Traffic heading into Byron Bay has slowed down as the first day of the Byron Writers Festival kicks off. The traffic situation has been aggravated by a truck crash on Ewingsdale Road that is causing southbound traffic queues of up to four kilometres. It is understood that the truck ran off the road near the old Sunnybrand chicken farm on Ewingsdale Road.
There have also been delays for northbound drivers on Hinterland Way accessing the M1 due to the congestion at the roundabouts at the entrance and exit to the M1 at the Byron Bay slip roads.
sitting in the jam for over an hour and our radio station had no explanation for local commuters, to busy with unimportant things
Delays on Hinterland Way due to congestion at the M1 are all too frequent.
Obviously the Government’s design of the M1 intersection at Ewingsdale is inadequate.
Roger Seccombe
Traffic Engineer
I spent over 1 hour travelling down Hinterland Way from Coolamon Scenic Dr, and 2 hours in total from Coolamon Scenic South end, to Elements.That’s usually a 10-15 minute trip.
What kept me great company on the way was Nyck Jeanes & David Leser on BayFM, having a vitally important & engrossing conversation.
It was a shame that BayFM did not have traffic information for us all, though I wonder how would they? Perhaps there are formalised channels for such info, from the police? It would be wonderful to let people know what’s going on so that some may choose another route or to delay a trip.
It was obvious to me that the traffic arriving from the North was prioritised by the structure of the roundabout. There was a constant 2 lanes exiting the highway & heading east on Ewingsdale Rd. Therefore the traffic from the North bound Highway exit, Hinterland Way & Myocum Road simply did not get to move through the western roundabout, let alone the eastern one. If the traffic arriving from the North had only their right hand lane open, there would have been a far more equitable flow of traffic.
This evening there was another crash on the 80 section of Ewingsdale Road, resulting in us sitting in stalled traffic in the Writers Festival carpark for 50 minutes. Getting home in 1 1/4 hours. Sheesh!
So was there two accidents because I was caught up this evening 5.30 too!
Sitting in traffic this evening trying to escape Byron our along Ewingsdale Rd was just crazy so turned around headed back to town the. Out Bangalow Rd to Bangalow then back on Hinterland Way…
Tell me why I moved out of Byron again?
Inadequate is putting it mildly. All those double exit lanes from roundabouts are too short, traffic merging immediately after exiting a roundabout. Roundabouts are so close to each other & as for Ewingsdale Road…well that’s another, eternal issue.
The single exit for Byron, Bangalow, Lismore, etc., Is woefully inadequate.
Whether this is poor design or false economy the situation will continue to deteriorate unless more exits are created.
Bring back the trains. Why can’t you get that into your tiny brain?
Perhaps Mary, our tiny brains are sufficiently large to understand the advice of the Arup report that a train service would only remove 1.2% of cars from the road, and to understand that better bus services that can go to places people need to travel – like hospitals and campuses – will attract more users and have a greater impact on traffic. Indeed the most recent festival showed how buses can be mobilised to shift far more people than any train on a single track line ever could, each one taking 20 or more cars of the road.
And perhaps too, our tiny brains are capable of accepting that no government will waste however many hundreds of millions it would need to put trains back on the line, and capable of realising the importance of ensuring real public transport that will serve all of the towns and all of the transport corridors in our region, not just the minority who live along the rail corridor. .
I can’t understand why anyone would want to go to Byron in the first place.