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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-02-14 Daily Xml
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Road Traffic (Roadworks) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 30 November 2016.)

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (16:11): The Dignity Party acknowledges the need for some change in the area of roadworks traffic management and also has concerns about the impact on pedestrians of detours during road and footpath works. As it currently stands, I understand that all council workers and contractors should have undertaken training in Standards for Workzone Traffic Management, plus they are required to have a safety plan approved before commencing roadworks.

Despite this, constituents advise me of repeated apparent breaches during the undertaking of works. I have also been informed of instances where incorrect temporary speed zone signs have been erected indicating a roadwork speed of 25 km/h on one side of the street but 50 km/h on the other side, as well as 50 km/h signs being displayed in an area which is a permanent 40 km/h zone. It seems that current compliance is not uniform and that the understanding of the impact, particularly on pedestrians, is not good. Hazards for vision-impaired pedestrians in particular include footpaths being ripped up and mounds of sand being placed for bedding pavers. In this instance, it is essential that barriers or mesh be put in place to delineate the footpath from works.

The government is driven (pardon the pun!) by an obsession to reduce congestion, whether that be to rip up the Parklands to shave a few minutes off the O-Bahn journey into the city or the purchase and placement of multiple electronic indicator boards to show real-time journey time. These are ad hoc measures that avoid the real issue of the overdependence of metropolitan commuters on private vehicle transport.

We all know that our travel time drops once senior school students have finished exams for the year and continues to get shorter as private and then public schools break up for the summer holidays. What a dream it would be if we could have those commute times all year round. There are, anecdotally, parents who drive their high school aged children to work for distances of less than a kilometre. At a time when health concerns about obesity and other conditions abound, we should be encouraging more walking buses to give students and their parents options other than taking the car to school or work.

Road workers and the staff who support them undertake essential repair and replacement of roads and infrastructure, and it is important that they feel confident to carry out their duties safely under the protection of reduced speed limits. Currently, the speed limit past roadworks in South Australia is 25 km/h, and this legislation seeks to increase this to 40 km/h. The justification, if I understand it correctly, is that drivers do not like to slow down to 25 km/h, especially if it appears that there are no roadworks taking place. I remain to be convinced that this increase in speed past roadworks is a wise move on the part of the government.

To reduce peak-hour congestion, it may be preferable to encourage people to leave home earlier, to stagger the start and finish times of the working day for those businesses that can do so, and to increase the availability of Go Zones for buses so that people can start and finish work later but still take advantage of frequent bus services. In these ways we could ensure that our traffic is spread out over time and not concentrated as much as it is now.

This bill seeks to establish a new process for the issue of permits and, whilst I am cautious about a big new computer system, particularly following on from the complete debacle of the introduction of upgrades to the NDIS portal or the 'not my debt' scandal in even more recent times, this should offer contractors a straightforward way of ensuring that they are authorised to carry out works. The increased coordination of roadworks promises to save both money and inconvenience to road users and, for this reason, is warmly supported by the Dignity Party, and we support the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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