The ‘Keep the Flow in Suffo’ community group is growing rapidly as residents across the Byron Shire continue to become informed about the Council’s hasty decision to install traffic lights in Suffolk Park.
The group has received more than 1,000 signatures on a petition calling for the council to rescind its decision and immediately investigate a roundabout before work on traffic lights begins.
‘How can that be ignored?’ said group spokesman Dean Prosser. ‘This is the true community’s voice.’
The group has also been working with a range of professionals with expertise in engineering, traffic management, and government who have analysed the reports commissioned by the Byron Shire Council on the Clifford Street-Broken Head Road intersection.
https://byron.infocouncil.biz/Open/2024/11/OC_28112024_AGN_1831_ExternalAttachments/OC_28112024_AGN_1831_Attachment_12718_2.PDF
In summary, it appears the knee-jerk approval of traffic lights has been driven by the time restrictions associated with the $1.8m grant, and has suffered from an inadequate understanding of the implications for community safety or delays to traffic.
The group is aware that the primary agenda of this project is community safety, with pedestrians and cyclists a priority. However, there is no evidence that installing traffic lights at the Clifford Street-Broken Head Road intersection will improve safety, but rather has potential to make the situation worse as:
• The intersection is NOT a location used by pedestrians (they cross further east near the shops, and further north near the petrol station and aged care facility).
• If lights are installed, the aged care residents will still have to cross busy Beech Drive to reach the planned path to the traffic lights.
• While the Clifford Street-Broken Head Road intersection was previously a traffic black spot, the cause of the spate of accidents no longer exists due to the removal of the left-turning lane into Clifford Street.
• The pulses in traffic flows into Clifford Street from Broken Head Road imposed by traffic lights will put more pressure on the entry and exit from the adjacent carpark for the Suffolk Park Hotel and shops, imposing additional risks to those using the footpath.
As widely noted in the research, roundabouts dramatically out-perform traffic lights in terms of safety for drivers and pedestrians, largely by slowing vehicles down.
https://byron.infocouncil.biz/Open/2024/11/OC_28112024_AGN_1831_ExternalAttachments/OC_28112024_AGN_1831_Attachment_12718_2.PDF
In terms of traffic flows and delays, the detailed traffic modelling study commissioned by Council (Metis, November 2024) reveals the following:
1. A roundabout will be superior to traffic lights by reducing delays as soon as it is implemented (i.e. from current traffic loads through to 2034 and beyond).
2. More critically, the report also indicates that traffic lights will increase delays compared to the current intersection arrangement for most road users at the current traffic loads. Specifically, the modelling shows traffic lights will triple the average delay during peak hours through the study area from about eight seconds to more than 23 seconds with lights.
3. For vehicles exiting Clifford Street, traffic lights will extend delays to much longer than currently experienced well before 2034. The current morning peak hour average delay of about 30 seconds will increase to 50 seconds in 2034 with traffic lights.
4. There will also likely be issues with queuing of vehicles under the traffic light option, with queues of up to 18 vehicles predicted for southbound traffic on Broken Head Road. This queue may extend back to the existing Beech Drive roundabout, and impact movements there.
In response to the above analytical findings, and as acknowledged by Council, a roundabout remains the suitable fix for traffic flow at this intersection. However, rather than being a ‘step in the right direction’, installation of traffic lights as an interim solution will dramatically increase delays, noise, greenhouse gas emissions, and driver frustration. All of this without necessarily delivering any overall benefits to community safety.
Further, as any traffic lights installed would be ‘owned’ by Transport NSW, Council’s ability to modify the arrangement to respond to the issues the traffic lights will create will be delayed and complicated by consultation with the state government.
www.jotform.com/form/243517591400856
or via this QR code.
In three documents attached to the November Council agenda, there was no discussion of a compact roundabout in the space available. The last report was in 2016 (outdated) and only considered a full-scale roundabout that required significant land acquisition. In response, the Keep the Flow in Suffo group suggests the below for immediate consideration by the Council:
• Speed reduction – 40km/h zone, signage, or consideration of chicane islands.
• Seek further info and design of a mini-roundabout solution by a traffic engineer, including sizing and configuration, lighting, and pedestrian safety.
• Consider a trial of a mini-roundabout in this location, potentially supported by a speed reduction – see Lennox trial.
• Report on the provision of a pedestrian crossing north of Beech Drive, and reconfiguration of the entry/exit from the Suffolk Hotel carpark.
