New traffic lights at Barton Hwy and Kuringa Drive intersection - Incompetence at its best???

Felix the Cat said :

wallabyted said :

I think the money would have been better spent duplicating Kuringa Dr to reduce the likelyhood of further accidents like that my daughter was involved in on Kuringa last year in march. Kuringa has had provisioning in place for duplication for about 30 years that I know of. I wonder how long they will take to duplicate it once they open the gungahlin access ?

Both Kuringa Dr and William Slim Dr need to be duplicated and/or realigned.

+1

Agreed, and with all the money they spent messing with Aikman and the money poured into developing that bank of lake Gininderra, one would think they could have eaily duplicated the small remaining section of Aikman dr. Don’t the planning approvers ever make big business remediate infrastructure anymore ?
The stupid set of traffic lights they put at the Joy Cummings place intersection often backs up traffic dangerously. The access to Aikman Dr for that whole area would have been better via Townsend Pl than another intersection on Aikman.

wallabyted said :

I think the money would have been better spent duplicating Kuringa Dr to reduce the likelyhood of further accidents like that my daughter was involved in on Kuringa last year in march. Kuringa has had provisioning in place for duplication for about 30 years that I know of. I wonder how long they will take to duplicate it once they open the gungahlin access ?

Both Kuringa Dr and William Slim Dr need to be duplicated and/or realigned.

“In certain cases, a round-about can starve one approach of any access during busy periods. Traffic lights, while allowing less volume overall because of pauses, can be timed to provide much better “fairness“”
The reduction of effectiveness of the Giralang roundabout at peak times is probably more due to the lowering of the Barton highway speed limits near federation square (ie traffic bunches up), the lack of duplication of Gungahlin and Giralang access roads and the currently road work at the Barton Hwy/Kuringa Dr intersection. A better solution though would be a roundabout and maybe later something like the part time lights they have installed on the Drakeford Dr/Athilon Dr roundabout at Tuggeranong to “feed the starving”, since the traffic at this intersection will be initially similar to what the Giralang roundabout experienced 20 years ago (and coped well with). Roundabouts are more green more often than traffic lights – in more than one way. I have heard figures like $250,000 bandied about for the cost of a set of lights (I’m not sure if this is accurate) – but of course this is not the end of the bills since you have to pay for electricity and maintenance contracts on top of that. I think the money would have been better spent duplicating Kuringa Dr to reduce the likelyhood of further accidents like that my daughter was involved in on Kuringa last year in march. Kuringa has had provisioning in place for duplication for about 30 years that I know of. I wonder how long they will take to duplicate it once they open the gungahlin access ?

Wow! Common sense prevails. This was very annoying to say the least. I mean, everything was flowing great until yesterday!

If they were really that worried about accidents, they could perhaps attempt to not only give a better line of sight, but add something reflective to the barricades (if they do have something reflective, I’m missing it), and how about some cops patrolling it once in a blue moon? Not that many people do 60 through there. Sticking an electronic sign up telling you to slow down, doesn’t make people slow down.

Some more common sense should be in order!

Congrats to ACT Roads and Tony Gill for hearing the complaints and fixing it. Sad that like the Kings Avenue overpass asphalt seal it seems they only find out that something won’t work after the event.

Drive home tonight was good (once you crawl through Northbourne Avenue’s many traffic lights – don’t get me started on that one). Not many cars waiting on Kuringa Drive and the 3 that were there were getting through easily. Roads ACT’s explanation to me is set out below. Seems that they were trying to reduce the chances of an accident – this could be helped by improving the line of sights for vehicles going through the intersection. The barricades are very high.

“Roads ACT apologises for the delays these temporary arrangements have caused and have issued a direction to the contractor to reinstate the previous arrangements, i.e. switch off the traffic lights, until there is adequate lane capacity in place for traffic lights to work efficiently.

The previous arrangements with no traffic lights will be in place for the evening peak this afternoon.

The major intersection works at the intersection of Barton Highway and Kuringa Drive have been underway for a number of months- the works are associated with the land release at Casey and will provide another access point to Gungahlin. This is a $20 million project funded as part of the capital works program and will be completed early in the new year.

As there have been a number of crashes associated with the temporary traffic arrangements the contractor was keen to install temporary traffic lights to improve the safety of the intersection.
Roads ACT assisted in progressing this temporary arrangement, however after observing the arrangements on site last night and this morning Roads ACT consider there is not sufficient lane capacity available at the location at present for traffic lights to work without causing major delays – which is self defeating in terms of trying to improve the situation.
Regards,
Municipal Services
13 22 81″

Spectra said :

Little_Green_Bag said :

Ah, Kuringa Drive, built over the top of the old Ginninderra School House Restaurant.

Really? I’d never heard of that place, and I’m always interested in Canberra historical tid-bits. Tell me everything you know. Please 🙂

My bad. It seems the Ginninderra Schoolhouse still exists but it is now used for arts and crafts. It is part of Ginninderra Village, which I think also contains Cockington Green and the George Harcourt Inn. So not everything was bulldozed when Belco and Gunners were built.

Perhaps someone on the north side closer to the action can provide further information. You can tell I’m a southern boy 🙂

Little_Green_Bag said :

Ah, Kuringa Drive, built over the top of the old Ginninderra School House Restaurant.

Really? I’d never heard of that place, and I’m always interested in Canberra historical tid-bits. Tell me everything you know. Please 🙂

Spectra said :

Chop71 said :

I really don’t see how this intersection is that different to the one 2km down the road with the big roundabout that seems to work fine…. except when the odd truck tips onto it’s side

In many ways, it’s not. And have you seen the queue to get out of Gungahlin in the morning, even when there’s no queue on the Barton Hwy? It demonstrates exactly what I was talking about – the traffic coming along the highway tends to starve access to those coming from Gungahlin. Just because that intersection is not a good configuration, though, doesn’t mean the same mistake should be made further up the road.

Good job Al, and credit where it’s due to the roads people for reversing their stuff-up relatively quickly. It’s a mistake that should never have been made, and caused some serious inconvenience, but absent the ability to turn back time you really can’t ask for more than has now been done.

ahh, light up the road would make breaks in traffic for Gunners residents on the roundabout.

Good thinking, but as I look into my crystal ball I see bridges and/or fly overs for both intersections in 10-20 years time. (or people asking for them when the lights slow them down to a crawl)

Ah, Kuringa Drive, built over the top of the old Ginninderra School House Restaurant. I remember in the 1970s my father tried to book a table there and it wasn’t in the phone book. He phoned directory assistance and was told it was listed under E – for “1883 Ginninderra School House Restaurant”.