Speed cut sought as councillor pushes for change over pedestrian safety concerns

Bypass Works TBW Newsgroup
BYPASS WORKS: While the Penola Bypass works are well underway, Riddoch Ward councillor Dean Burrow is hopeful of an eleventh hour change to the speed limit.
Bypass Works TBW Newsgroup
BYPASS WORKS: While the Penola Bypass works are well underway, Riddoch Ward councillor Dean Burrow is hopeful of an eleventh hour change to the speed limit.
AN ELEVENTH-HOUR change to a four-part recommendation made by Wattle Range councillor Dean Burrow has forced council to post-pone their discussions on decreasing the maximum speed limit for the Penola Bypass.
Retracting his recommendations merely hours before the monthly chamber meeting Cr Burrow attempted to put forward altered requests.
With little to no time for elected members to comprehend the changes, the recommendations are expected to be pushed to March’s meeting where they will be discussed further.
The recommendations surrounded decreasing the 110kph maximum speed limit on the bypass to 80kph with a focus of school children being able to cross the new development safely.
The four-part recommendation also requested council conduct further community consultation for the path installed from Penola to Greenrise Recreation Reserve and discuss with the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure to consider closing the existing public and staff access points, remind the department the Naracoorte and Keith bypass’ have a speed limit of 60kph and fund a landscape architect to design plans for parcels of land created as a result of the bypass.
The recommendations originally read that members of the Penola community have to negotiate crossing a busy highway with B-Doubles hurtling through at 100kph and I do not consider that to be safe situation.

“There is also the fact that children, living on the west side of town have to cross the bypass at the T-junction with Millicent Road to enable them to get to school.

“I do not believe that it is safe for the children to be crossing with vehicles travelling at 100kph.”

Cr Burrow’s four-part motion also sought council support to write to the State Government and close the existing public and staff access points and locating them alongside the proposed pedestrian access point on the only straight section of the bypass.

“I believe there are some alteraction that could be made at this late stage of the development, which will improve the safety and the amentities of the area,” he said.

“I believe it is possible to reduce the number of access and egress points from the reserve from three to one.

“This would involve dispensing with the current public access and the staff access and combining them together with the proposed pedestrian access.”

Alongside Cr Burrow’s recommendations, elected members discussed the proposed realignment of the cycling and walking trail to Greenrise Reserve as a result of changes to the Penola Bypass’ southern intersection.

A staff report says the works at the southern end of the bypass will result in priority to vehicles travelling along the bypass road and development of turning lanes onto Church Street.

“These works result in changes to the walking cycling path to Greenrise Reserve as the intersection changes making it unsafe for users of the path to cross the road due to reduced site distances,” the report says.

“The solution as provided by the design engineers, is the provision of a safe crossing point further west which offers a safer location for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the bypass.”

A new path will be three metres wide and constructed to sealed standard with signage and line-marking, as well as gates to be installed as part of the project.

“The provision of double gates will be included as part of accessing the southern part of the common age reserve to ensure sheep hazing in this area do not escape onto the roads,” the report says,

“All gates – excluding the gate adjacent to Church Street – will also be spring loaded to limit any gates being left open.”

All costs for the project are part of the redevelopment of the northern stage of the Penola Bypass.