Murphy to ‘come in like a wrecking ball’ on Tingalpa traffic calming

A controversial traffic calming project in Tingalpa is due to be ripped up by Brisbane City Council within weeks.

Doboy Ward Councillor Ryan Murphy said six platforms that formed part of the Tingalpa Local Area Traffic Management (LATM) project would be removed by Council in the week commencing Monday 14 April 2014.

“Council’s engineers have advised that six of the twelve platforms on Castlerea and Thurston Streets can be safely removed without compromising the effectiveness of the scheme.” Cr Murphy said.

The move brings to an end a long running campaign by local residents who have called on the number of platforms to be significantly reduced.

“These traffic calming measures were controversial from the day they were built,”

“The sheer number of the platforms, 17 in total, has become a daily nightmare for residents in the south-eastern part of the Tingalpa subdivision, many of whom travel over the platforms hundreds of times in a working week.”

The LATM was proposed by former Councillor John Campbell in 2008 as a measure to reduce rat running from Manly Road to Belmont Road during peak hours.

However, after gaining in principle support from the community, the monster project was installed in 2010 without any community consultation around the final design or the number of platforms.

“If the community had known from the start that they would need to run a gauntlet of calming devices to get to and from their homes every day, there’s no way they would have supported the scheme.”

In addition, Council’s 2013 Bus Review removed the P216 bus from servicing the Tingalpa loop due to adverse impact the platforms were having on customer comfort and trip times.

“I’m confident that once the platforms are removed we will be able to restore the P216 to the route and I am working with the local state member and Translink to achieve this as soon as possible.”

The removals come after extensive consultation was undertaken with all 735 homes in the affected area.

Cr Murphy said his survey asked residents to indicate support for one of four options:

• Leave the LATM un-changed as-is

• Modify the LATM to be bus friendly

• Reduce the LATM platform count by 25%

• Reduce the LATM platform count by 50%

“Residents overwhelmingly voted to remove 50% of the platforms, with 59% of those surveyed selecting this option.”

“A further 6% voted to remove 25% of the platforms, 21% voted to make the platforms bus friendly and only 14% of those responded supported keeping the status quo.”

“This means that an overwhelming 86% of residents wanted Council to remove half of the calming,” Cr Murphy said.

“This work is about getting the balance right to ensure that we can tackle rat-running without hurting local residents just trying to get to and from their homes.”

“It goes to show that traffic calming measures are not always the silver bullet they are made out to be.”