Cr Alan Hunter will present a motion at this Thursday’s meeting for a ‘requirement to have all Council traffic and movement related committees adopt a policy to have one minute per kilometre average inter-village journey travel time in the Shire as a part of an overall vision’.
Cr Hunter says, ‘Byron Shire residents need to know exactly what Council intends to achieve in managing the traffic. Currently they don’t, because even Council doesn’t’.
‘Despite the $24 million bypass road works coming to an end, and the $30 mil spend on fixing Shire roads this year, traffic jams may not yet be totally fixed.
‘Town masterplans too, need to accommodate sufficient vehicle movements and parking arrangements to cope with the ever increasing infiltration and exiting vehicle numbers to meet this rate’.
Evan Elford, Manager Works, Infrastructure Services replied to Cr Hunter’s motion in the agenda and wrote, ‘Infrastructure services are working on several fronts to improve the Shire road network standards, safety and operating efficiency, which will aid in reducing congestion and improve travel times for trips on our key travel corridors’.
A number of Council projects are listed, and Mr Elford added there are no identified staff resources or budget available for the projects.
There is only one way to fix the traffic coming into Byron and that is to put a quota on the number of vehicles that come into the town.