33 Incidents in the last 5 Years
Yass Valley Council (YVC) met in the last week of February to consider a request made by Gundaroo’s RFS unit to fix the Federal Highway/Shingle Hill Way intersection.
The request called for acknowledgement of the Gundaroo RFS advocacy on the need for a coordinated approach to the intersection (which straddles several jurisdictions).
The meeting was coordinated alongside Gundaroo and Wamboin RFS crews, YVC and Queanbeyan Palerang Regional Council (QPRC) Mayors and executive leadership, NSW Police and Transport for NSW.
Further recommendations by the RFS unit stated Council should support collaborative advocacy to the State and Federal Governments to prioritise a full upgrade to the Federal HWY-Shingle Hill Way intersection as a strategic response to the 2023 completion of the State and Federal Government $4.4 million investment in and completion of the Shingle Hill Way bridge upgrade.
YVC said they wished to pursue this further by bringing to the State Government and show them that the accommodation of Higher Mass Load (HML) vehicles and by raising the Shingle Hill Way bridge to a 166-tonne load limit, a duty of care by the NSW Government is required to upgrade the state-managed highway intersection tie in.
This, they claimed, was necessary to mitigate the associated increased risks of nearby infrastructure supporting increased freight productivity and high-volume traffic, “including caravans, horse floats, and agricultural truck movements”, while ensuring the safety of emergency services response personnel.
In their letter, the Gundaroo RFS said there was, “a dangerous intersection at Shingle Hill Way, Federal Highway and Bungendore Roads at Bywong / Lake George,” that they wanted to “urge action to improve the safety of this intersection.”
“Unfortunately, due to its location at the junction of two local government areas and a national highway, this intersection spans three separate road authorities (Yass Valley, Queanbeyan Palerang and Transport NSW). This has led to a lack of coordinated record keeping and a lack of oversight.
“As the closest emergency service, Gundaroo RFS Brigade (along with Wamboin Brigade) are often first responders to motor vehicle accidents at this intersection. We deal firsthand with the incidents, regardless of which jurisdiction they occur in. In the past five years, we have attended 33 incidents.
“We have been very fortunate that there have not been any recent fatalities; however, there have been a number of serious incidents, and it is only a matter of time.”
Formerly raising this matter to the YVC and local representatives (State and Federal), the Gundaroo RFS team said they had only been referred to the each other.
“This area is frequently blanketed in thick foggy conditions, given its proximity to Lake George. At risk are long articulated vehicles such as semi-trailers, cars and caravans and in particular the regular school buses on a daily basis. It is 110 km/h speed limit,” they said.
“Our responsibility is not to manage road safety, but to deal with the consequences. To this end, we strongly urge you to overcome the jurisdictional barriers and come up with a solution to make this intersection safer.”
– Jack Murray
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