• Consider provision of personnel to direct traffic during the morning peak (8-9am) to alleviate the delay times in Clifford Street until a mini-roundabout trial can be commenced.
‘It is clear there has been inadequate consultation with the community regarding options,’ said group spokesman Dean Prosser.
‘There was also a failure to propose interim solutions such as a speed reduction, a trial to consider alternatives such as a mini-roundabout or an alternative pedestrian crossing north of Beech Drive roundabout.’
We welcome all Byron Shire residents to support our agenda opposing the installation of traffic lights and considering a practical trial of more appropriate long-term solutions.
Well the new council is off to a good start hey? if U don’t listen to the feedback and concerns of ratepayers then U are not serving your community .
They should have installed a roundabout years ago , but they only seem to do that when there is a large development nearby and make them pay , ie 2 x West byron on Ewingsdale rd . ?/????????? we also need about 5 on Bangalow rd between Green Garage and the Nursery!
Also can someone pls explain why it costs around $200 000 – $300 000 max for a similar roundabout in the UK , and ours cost $2-3M
because of all the green studies that need to be undertaken including having a consultant watch over the work done in case any skinks or insects need to be relocated (no joke).
but we need more regulation says the greens…
Wouldn’t that be £s
This is what happens when city people come to the North Coast. We are rural communities this is the country not the city. Traffic lights do not belong here! Look around you! There is wildlife all around! Our towns are not meant to be overpopulated go back to the city that goes to Councillors too ! You’ve all created this mess you call ‘Byron Bay’ which has nothing to do with ‘the Real’ North Coast and you’re spreading it like sticky jam all over the region! Enough! If anything a round about should have been done already . That is the only thing if anything that should be there otherwise go back to your cities we don’t want it here.
Apart from that fact that the intersection has been a black spot for nearly three decades no one’s going anywhere and we need to deal with it not rant on with nonsense like this.
In the whole discussion has anybody considered how traffic lights will clog up the roundabout at Beech Drive opposite the Shell station. It’ll only take about five to six cars standing at a red light at Clifford Street and the tail end of the queue will be inside the roundabout at Beech Drive, making it impossible to turn south.
I would think a mini roundabout will speed bumps or similar measures to slow down traffic along Broken Head Road would be the better option. We already have a mini roundabout at the Top Shop in Byron.
Drivers might just have to wait a minute for the queu to clear. Atm you can wait up to half an hour in Clifford St trying to turn right.
I was born and bred in Byron Bay. The idea that it should not have traffic lights came from the new settlers in the 70s with their romantic notions of rural life. Ballina, Murwillumbah, Grafton and Lismore all have traffic lights and they are much closer to their Northern Rivers roots than Byron Bay has been for half a century . Older residents are pragmatic and want a solution that allows them to access where they need to go without undue stress.
It’s fairy dust nonsense!
“The intersection is NOT a location used by pedestrians (they cross further east near the shops, and further north near the petrol station and aged care facility)”
Of course it isn’t – it would be the most dangerously place to cross at present. When there is a controlled signalised crossing there it will afford a much safer mode of crossing from both west to east and east to west. It will give ready access to the pub, bakery, supermarket, chemist etc as well as the road to the beach – all the places people are crossing to access from the west. As you say, people from the east already exit at that point. They could cross safely either a bike to ride in the left bike lane all the way into town, or cross safely to get to the facilities in the park.
MANY residents, from both east and west, complain of the safety and adequacy of crossing at the servo roundabout – particularly the residents of the RSL LifeCare establishment.
“If lights are installed, the aged care residents will still have to cross busy Beech Drive to reach the planned path to the traffic lights”
No, they can still cross at the roundabout if they wish but, funnily enough, these are the very people who are most in favour of the signalised crossing. Honestly look at the traffic on Beech Drive in comparison to Broken Head Rd.
“Seek further info and design of a mini-roundabout solution by a traffic engineer, including sizing and configuration, lighting, and pedestrian safety.”
It doesn’t matter how many times people are told a mini roundabout won’t be approved, petulant, toddler like, they stamp their foot insisting, “I want that one!” The single exit/egress point to beachside Suffolk – that must accommodate 32 daily large bus movements, garbage trucks, fire trucks, huge nomadic boomer caravans etc – that is the one road south out of Byron Bay and has a blind bend to the South, is no place for a mini roundabout. None of these conditions applies to the Lennox trial situation.
If you’re going to try to kibosh a long awaited solution to that intersection please don’t try to inflict on us a dangerous, inferior unsafe, tiny roundabout. It won’t be approved by the RMS and with 70% projected traffic growth, how long would be its life span.
