25 October 2007

Murrumbateman bypass promised

| Jazz
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As i was standing aroung waiting for my laksa at lunch today i happened to notice that today’s CT had an article of someone making election promises to build a bypass for Murrumbateman. I didnt stick around to read the whole thing so i’ve no idea who was making the promise but two things immediately struck me.

Firstly, why do we even need a bypass for Murrumbateman. It must slow down my drive out of Canberra in that direction by all of 1 minute & I cant recall any vehicle related fatalities in the town for some time. And secondly, the $100 mil that its likely to cost to build a bypass surely could be spent on something better to benefit those coming to and from Canberra(like a second lane for the GDE).

What do you think? Is this a great idea or a complete dud?

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Vic Bitterman10:12 pm 26 Oct 07

Blame the nsw govt for this one.

iemma needs to trump up with some reddies.

Growling Ferret5:36 pm 25 Oct 07

Jazz – I wish for it to be duplicated as I don’t want the dickhead who gets it wrong to run into me, or anyone I know…

And I do plenty of single lane miles to country NSW and never have an issue – I just see more near misses on the Barton Highway than anywhere else

I’d settle for a couple more overtaking lanes, but thats just me..

Whoa!! dont i stand corrected. I hope for all your sakes that the bypass cuts out all of the road that you are complaining about.

Personally i have never had any problems with it, nor the drivers on it and i’ve been heading out that way regularly since i got my licence 17 years ago.

my god dont i feel old now. ouch.

Growling Ferret4:12 pm 25 Oct 07

A big thumbs up to whoever gets the bypass up and running – I use the Barton Hwy fairly regularly, and the number of times you see near misses when dickheads have not re-adjusted back to single lane driving is astounding.

Whilst they are there, my vote to whoever gets the rest of the Hume to Melbourne as a dual carriageway the whole way to Albury…

Just so you know, there are a lot of people who commute from that way into canberra each day in order to work, for services (such as health, shopping etc). There are also a lot of accidents on the Barton Hwy each year, majority of which occur not on the dual-carriageway part but the single lane road. The planned route was announced yesterday which is east of murrumbateman, and this will result in 4km less road to travel on which, while might only sound small, is a big plus for people who commute to yass 5 days a week for work (this results in 40km a week less distance to travel). Not to mention the added safety, it will help prevent a lot of accidents because there are plenty of idiots who speed, fly through the overtaking lanes, tailgate, etc on the barton hwy and the volumes of traffic.

You may be interested in this:

In the five years between 2001 and 2005 there were 139 crashes on the Barton Highway, including 7 fatalities, 50 injury crashes and 82 non-injury crashes. All of those accidents occurred on the 38-kilometre length of single-carriageway road. Some 57 kilometres of the Hume Highway, which is another Federal Government road, are in the Yass Valley shire. The entire length of the Hume Highway in Yass Valley shire is separated dual carriageway. Although the Hume carries much greater traffic volumes there have been only four fatalities on the road during the same period. The six-year average of fatalities per kilometre makes the Barton Highway statistically the second most dangerous major highway in New South Wales. It is second only to the Pacific Highway.

Gah, s/affect/effect

I think this is aimed at the residents of Murrambateman more so than Canberra – specifically the reduction in heavy vehicle traffic in the town. Any affect on travel time is just an added bonus.

My understanding was that that wasn’t an election promise per se, but actually a project already funded in the most recent federal budget (and therefore likely to continue regardless of the election outcome). Of course, that wouldn’t stop the Libs campaigning on it, but (if my memory serves), the duplication of the remaining part of the Barton Hwy, and the associated bypass are pretty much a done deal.
As for your question, I think it’s actually a pretty good move – the un-duplicated part of the highway is considerably more dangerous than the rest, and I suspect these days it has the traffic volume to justify it.

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