Hervey Bay Gossip

In a town that’s spent the last few years bursting at the seams it’s no wonder that we have problems with our roads … and I’m not talking about potholes.

You only have to look at Main Street between Boat Harbour Drive and the Old Maryborough Road intersection on an average week day to see what I mean. There are times when the traffic is almost banked right back to Boat Harbour Drive and there are several other busy stretches of road around Hervey Bay where traffic backs up throughout the day.

So what is the Fraser Coast Regional Council doing to alleviate the problem? Not much it would seem – even Councillors Muckan and Dalgleish and their measuring tape seem to have disappered – and so the problem is only going to get worse. Right now we need the Council to do something positive about the traffic around the centre of town and, as Jim MacKellar points out, they need to be doing something about another east-west arterial road too because Boat Harbour Drive is becoming clogged with traffic too.

As Jim suggests below, it’s time the Council built the missing link.

Both sides of the recent debate on the need to construct the missing link in Boundary Road, Hervey Bay, are, unfortunately, correct in their arguments. Unfortunately because the Council will use the debate as a reason to take no action.

Anyone who has traveled Boat Harbour Drive during a reasonably busy period will not deny the argument that Hervey Bay desperately needs a proper east-west arterial road. Especially given the projected population increases of the area.

The argument that building the missing link in Boundary Rd as a single carriageway urban street will, however, do little to relieve the situation, is also demonstrably true. Are motorists going to travel the extra distance involved in using Boundary Road if they are going to experience the same congestion that they do on Boat Harbour Drive?

The same argument can be employed when considering the proposal to build a lateral further to the south, around the present urban footprint. Is the internal traffic of Hervey Bay likely to travel the extra distance involved to use it? Most likely not.

The answer lies in a synergy of the two arguments. The Boundary Road link needs to be completed as part of the construction of an east-west arterial built to motorway standards. That is dual – carriageway with interchanges not intersections.

Ideally this motorway would begin at the Boundary Road/ Elizabeth St/Booral Rd intersection and continue through interchanges at Bideford St, Denmans Camp Road, Main St and Maryborough Hervey Bay road to connect with the Piabla Burrum Heads Road in the vicinity of Sorrensons Rd.  As a motorway it would have highway traffic conditions.

Even the planning of the project will take considerable time and money. Council has given no indication of their intentions and no money has been set aside in the current Capital Works Budget. So does this mean that we will see no action in this term of Council.

It is a large project which will not come cheap. But Hervey Bay is rapidly growing, an east-west arterial road is becoming more vital as growth continues and the cost will increase over time even as the need also increases.  The time for Council to act is now.

It’s sad to see that at least one prominent business on the Esplanade at Torquay doesn’t consider that they have any responsibility towards keeping the waters of Hervey Bay free of refuse.

If they did they wouldn’t sweep all the litter from the footpath in front of their shop into the gutter and then sweep it down past several other shops till they could push it into the storm-water drain in front of Pirate’s Cave. Leaves, paper bags and other assorted detritus all went down the drain early on Sunday morning much to the astonishment of three locals sitting out the front of Bayaroma.

Now that Jetstar has abandoned it’s Hervey Bay route and Virgin Blue not due till much later in the morning the puzzle is, who owns the large twin-engined commercial jet that flew out of Hervey Bay airport at around 7.15am this morning and headed south?