Palmwoods
District News

October
1998

Page 3

Editorial
Management by punishment

District residents using the Nambour Connection Road to commute to Nambour have good reason to be concerned about plans to use punishment rather than management as a method of speed control.

The concept of enforcing speed limits with speed cameras and radar traps is little short of despicable from a government which refuses to bite the bullet and consider options for dealing with all of the hazardous intersections along the route.

If other options have been considered and ruled out, we are certainly not being told what and why.

However, there is also a clear message that we had better not complain:

• Woombye residents who stand to be re-directed along Pine Grove Road to use the new overpass when Blackall Street is closed to turning traffic;
• Parents who will have additional traffic directed past their children’s school in Pine Grove Road;
• Keil Mountain and Diddillibah residents who stand to see their quiet country roads become a busy throughfare as they will provide easier Coast access from the overpass.
• Palmwoods residents who will have to go up and over and down rather than simply turn left to Nambour
• anyone who gets a speeding fine in the mixed-up 100kmh/80kmh zones along the route

Not one of us had better complain. If we don’t accept the promised extravagance of an $8 million overpass - and with no solutions forthcoming for Blackall Street and Mackenzie Road - we will have to wait even longer for action. And action has been a long time coming. It dates back to 1980, when then Transport Minister Russ Hinze was considering traffic lights but had a problem as it was then the Bruce Highway. Action has been stepped up since the bypass opened in 1990. Like it or not, we now have to take what we get, or get nothing at all for another few years at least. This is of course, assuming that the extra $6 million will be forthcoming next year for the overpass to proceed.

Traffic lights at all three intersections would have automatically reduced speeds along this feeder road to Nambour but it appears we are to be punished, not managed. May the bureaucrats and politicians who make these decisions be the first to get a ticket!

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