The removal of a dangerous Delahey traffic bottleneck has been delayed.
Work to remove the Kings Road and Taylors Road roundabout has stalled due to delays in relocating utilities such as gas and water mains at the intersection.
VicRoads metro north-west operations director Brian Westley said shifting utilities at the intersection had taken longer than expected.
Replacing the roundabout with traffic lights is expected to reduce backed-up traffic and improve safety at the notorious intersection.
Mr Westley said construction was now due to begin next month and be completed “in late 2017”.
“We will keep the community informed of progress,” he said.
VicRoads says there could be reduced speed limits and some lane closures, but the intersection would remain open.
In May last year, VicRoads announced a date had been set for the $7.3 million removal of the roundabout – rated the seventh worst intersection in Melbourne in a 2014 RACV survey.
Work was due to begin in the second half of last year, and a new set of traffic lights was to be operational by May this year. Yet less than two months from the project’s projected completion date, little has been done.
The roundabout’s removal has been supported by St Albans MP Natalie Suleyman and various Brimbank state MPs, including Natalie Hutchins and Marlene Kariouz.
Within the past five years, there have been 18 crashes, resulting in five serious injuries, at the roundabout.
The government committed $6.1 million in last year’s budget to remove the roundabout and install traffic signals, a pedestrian-operated crossing, new bicycle lanes, upgraded footpaths and a raised intersection.
Last year, motorists fed up with traffic congestion called for the duplication of Taylors Road. Brimbank council owns the road to the west of the intersection, the state government owns the eastern side.
Brimbank infrastructure and environment director Neil Whiteside said the council had been lobbying for the western side of Taylors Road to be included in the state’s arterial road network.
“Council has been advocating for some time that this section of road … be declared as a main road, and duplicated, ,” he said.
VicRoads did not answer questions from Star Weekly about whether this was in the pipeline.
Related:
Date set for Kings Road roundabout removal
Roundabout removal ‘doesn’t go far enough’
Delahey: Taylors Road-Kings Road traffic hotspot ‘must go’
