A plan to ease congestion at five intersections Bairnsdale is causing angst for business owners.
Livingstone Trucks owners, Neal and Kerri Livingstone, hold grave concerns about the Regional Roads Victoria (RRV) proposed roundabout at the intersection of the Bairnsdale-Dargo Road (also known as the Lindenow Road) and the Princes Highway in front of their business.
Twice a day, at peak school drop-off and pick-up, traffic backs up along the highway and the Lindenow Road with cars and buses accessing Hope Avenue, which leads to St Mary’s Primary School and Nagle College.
“A roundabout won’t work,” Mr Livingstone said.
“You don’t have to be a road designer to know it will block the highway traffic from the west back over the train line.”
The Livingstones say they and three other directly affected properties had no consultation and they are worried the authority’s minds are already made up.
“The proposal was shown to us and two other businesses after it was prepared,” Mrs Livingstone said.
“It’s not appropriate to use private land. They should be using the road reserve across from us for road upgrades.”
“We asked them ‘what about traffic lights?’,” Mr Livingstone said.
“They would only have to run twice a day. But they don’t have funding to do a study for that.”
Livingstone Trucks, a parts and service business for trucks, buses and heavy vehicles, has been operating for 31 years, and moved to its current site in 2014.
The land was purchased to grow their business.
The proposal also plans to acquire a third of the Livingstones’1.2-hectare property to construct a service lane for access to the three properties along the Lindenow Road.
They say the proposed service lane is extremely restrictive for truck access allowing insufficient turning space.
“We’ll have to relocate,” Mr Livingstone said simply.
A statement received from VicRoads states RRV received $450,000 from the Victorian Government in 2017 as part of the Planning Our Future program to investigate the challenges to safety and traffic flow in Bairnsdale.
The community identified the intersections of Princes Highway and Bairnsdale-Dargo Road, Bullumwaal Road and Howitt Avenue, the Princes Highway and McEacharn Street and the Princes Highway and the Great Alpine Road as priorities.
Regional Roads Victoria eastern regional director, Sara Rhodes-Ward, said RRV had heard from over 1500 people as part of the planning work for these future road improvements, which helped shape the initial proposals released to the community in August.
“During this feedback period, the community was supportive of the idea of a roundabout at this location,” Ms Rhodes-Ward said.
“We also received feedback asking us to consider a solution at this location that would have a smaller footprint.
“When we develop plans for road improvements, it is important that we consider impacts on a range of factors including the environment, surrounding land and land owners, traffic volumes and future growth.”
The Livingstone’s argument encompasses the reserve on the railway line side of the Lindenow Road.
“There’s a reed, a lily and a frog they’re worried about in a man-made pond,” Mr Livingstone said.
“It’s a huge reserve, why don’t they use that or move the pond? There are options.”
The VicRoads statement says environmental investigations undertaken as part of the project identified woolly waterlilies in the land abutting the road reserve that is owned by VicTrack.
The woolly waterlily is a registered endangered species and the proposed road improvements were designed to minimise the impact on that land.
During the public feedback period for this project, the roundabout concept was well received by the community.
Feedback expressing concern about the physical size of this proposal and potential impacts on surrounding land was also received.
As a result, the statement said RRV was reviewing the design for the intersection and was also investigating traffic lights as part of the process to look at options that will reduce impacts on private land.
Traffic queuing back over the railway line is a key factor for consideration when planning road improvements at this intersection.
Any future road improvement proposals will consider peak traffic times and train services, along with the capability to cope with future increases in train services.
These proposed projects are in the planning phase.
PICTURED: A Regional Roads Victoria map of the proposed roundabout at the junction of the Princes Highway and Bairnsdale-Dargo Road. (PS)
