Western Sydney’s Roads
NSW Labor has taken Western Sydney for granted through 16 long years. Their neglect is obvious every day in traffic jams and bottlenecks throughout the region, for example at the M4-Northern Rd interchange, and on the motorways themselves. Western Sydney’s roads are congested and often unsafe.
Barry O’Farrelll has released a $100 million plan for Western Sydney’s roads – you can read more about the announcement here.
M4 – Northern Rd Interchange
The interchange has all the hallmarks of a bright idea gone wrong through a lack of proper consultation. Glenmore Park residents were having difficulty before the installation of the new lights at the interchange, and I understand that it has helped them.
Unfortunately, this has been at the expense of the people of Penrith, southbound on the Northern Road.
The Keneally Labor Government has spent $5.5m in upgrading this interchange, and all the taxpayers of Penrith have seen for their money is chaos. Clearly, the community consultation was inadequate, and there was completely inadequate modeling of the changed traffic flow under the RTA’s plan. In fact there has been failure at every step of the process.
The Keneally Labor Government can’t even get this set of lights right – it’s no wonder they haven’t been able to fix the hospital, or Victoria Bridge.
I’ve been down there to see the traffic in the morning, and I can only imagine the frustration that Penrith commuters are feeling in a queue that stretches back for some kilometres, and which has flow on effects further up the Northern Road. I have raised the community concerns with the Minister for Roads David Borger MP and received a highly unsatisfactory response. We will continue to press the RTA for changes to address the problems created by the upgrade.
If the Liberal & National parties are elected on March 26, I’ll be asking the new Roads Minister to review this intersection.
