Sheridan St crossing chaos

THE permanency of the 40km/h speed limit school zone on Sheridan St outside Mother of Good Counsel School will intensify traffic flow problems on the main road into the CBD from the north.

Both the school and the Department of Transport and Main Roads are digging in and refusing to allow the speed to be increased to 60km/h.

Traffic flow, particularly on weekday mornings, is at a crawl involving a combination of people travelling to and from the airport and commuters into the CBD.

It is questionable whether many children actually use the crossing.

Most of them get dropped off and picked up by their parents in their vehicles on the other side of the school on Seymour St which was upgraded by the council.

The Sheridan St crossing is already controlled by signals which stops traffic to allow the few children to cross at peak times.

No other school on main roads have 40km/h speed limits, so why are they insisting on the slower limit outside Mother of Good Counsel?

Is there any evidence of serious injury or fatal crashes on this section of Sheridan St?

Further problems are being caused on Sheridan St about 2km south where the department has installed fencing to prevent pedestrians crossing the four-lane road willy-nilly.

But now the department has built pedestrian crossing refuges with no warning signs, markings or lighting and already reports of near misses.

Pedestrians should be forced to use nearby traffic signal crossings and not run the gauntlet.

Both examples make driving on Sheridan St a frustrating exercise. Nick Dalton Deputy editor