"THE case for an estimated $50 million bypass at Drysdale is being developed as councillors declare traffic in the town is becoming increasingly chaotic...
Cheetham councillor Rod Macdonald said a previous study found there wasn't sufficient traffic to justify the initiative, but he was aware of an increase in road use.
Coryule councillor John Doull agreed, claiming it took him 5-10 minutes longer to proceed through the roundabout as he took his children to school..."This is hardly surprising. On 14 December I wrote about how Geelong Council by closing the Corio tip was automatically guaranteeing the traffic through Drysdale and down Murradoc Road would increase exponentially. (Welcome to Drysdale - Home of Geelong's Tip).
Interesting to see that councillors are being inconvenienced for a change.
Lucky for ratepayers, if the Drysdale bypass goes ahead, then this will be a VicRoads initiative and not a Council one. This means ratepayers wont have to pay for the making of this road. Or will they?
By the time that Cr. Doull started to lose 5-10 minutes each morning at the Jetty Road roundabout, local people had been campaigning for a Drysdale bypass for years. That campaign received no substantive help from either Cr. Doull or Cr. Macdonald, although each of them has made supportive noises.
ReplyDeleteA bypass will not just improve safety in the town, it could also - if handled correctly - boost the town's economy, making it less reliant on Geelong and Melbourne for employment. For the past four years, the City of Greater Geelong has frantically expanded the local population without providing a single new job. In this election year, it will be interesting to see what local candidates for council say they will do about the bypass and about the local economy in general.