TRAFFIC ON THE ROAD TO RUIN
Just how dangerous does the M1 have to get for safety upgrades to happen?
COMBINE the drenching rain and the queuing that occurs at peak hour on the overcrowded off ramps on the Pacific Motorway and a fatality is waiting to happen. What is being done to prevent it?
Driving last Wednesday northbound to the Beenleigh RSL for a meeting, Albert MP Mark Boothman was confronted with the familiar challenge of not being able to see the highway’s lane markings during a downpour.
He was headed towards the notorious Exit 49 at Pimpama.
“It was about 5pm. It was raining hard. There was queuing on to the highway,” he told your columnist.
“You could hardly see anything. Cars were backing up on the M1 right to the end of a sweeping bend on the highway. There is no big sign warning (oncoming vehicles) about traffic congestion ahead. I witnessed a truck narrowly miss the stopped vehicles. Then I saw a car hit the skids.”
Back in the safer surrounds of Parliament House this week, questions are being asked but remain unanswered about future improvements to these dangerous M1 exits.
As confusing as it can be on your first drive, the widening of Exit 54 at Coomera with the improved overhead bridge to Dreamworld shows how critical infrastructure when delivered by governments can ease traffic congestion and ensure better road safety.
Mr Boothman has sent formal questions to Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey about the timing of future upgrades to Exits 49 and 45 at Ormeau and whether the Government will start planning a second arterial link.
He wrote that the Exit 49 queuing “places stationary vehicles within centimetres of others continuing along the motorway at 110km/h”.
In his reply, Mr Bailey acknowledged the pressure on the motorway interchanges and that his department was investigating options and a solution that would best work with council’s road network.
This is the point where all progress, like a motorist on the M1, appears to stop.
“Once these investigations are complete, funding for any upgrade would be subject to competing priorities across the state,” Mr Bailey wrote.
He added “that competition has become more challenging as a consequence of more than $600 million having been cut from transport funding during the term of the previous LNP government” after it spent $30 million from the budget on preparing for asset sales.
So you and I, as motorists who regularly use the M1, are at a political intersection headed into a state election. Who would you vote for?
Mr Boothman will, after receiving answers to questions on M1 upgrades, obtain a clear picture of the Palaszczuk Government’s highway funding plan. Labor, which is blaming the previous LNP government for cutting funds, will conduct the studies but there can be no promise of upgrades.
What are the road funding priorities for your LNP representatives – Mr Boothman, Michael Crandon in Coomera and Sid Cramp in Pacific Pines? If the LNP wins government will the response be similar to Mr Bailey’s?
Or will a motorist or child sitting in the back seat of their car be seriously injured, or worse, and suddenly every MP puts their foot to the pedal on road funding?
So you and I, as motorists who regularly use the M 1, area ta political intersection headed into a state election. Who would you vote for?