“Report on the provision of a pedestrian crossing north of Beech Drive, and reconfiguration of the entry/exit from the Suffolk Hotel carpark.”
So you want a signalised crossing north of the intersection rather than combined with one encompassing intersection control and solving several problems simultaneously! Or do you want a Zebra crossing on a road where much visiting often bumper to bumper traffic in a nonetheless rural looking environment would mean drivers would be quite likely to miss it. Do you want kids or low mobility pedestrians, perhaps in wheel chairs, to step into that road?
Sorry to tell you but the car park is private property where dictating configuration is problematic. A two-way entry/exit may well create its own problems. This won’t make any dint anyway on the queuing on Clifford St nor pedestrian safety.
“Consider provision of personnel to direct traffic during the morning peak (8-9am) to alleviate the delay times in Clifford Street until a mini-roundabout trial can be commenced.”
Oh yeah this is an GREAT long-term solution – and not at all costly I don’t imagine! Will it have its own line item in the Council budget? What about the pm peak? Honestly what are you people getting into up in the hills on the other side of the road?
Has the “flow” group, now calling for investigation of a mini roundabout, conceded that the one envisaged would see huge environmental destruction? This isn’t really spelt out in the smiley-faced roundabouts on the signs “adorning” the poles in beachside.
This is the second piece of propaganda from this group given ready access to the pages of the Echo. I would have thought that a local paper worth its salt, on an important local issue of road safety, would wish to see all information disseminated and all arguments fully interrogated. No interviewing of Council’s engineers or traffic safety officer?
As someone who has closely followed the issue of this intersection for near thirty years now, and presented evidence to the LEC on its impact, I submitted a text to the Echo presenting a counter case, including photos, that I received no response to. A recent enquiry was met with the explanation that sometimes emails get lost. No invitation to resubmit was forthcoming however.
I really wonder at the Echo nailing its colours to the mast so firmly on this issue. I guess the queues and hazards of Clifford Street seem a long way away from Stuart St Mullumbimby.
This WAS NOT a knee jerk reaction to an issue that suddenly dropped from the sky. As should be obvious to anyone who’s taken the slightest passing interest in the issue, this problem has been around for near three decades with Councils over the years searching for answers.
Council commissioned a comprehensive study of the intersection in 2015. Its report in 2016, looking at all relevant factors, recommended traffic lights. In 2017 the Suffolk Park Progress Association wrote to Council’s traffic committee asking them to investigate traffic lights for the intersection. It is not something Council staff suddenly got a thought bubble about. In line with an established direction Council applied for a round of TfNSW funding in September last year.
The subsequent assessment of the submission, the announcement of its success and time line for acceptance are normal everyday administrative events. No strong arming here!
“Progress Association” is merely one group with a particular view. “in line with an established direction”?
The vast opposition speaks for itself. Clearly, further discussion and broader community consultation is required before this is rammed through.
An established direction of Council from the time their commissioned 2016 study recommended traffic lights? Even the “Flow” group acknowledge that this was plan.
Yes it’s one group but if you attended the 2017 AGM, like I did, with a hall full of people, or the well attended meeting at the pub where largely beachside residents went to debate and be informed before expressing knee jerk opinions, you would realise that, for the people who HAVE TO use that intersection there is huge support for the lights.
If any “vast opposition” exists, and I’m yet to see this established, it’s coming from elsewhere, from people who don’t need to turn out of Clifford St. I find that a breathtaking nerve.
Remember how much fuss was made about “community” wishes – largely driven by the residents association – that eventually led to a recession motion on Laverty’s gap? It was never considered that the rest of the Shire, who’d have to pay for the remediation, had anything to do with it.
Some people have very contextually selective views of “community consultation”. And sometimes those with responsibility for decision making need to base them on more substantial considerations than some totally illogical opposition to poles with lights on them.
Anyone noticed that there are heaps of them from the Golf Club to the far southern boundary of the Shire, alerting to the presence of koalas. Fine – people in beachside SP count too.
hopefully common sense will prevail ! , but it is also an endangered species at the moment !
Peter sometimes the best decision is one that looks at the facts and priorities eg public safety over fairy dust. Sometimes decision makers need to look beyond an easily whipped up outrage culture, a noisy unaffected group and an Echo cause célèbre.
The professional complainers of Byron Bay at it again. “Who can we pick a fight with this week”.
The town has outgrown itself. Funding has been granted and paid. It cannot be reversed.
Time to move on and complain about the next item on your agenda of thousands.