EXPECT DELAYS: 2021 - THE YEAR AHEAD
Get ready for a lot more roadworks in 2021.
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To deal with the expanding population in the city, governments of every level committed millions to upgrading roads and intersections.
The Courier's put them all into a handy map, though there will be plenty more to come.
A few months back, we also asked you where the dangerous or risky roads and intersections are - we put them in the map too, to see how it all compares.
The City of Ballarat is working on its own plan - basically, there are two different jurisdictions, roads council controls, and roads the state government controls, through Regional Roads Victoria.
In 2021, RRV will hit the construction phase for the $60 million Keeping Ballarat Moving project, which was a Labor state election promise in 2018.
These include new traffic lights replacing roundabouts at Wiltshire Lane and Glenelg Highway, Wiltshire Lane and Latrobe Street, and Hertford Street and Albert Street in Sebastopol; new traffic lights at Gregory Street West and Gillies Street in Wendouree; a new roundabout at Dyson Drive and Ballarat-Carngham Road; and upgrades at Docwra Street in Sebastopol.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? LET US KNOW BELOW
It'll be good news for people in Delacombe and Sebastopol particularly - as well as money announced by council for smaller road upgrades, works have already begun for several of the intersections.
According to RRV, pre-construction work has already been carried out at the Gregory Street-Gillies Street, Wiltshire Lane-LaTrobe Street and Wiltshire Lane-Glenelg Highway sites in preparation for major construction to begin in 2021.
In the middle of town, several upgrades on Sturt and Mair streets are almost complete.
The Ballarat Safer Cycling Connections project includes a new shared path along the Sturt Street gardens, and other smaller upgrades to make it safer for all road users.
It was not unusual before the pandemic to record almost a traffic accident a month, or more, along the smaller north-south Sturt Street crossings - RRV's decided to fix this with new traffic lights at Ascot, Raglan, and Ripon streets, of which all are now operating except Raglan Street.
The other north-south crossings have been modified, with Talbot and Lyons streets becoming a double U-turn and Windermere Street blocked already - Errard Street will be next.
Further along Sturt Street, expect a new set of traffic lights to be installed at the Morrison and Russell streets intersections by February or March.
Further works set to be included in this package include construction of additional traffic lanes at the Arch of Victory roundabout at the intersection of Sturt Street and Cuthberts Road, according to RRV.
Completing the Mair Street upgrade is a priority for community leaders like Commerce Ballarat - already, new lanes and traffic systems have been added, plus a pedestrian crossing with lights at Davies Street to connect to the new Scott Parade car park.
There will still be more work to be done in the inner city, with advocates pointing to the troubled five-way Creswick Road roundabout and the congested Macarthur Street intersections with Drummond Street and Creswick Road as troublespots that should be high on the list for what comes next.
Looking at the map of where the community is concerned, it's high-traffic urban areas that are the worry - the roundabout at York Street and Main Road, for instance, or where Humffray Street connects to Water Street in Brown Hill.
There is money going to some of these points - the federal government's Black Spot program has funded new roundabouts on Talbot Street in Redan, and at Landsborough and Havelock streets in Soldiers Hill - but the pressure will continue to build.
Further out of town, the Western and Midland highways will keep getting more safety upgrades - work is almost complete on the section between Ballarat and Creswick, for example, with a new roundabout at Kennedys Road, while south of Buninyong, more overtaking lanes will be installed on the way to Clarendon.
One upgrade the community has been calling for has been a roundabout on Remembrance Drive at Madden Road, after a number of fatalities and serious incidents.
Late this year, the state government committed to the roundabout, and RRV said it is now in early planning stages.
Similarly, the City of Ballarat said more work will be needed at the troubled Ring Road intersection with Gregory Street West - two crashes in two weeks occurred this year, after council reversed a decision to change traffic priority signs.
Council, the Committee for Ballarat, Commerce Ballarat, and other leaders have repeatedly stated securing funding for the second stage of the Ballarat Link Road, along Dyson Drive between Remembrance Drive and Ballarat-Carngham Road, is also a priority.
The project was overlooked in this year's state and federal budgets.
RRV's Grampians region director Michael Bailey said in a statement the focus is on making sure the city's transport network keeps pace with that growth, in terms of safety and capacity.
"Projects like the $60.8 million Keeping Ballarat Moving package, upgrades to Sturt and Mair streets in the city's CBD and the continued expansion of our cycling network are all ensuring that whether you're driving a car, riding a bike or walking, you can travel safely and efficiently around the city," he said.
"We'll carry that focus on boosting safety and improving the flow of traffic right around Ballarat into 2021, as we begin construction on at the opening round of Keeping Ballarat projects, start work on a new roundabout on Remembrance Drive and continue to deliver improved walking and cycling options.
"We'll also continue to work in partnership with the City of Ballarat to deliver the connections the community need most."
THIS IS 2021, WHAT ABOUT THE BIG PICTURE?
The schedule of works in 2021 are aimed at freeing up key intersections and through routes but the conversation on the city's population growth has also turned to some of the bigger picture projects that are seen as important as long as Ballarat remains dependent on private, road-based transport and freight.
The most substantial of these projects is the overall Link Road project which, although the City of Ballarat completed some advanced planning for, has languished for want of funding.
READ MORE: The link road; what's it all about
The massive second stage, flagged at $80 million, would not only create an additional north south arterial through the growth zones on Dyson Drive, as mentioned above, but ultimately aims to connect the Western Freeway and the Midland Highway using some acquired land south of Carngham Road and on some existing road reserves near Bells Road.
The arguments for the project were that it would take trucks out of the CBD, now using Doveton Street to connect the Midland and Western Highways, and provide efficient access to BWEZ, and a potential intermodal freight hub, through the first stage of the link road.
Data collated in 2018 argued CBD truck traffic was increasing by almost six percent per year and the relocation of the saleyards to Miners Rest made a western bypass an imperative.
The disadvantages of the project are that even completed it still would not solve the Buninyong problem, where residents have long advocated for a bypass of the village centre for the Midland Highway.
The planned north-south alignment on Dyson Drive is also increasingly a residential area, as new housing developments outstrip larger scale infrastructure projects like the Link Road.
GO WEST OR EAST?
One alternative that was looked into in 2017 was connecting the Midland Highway and Western Freeway with an eastern alignment or eastern link road, utilising existing roads such as Yankee Flat Road and connecting at Warrenheip.
The $150,00 study backed by then Member for Parliament Geoff Howard had the advantage of bypassing Buninyong and using mostly existing roads.
But last year Regional Roads Victoria found on completion of the study that it would only take 18 percent of the trucks away from the village and could not be justified.
Other major long term road upgrade ideas that RRV has not given the green light to include the gateway precinct at Woodmans Hill.
Solutions to the difficult Old Melbourne Road/ Brewery Tap Lane crossing with the Western Freeway have not yet been publicly discussed.
So putting aside these longer-term ideas, for the year to come the focus is firmly on smaller scale projects on key arterials in the growth zones that RRV argues will be critical to keep these roads moving.
There may be delays ahead but at these six intersections, at least, the purpose is short-term pain for the long-term gain.
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