Pricey roundabout sends out lots of mixed signals

FURTHER to the great work by the contractors on the pathway from Kirra to Coolangatta (Chatroom, 26/12) I am prompted to congratulate CMC for the professional conduct and tidy manner on the Gooding Drive roundabout – excellent job, guys.

On the (very) negative side, we have just spent more than $10 million on the roundabout installing an additional lane in two directions only and, worse, we have installed traffic lights.

Even more incongruous the installation of traffic lights to Palm Meadows Drive, no more than 100 metres from the roundabout entry, even Bob Le Castra agreed with me that traffic lights defeated the very purpose of a roundabout.

A roundabout is designed to “promote a continuous flow of traffic” and according to an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reduces accidents by 75 per cent when replacing traffic lights.

Are we to understand then that our State politicians (yes, Bob assures me this is a State road and the Minister did not return emails or calls to debunk this) are actively promoting accidents by definition (not sure of the stats on roundabout with lights, they are rare and only used on four-plus lane roundabouts in my experience) to save money?

It beggars belief that we put up with these knee-jerk solutions instead of finding long-term solutions such as flyovers or underpasses, but then a set of lights intersecting Gooding Drive, Palm Meadows and Lakelands is even more ludicrous. I should know, I have lived there for 17 years.

Still this should not detract from the great work by CMC, after all, they are not the un-contactable, no responsibility politicians or faceless public servants that came up with such a counterproductive solution.

I can only guess we deliberated for so long we ran out of time to fix the intersection properly before the Commonwealth Games so, as is often the case, we implemented a makeshift solution.

BARRY, CARRARA