundabout is no longer the best treatment.”
Vicroads’ Duncan Elliott had not returned the Independent’s call for comment before the paper went to press yesterday.