Grievance Debate

OAKLANDS PARK RAILWAY CROSSING

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (16:26): I wish the Minister for Transport had stayed, because 28 June 2011 was the first anniversary of a letter I had written to the Minister for Transport regarding the Oaklands railway crossing/Diagonal Road/Morphett Road intersection. I wrote to the minister on 28 June 2010. That letter was acknowledged on 15 July 2010, but we had no further indication of any work being done on that letter. We phoned the minister's office on 5 January, and they said they would call back. We phoned again on 8 March this year; they said they would call back and get into it as soon as possible. We phoned again on 3 May this year and they were following it up.

We still have not received a response to my letter regarding the Oaklands railway crossing/Diagonal Road/Morphett Road intersection, which is a major traffic hazard in my electorate. In fact, it is on the boundary of my electorate, the Minister for Transport's electorate and the member for Mitchell's electorate. If any member—or anyone listening, or reading Hansard—wants to see what it is like, they can go to my website and look at the video on there and see how congested and dangerous that intersection is.

I have been driving that intersection for many years now, between Glenelg and my veterinary practice at Happy Valley, and since 2002 as the local member. About 27 or 28 years ago proposals were put in place to upgrade that intersection because they knew it was going to be a looming bottleneck. Even 27 years ago they were talking about grade separation down there. We have had further talks and discussions, we have had numerous plans put in about grade separation there, because that is the real answer to that problem.

As members would see on the video on my website, that intersection combines Diagonal Road traffic, Morphett Road traffic, now the new aquatic centre traffic, the medical centre traffic, and the very large Westfield shopping centre traffic—all that traffic coming in together and trying to get across at the Diagonal Road train crossing. What the government has done there is a real patch-up. The planning has fallen aside, and we can see that from this year's budget, where the money that was in previous budgets to improve that intersection (although it was not grade separation) has been removed and more planning will be done. Another couple of million dollars will be spent on planning at that intersection.

What we saw were plans to change the intersection of Diagonal Road, Morphett Road and Prunus Avenue, creating a 'triangular-about', as someone described it, at that area. That was not going to solve the problems. All we have seen so far is the government spending a lot of money on moving the railway station towards the crossing and putting in a bus interchange there. None of this has in any way improved the situation; it has made it worse, far worse. What we are looking for from the government is not more delays. We know it has to be done. It can only be done once, but it must done properly. What we have seen in the past have been patch-ups. It has not been good enough.

Unfortunately, when the Liberal government was in we did not have the money to do anything serious there. This government prides itself on looking forward. Well, they should be looking forward to what is going to happen to that intersection, because it is going to get busier and busier and busier. The intersection of Dunrobin and Diagonal roads has been a perennial problem. The pedestrian crossing that is just before the intersection creates a further bank-up of traffic. If you go there now, at half past four at night, you will see traffic lined up on both sides of the intersection, down Diagonal Road and Morphett Road, trying to get around Prunus Avenue and, of course, off and onto Dunrobin Road.

The need is to act now, not to delay. I will be interested to read what the minister has to say when he replies to my letter, dated 28 June 2010. It will be nice to get a briefing on what they are intending to do at that intersection. It has not been good enough. We are seeing further delays; it is not good enough. Once again, I tell people to go and have a look at my website, have a look at the video on my website, and you will see how busy that intersection is. It is a disaster. It is a disaster waiting to happen, and we are very lucky that there have not been serious accidents there involving fatalities.

It has not happened yet, but with the way traffic is nowadays, with pressures on people to get from A to B, I am sure that the intersection is going to be the cause of increased angst and driver concern. The minister and the government need to answer my letter and also get on with doing something about the intersection, not just more and more and more planning.