Thanks Lynne Richardson for the thoughtful analysis, rather than catchy slogans, of the 30-year farce that is the ideologically-driven crusade of successive councils for a solution to the Suffolk Park black spot.
There is no ideal solution but it must be the ultimate in poor planning that allowed continued development without solutions. Unfortunately, helpful addendums like Cr Dod’s to ‘future proof an alternative entry’ do not magically procure one, the reality of which was questioned in 2002.
‘Expansion is constrained by the design capacity of the Clifford Street intersection and the lack of a second vehicle entrance’ while ‘opportunities for a second access are diminishing and may no longer be realistic’ (BB and SP Settlement Strategy 2002).
With this hindsight, residents might now expect a truly evidence-based discussion of the conflicting merits of various solutions. Thursday’s debate centred, not on the funded option before them, but on where funds might be sourced to commission yet more designs… to seek yet more funds for a solution that faces all the same hurdles!
Cr Dods provided the solution in the form of a ‘compact roundabout’ that will supposedly be sufficient to slow traffic emerging from a sharp bend. Pedestrians will be catered for by the addition of four painted crossings around the circle, ignoring the advice of Métis consultants: ‘A pedestrian crossing gives right-of-way on a road… drivers are obligated to stop… However, in reality, this doesn’t always occur.’
By how much is this intensified by drivers in a roundabout and a blind bend? How does it cater for a Clifford St crossing where two pedestrian collisions have recently occurred?
Will TfNSW approve it? Will a responsible engineer propose it? What the heck? it’s only our money and lives at stake.
Surely, most ridiculous though, must be proposing to spend on yet more designs for a conventional roundabout when at least two costly, outdated efforts are gathering dust. Why? Council has never, and likely will never be able to purchase the necessary land, and the necessary destruction of vegetation may be precluded by an EIS. Why does Council persist with this feel-good nonsense? To assuage their ‘discomfort’ that nothing will happen ‘for at least five years’ (we wish!) and the next accident there might be a tragedy?
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. 
