Accident hotspot: the intersection of Streeton Drive and Namatjira Drive, Weston, where traffic lights will be installed. Photos: Ian Bushnell.
Drivers along busy Streeton Drive at Weston will soon face two extra sets of traffic lights designed to make two intersections safe.
A tender has been released for the two projects – the busy Namatjira Drive intersection, which is the main access to the Weston Creek Group Centre and Cooleman Court, and the Heysen Street intersection to the north where the Village housing development Fetherston will be built on the former AFP site.
City Services says the intersections have been identified as accident and congestion hotspots, with the projects jointly funded by the ACT and Federal governments under the Commonwealth’s Infrastructure Investment Program.
It says more than 20,000 vehicles use the road corridor each day between Weston Creek, Tuggeranong and Woden, with Heysen Street and Namatjira Drive funnelling high volumes of residential and commercial traffic to Streeton Drive, resulting in both intersections becoming increasingly busy.
A feasibility study recommended the installation of traffic lights at both intersections as the safest option for all road users, including pedestrians and cyclists.
Roundabouts were ruled out as inappropriate for arterial roads with high congestion and high traffic volumes, and because they would not allow crossings for pedestrians and cyclists.
But it will mean five sets of traffic lights on Streeton Drive from Hindmarsh Drive and Cotter Road, inclusive, and a slower, more stop-start run along one of Canberra’s busiest roads.
The intersection of Heysen Street with Streeton Drive. The Fetherston site is at right.
As well as traffic lights, both projects will include new signalised pedestrian crossings, the replacement of streetlights, kerb adjustments, cycle lanes, new signs and line marking.
Not all of the originally recommended works survived a cost-cutting exercise, although extra funding meant some were restored.
The new lights at the Namatjira Drive intersection follow similar works at the intersection of Brierly Street and Hindmarsh Drive at the other end of the group centre, which had been identified as a black spot after many accidents.
Heysen Street has become an increasingly used rat run over the hills to and from Lyons and the Woden Town Centre.
But the 337-dwelling Village development has added urgency to making that intersection, which was littered with accident debris when visited, safer.
A contract is expected to be awarded in the first quarter of 2024.
The tender closes on 1 February.
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