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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-03-09 Daily Xml
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KING STREET BRIDGE

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:15): I raise a very important issue in this house this afternoon and that is the issue of the replacement of King Street Bridge at Glenelg North. The bridge was built in the early 1960s. The then three-span bridge was expanded to five spans in the early to mid-70s and I must say, that whilst it was being expanded to five spans, the army came in and put a temporary bridge there to allow access to Glenelg North Peninsula and for the locals to use for access to that area without having to go right around the Patawalonga and on to Tapleys Hill Road.

That issue has raised its head again with the redevelopment of that bridge. The bridge has concrete cancer now. Over 7,000 cars, trucks and buses a day go over that bridge. It is part of the western suburbs safety plan, the emergency access plan. The bridge needs to be fixed; it needs to be replaced. The problem is, the bridge is closed now and the 7,000 cars a day that used to go over that bridge are going via Africaine Road on to Tapleys Hill Road.

That intersection is a very dangerous intersection. The Africaine Road has an S-shape to it; you cannot see very far ahead of you; you come to the intersection with Tapleys Hill Road; it is a four-lane very busy road. There is an S-bend in Tapleys Hill Road to the south, a straight section to the north. To try and enter Tapleys Hill Road from Africaine Road is an accident waiting to happen.

It is a very, very busy intersection, and what we are asking the Minister for Transport to do is to put in traffic lights at that intersection. The bridge will be out of action for at least 12 months, but that intersection will still be a very busy intersection. There are cars with boats on from Adelaide Shores, there are cars with caravans from Adelaide Shores, plus the increase in local traffic coming out of Africaine Road—even when the bridge is finished it will still be an issue. So, putting lights in there now at $300,000 is a small cost, because if there is a serious injury as a result of an accident at that intersection, it will cost about $600,000. If there is a death, it will be over $1 million to the economy, never mind the terrible social impact.

I wrote to the Minister of Transport first in 2008, and since then we have contacted his office a number of times. I understand the police have contacted the Minister for Transport, asking for traffic lights at that intersection, and I know just recently his Morphett ALP sub-branch contacted the minister asking for traffic lights at that intersection. The minister is refusing to listen. There was a meeting with the council yesterday from DTEI. I understand that traffic lights were not on the table there. I hope I am wrong in that case, because traffic lights are the only real answer to that very dangerous intersection.

You can synchronise those traffic lights at that Africaine/Tapleys Hill roads intersection with those just south of that at the Warren Avenue/Tapleys Hill Road intersection. If you want an example of how that works, just go out the front where we have 17 sets of traffic lights on North Terrace to allow for the trams and the other traffic and then the hospital and the universities. It can be done, so you cannot tell me we cannot do it at Tapleys Hill Road.

It has been slowed down from a 80 km/h zone to a 60 km/h zone because it is a dangerous area; it is a dangerous intersection. That has already been acknowledged by that change in the road speed. The volumes are getting worse because the southern suburbs are developing, people are using that as a corridor to the north, and you have increased populations on the coast. When there is the first footy match with the Crows on 26 March, you watch, that will be just absolutely jam-packed down there.

I do not want to see an accident there; I do not want to see an injury; and for heaven's sake I do not want to see any deaths at that intersection. The minister might think I am being melodramatic, but this is a fact. Everybody—the people there, the police, his own Morphett ALP sub-branch—believes that the minister needs to do something about that. It is not just about banning right-hand turns. It is not just about trying to slow the traffic down by diverting traffic up to West Beach Road or Sir Donald Bradman Drive or down through the Bay some other way. That is not the answer. The answer is traffic lights at that intersection. An amount of $300,000 for a permanent set of traffic lights is a very small cost when you consider the cost of injuries and deaths at that intersection and a developing area, developing to the south. We need to do something; it needs to be done now. You cannot delay with this. The minister has been aware of this for a number of years. I am telling him, the people down at Glenelg are telling him, the police are telling him, and his own Morphett ALP sub-branch is telling him; so the minister needs to start listening and spend that money to fix the problem, fix the intersection, and make sure that nobody is killed there and that traffic continues to flow.

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