Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the issue of road safety and an instance in which a decision of the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority makes absolutely no sense at all. Late last year the New South Wales RTA made a decision to close an at-grade crossing on the Hume Highway at Marulan in the electorate of Hume. The closure is due to take place by June this year.

Many in this place would know Marulan, as it is located approximately halfway between Canberra and Sydney and its service centres are a popular rest stop for travellers and truck drivers. Marulan is a quiet rural village of approximately 500 residents, and it was bypassed in 1996. It is a mining and transport town. It has a primary school, a preschool, a day care centre and a number of businesses that line its quaint main street, which has become more popular since the bypass as a quiet alternative for travellers and the locals alike to enjoy the quiet small-town rural atmosphere.

The decision for road safety reasons by the New South Wales RTA to close the at-grade intersection of the Hume Highway and George Street at the southern approach to Marulan because of a number of road crashes since 1999, two of which have involved fatalities, will now force traffic travelling south wishing to enter Marulan to do so from the northern approach. This will have the effect of forcing up to 2,000 vehicle movements per day, many of which will be heavy vehicles, including B-doubles, through Marulan’s main street and directly past the primary school, the preschool and the day care centre.

I am a very strong advocate of road safety and I believe that it is paramount that the government do all it can to assist in curbing the ever-increasing road toll but, when I am confronted with a proposal that does not adequately address the safety issues of the intersection and, indeed, creates a greater safety risk for the residents of Marulan, particularly with the safety of infants and primary school children, from increased heavy vehicle traffic, what am I to say to my constituents other than, ‘I totally agree’? The very principle behind bypassing our smaller country towns and villages is to remove excess traffic, including heavy vehicle traffic, from pedestrian areas, and I am afraid this proposal just does not do that.

The funding for this proposal has come from the previous Howard government’s black spot funding program, a very successful road safety project that has been continued by this government—and for that I thank them. I was personally involved in obtaining black spot funding for two similar intersections just south of Marulan, at the Towrang and Carrick interchanges. If similar engineering to this could be employed at the Marulan intersection, I believe the safety concerns of both the RTA and the residents of Marulan would be satisfactorily addressed.

I have made representations to Minister Albanese on behalf of the residents of Marulan requesting that he intervene and give consideration to alternative engineering at this intersection. I have brought to his attention that fixing one problem should not create another problem, and in this case at Marulan there is a very real possibility that this could happen. I have also brought to the minister’s attention that there are other federal roads, particularly the Princes Highway on the South Coast of New South Wales and the Pacific Highway on the North Coast, upon which carnage is almost a daily occurrence and that black spot funding could be better spent there.

The significant increase in heavy vehicle movements through Marulan’s main street, even with promised upgrades to the school crossings and to George Street itself, will go nowhere to improving the safety of local schoolchildren or residents. It is a well-known fact that it takes a lot longer to pull up a B-double, even if it is travelling at the speed limit, than a car, and my fear is that this is a tragedy in waiting given the unpredictability of small children. In closing, it is my hope that Minister Albanese will look most seriously at this proposal, and I hope that he will see, as I and the community of Marulan have seen, that the RTA solution here is not the right solution.