Bristol Rd residents’ anger at traffic ‘fibs’

Hamish Heard
Fuming residents of Torquay’s Bristol Road have accused Surf Coast Shire of backpedalling on promises to reduce traffic flows in their street.
Torquay Ratepayers’ Association secretary Lyn Smith, who lives in Bristol Road, accused shire consultants of “saying one thing and doing another”.
She said the town’s structure plan threatened to overrule conditions imposed at the state planning tribunal to place “traffic calming devices” in the street and a shire promise to remove highway median access to the road.
Victorian Civil and Admin-istrative Tribunal ruled in May for measures to reduce traffic at the western end of Bristol Road after completion of a Torquay Central shopping and residential development on a former primary school site.
However, a shire transport infrastructure strategy review released since the VCAT hearing proposes funnelling traffic to the site down Bristol Road.
“By sending all of the traffic to Torquay Central and Gilbert Street down Bristol Road, the shire can save money by not putting traffic lights on Zeally Bay Road, closing the median strip or putting a roundabout on Anderson Street,” Mrs Smith said.
“The residents of Bristol Road are angry because we feel it will become a complete bottleneck – a total nightmare.”
Under the original plan, agreed at VCAT in May, traffic movements on the street would halve to about 1800 a day.
But Mrs Smith said implementation of the consultant’s recommendations would increase traffic to nearly 6000 movements a day.
“If any of (the transport infrastructure strategy rev-iew) recommendations are implemented, they are funneling additional traffic onto Bristol Road by stealth,” Mrs Smith said.
“The shire insists on pumping out so many strategies that one will always conflict with the next and nobody knows what’s going on.
“You just don’t have the time to keep up with all this rubbish.”
The transport infrastructure assessment said the intersection of Bristol Road and Surf Coast Highway would need a roundabout or traffic lights.
“The amenity impacts to residential areas of increased traffic flows will be less (in Bristol Rd) than for other streets,” it stated.
Mayor Libby Mears acknowledged “conflicting information” in the $60,000 structure plan.
She said the shire intended the document merely as a “conversation starter”.
“Traffic management concerns have been highlighted by a number of residents during my cafe conversations and those suggestions will be addressed,” Cr Mears said.