Byron Shire’s Local Traffic Committee is only ‘local’ from the Sydney-centric perspective of its owner: the NSW government.
It is not a committee of council. It’s the state’s four-way forum of police, Roads and Maritime Services, the state Member for Ballina, and one councillor (me, also chair).
The committee (LTC) determines whether things like speed limits, parking signs, and other requests for traffic controls are legal or not. It does not design them. It looks at whether they comply or not with state guidelines.
LTC does not design kerb blisters, mentioned as ‘concrete islands’ in a recent letter.
Personally, I agree with Fast Buck$ and don’t like kerb blisters. They homogenise our funky rural shire into a compact mini Balmain.
By way of example, the blisters that ate Brunswick Heads were funded by grants from outside council. That money cannot be diverted to where we’d rather spend it, fixing our rural roads.
LTC may have had to approve Bunnings’ new roundabout on Bayshore Drive, but it did not design it. I hope others can advise how its colour was chosen. And I hope future roundabouts don’t take as long to build as that one did.
Duncan Dey, Byron Shire councillor
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
