Median madness

THE second stroke of madness by our ‘traffic planners’ is to be found in Leslie Street as you approach the traffic lights at the Mandurah bypass.

It used to be relatively easy to choose a lane to turn either right, go straight ahead or filter left, but not anymore.

We now have a great median strip that balloons out as you approach the traffic lights, heading down Leslie Street.

As has happened in Dower Street, the median strip also coincides with bus stops on either side of the road. Consequently, during peak periods or whenever a bus stops to pick up or drop off passengers, the road is comprehensively blocked.

How does this enable a smooth flow of traffic?

It would have been helpful to install lay-bys on either side of the road so that the buses would not interfere with the traffic, but this was obviously far too hard for our traffic planners.

Therefore, when buses are stopped all traffic is blocked and nobody can proceed to the intersection or filter left.

In addition, during peak periods, as traffic backs up to Coolibah Avenue, nobody can proceed in any direction until the traffic permits the exit roads to be accessed.

The median strip needs to be narrowed or taken out altogether.

The emphasis seems to be on so-called ‘beautification’ of roads in and around Mandurah rather than recognising that bottlenecks are being created.

Peter Wood, Halls Head