Wednesday 27 October 2010

556 want Whitfield street access to highway open

Barron River MP Steve Wettenhall has tabled a petition in State parliament this week containing the signatures of 556 people opposed to the proposed permanent closure of the Whitfield Street access to the Captain Cook Highway at Aeroglen.

The closure has been proposed by the Department of Transport and Main Roads to improve inbound traffic flow at morning peak times.

Wettenhall, who also organised a public meeting to hear concerns of residents and local businesses, said that he expected alternatives to a permanent closure to be given serious consideration in the light of community concerns.

“I want improvements to traffic flow on the Captain Cook Highway as well, but I think this can be achieved without a permanent closure for example by trialling changes to the signal cycles and restrictions on certain traffic movements," Steve Wettenhall said. “I expect that community concerns about pedestrian and cycle safety, safe bus stops and the necessity of permanent closure to receive due consideration as well as the concerns of local businesses operators concerned about the impact of a permanent closure."

Meetings have been held with the Minister in Cairns last week to discuss community feedback on the proposal and consider alternatives.

“The Minister has agreed to carefully consider my submissions and the extent of community opposition to the Department’s original proposal before making a final decision and I am grateful for the personal attention he has given to the issue," Wettenhall said.

2 comments:

Russ Parker said...

You know I've given this situation a bit of thought. I like to try and look at both sides of the argument with these things and usually you can see that both viewpoints have some merit.

That being said, I cannot for the life of me, work out what is to be gained here if Whitfield Street is closed off. Yes, you could argue that the Captain Cook Highway traffic will be less inconvenienced - but only at that particular intersection. The traffic that uses Whitfield Street will now be forced to either go north and enter the highway at Arnold St, or go south and add to the existing morning congestion at the Areoglen Drive intersection.

Think about those coming from the Aeroglen, Stratford, Freshwater or Redlynch areas who work on the general aviation side of the airport. They would all have to come through Arnold St which must congest that intersection even further.

This decision has obviously been made by people far smarter than me (okay that's probably not too difficult!) but I would like to see the reasoning behind it.

Cheers,

Russ

Bob lehcror said...

Cairns is riddled with No right turn every where you turn. I think it shows a major design flaw from the planning departments.