The plan to build traffic lights at the notorious Clifford Street intersection in Suffolk Park has been consigned to the dustbin, with a majority of Byron councillors voting to formally abandon the idea last week.
But with the government grant funding that Council had secured for the project now in doubt, it remains to be seen whether any works will be undertaken to improve the black spot in the near future. At last week’s Council meeting, seven of the Shire’s nine councillors voted to reverse the Council’s previous decision to install traffic lights, which was made in November last year.
Councillor reversal
The reversal was driven by a loud and concerted community campaign against the traffic lights, with over 1,100 residents signing a petition demanding that this plan be abandoned in favour of building a roundabout.
However, while traffic lights are off the table, there is now significant doubt over whether a roundabout will be built at the intersection any time soon.
The meeting heard that Council staff do not have the capacity to deliver a roundabout, even a smaller, temporary one, within the very tight timeframe of the current road safety grant that Council was awarded.
‘After looking at the feedback from staff it seems clear that while the community would love to try and deliver a smaller roundabout, or something along those lines within that timeframe… staff didn’t feel that they have the capacity,’ said Byron Mayor Sarah Ndiaye, who moved the motion.
‘They have the perspective of all the other roadworks required in the Shire. They have the perspective of the millions of dollars worth of work that we’re still doing from the last floods. They know better than anyone what they can and can’t deliver in a certain timeframe.’
Councillors will ask the relevant state government funding authority for permission to use some of the grant money to build a pedestrian crossing on Clifford Street, and an as-yet unspecified ‘safety improvement treatment’ on Broken Head Road.
‘I know they’ve been rejected once before… [but] we may have an opportunity to do wombat crossings. They slow traffic down, they’re safe for pedestrians, and we could look at maybe other traffic calming measures as well’, she said.
Labor councillor, Asren Pugh, voted against the latest decision, along with Cr Michael Lyon (Independent).
Cr Pugh said, ‘What’s going to happen is that nothing is going to happen, and all we’ve got is more plans to investigate a roundabout. We’re back where we were ten years ago, and ten years before that’.
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