CHAIR – Minister, with relation to the Bass Highway, quite often it’s the scene of major road accidents or fatalities. We know that over the course of the last 12 months or so there were some road safety changes for the Leith turnoff. Can you give an indication of how that’s being monitored and how that’s going and any other works for road safety improvements along the highway.
Mr VINCENT – Before I hand over to the deputy secretary, for more information, I’m not sure about all the details around Leith as it was before my time, but certainly another major intersection, Christmas Hills, is causing some awkwardness for locals and tourism.
When I first came into the role, I was on my way to Devonport and spent quite some time to and from my trip to Devonport standing on the side of the road. I got a lot of interesting comments standing there, but I saw firsthand the awkwardness of overtaking lanes and tourists with vans, in many cases, turning into that intersection. At the same time, I was standing there with the driver looking at all that, there were a couple of department people doing exactly the same thing from different positions on the road in the couple of kilometres before and after that intersection to understand the complexities of it themselves. It was good to see how they were going about monitoring that.
You learn a lot very quickly. If you think back probably 25 years ago when the raspberry farm went in with the Dornauf family and then the ice creamery. When you approve a very good tourism development like that, you don’t expect some of the problems it will create. We’ve seen that around a lot of other corridors. Constant monitoring of some of those – growth in tourism or other business ventures, are forcing us to constantly look at what we need to do at some of the intersections right around the state and the major roads.
Certainly, the Christmas Hills one is a classic example of growth in business in the area, increased traffic, heavier transport, the speed of the overtaking lane has caused that. After that, I would just like to ask my deputy secretary for a bit of clarification about lease and any other points that are under review on a constant basis. Thank you.
Ms HEYDON – Yes, through you minister. As you are probably aware there was a change and a reduction in the speed limit at Leith earlier this year, which I approved with my commissioner hat on. That change occurred as a result of us monitoring accidents at that location. We continue to monitor the area just to make sure that we’ve seen an improvement. I don’t have the figures right in front of me, however, and I will possibly be challenged to get them to you in five minutes. I’ll see what I can do.
We are seeing good results from that speed‑limit reduction and it’s also used to see where we have similar characteristics at other parts of the network to show that there is an actual outcome improvement in relation to safety.
Mr VINCENT – Six priority upgrade options were also identified along this category of road and section of the Bass Highway, which would be part of the 10‑year Bass Highway action plan. Christmas Hills, as we just talked about, north of Sassafras upgrade, Parramatta Creek upgrade, north of Latrobe duplication, the Hadspen to Hagley duplication, and the Exton duplication are some of the main areas that they’re looking at for upgrades, as soon as finances can be organised.
CHAIR – Excellent. I’ll ask that that be a question on notice should you not get that upgrade for those figures on the Leith turnoff.
Another road safety question, and something we should all be trying to do better with, around schools we have vulnerable road users. What is the government doing – and this comes to the preventative health strategy as well – what is the government doing to try to reduce the amount of congestion around schools at drop‑off and pick‑up times? Perhaps minister, you might want to put on the record any upgrades to pedestrian safety around the Montrose – what is it? The high school.
Mr VINCENT – Yes, the upgrade to the intersection there.
CHAIR – Oh yes, the Montrose Bay intersection there. That doesn’t sound right, but Montrose Bay High School intersection that you’re undertaking presently?
Mr VINCENT – Yes, with road projects and also down at Lauderdale with the primary school down there, we actually went down there and worked with Mr O’Byrne on some of the issues there and identified the need for barriers to separate students and the highway. Simply with a – you might think the footpath is perfectly alright, but it only takes a bit of a trip or a bit of fun to happen and you’re out into the traffic. So, that is looked at quite seriously.
Out at Montrose Bay, the safety upgrade work has been funded and brought forward because of the complications at the intersection. It will allow for a proper crossing with lights and all other pedestrian mechanisms to make that area much safer. That’s a classic example of an intersection that had grown in popularity and use over the recent decade and needed to be adjusted and it has been. I’ll ask the deputy secretary to expand on how the department looks at that in normal processes.
CHAIR – Possibly with the connections with bike lanes so close by as well.
Ms HEYDON – Through you minister. The Montrose Bay signal and pedestrian improvements are due to be completed mid-2026. In relation to what we’re doing around school zones, we are very much champions of this. We have a significant number of crossing guards who are part of the department and they are a major protector for children getting over a crossing safely. We also have from them a very good reporting arrangement for anything they’re seeing that helps us to make any changes on our side of the network. We also have a vulnerable road user program which is available to councils and we often flag for them to be looking at what can be done around school areas and any improvements on their part of the road network we could access that program for.
