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Plans for Ennis Avenue crash junction

Pierra WillixSound Telegraph
Main Roads has said it is considering shutting the intersection or installing traffic lights on the Ennis Avenue and Royal Palm Drive intersection.
Camera IconMain Roads has said it is considering shutting the intersection or installing traffic lights on the Ennis Avenue and Royal Palm Drive intersection. Credit: Google Maps

Main Roads has said it is considering modifying the intersection to prevent right turns or installing traffic lights on the Ennis Avenue and Royal Palm Drive intersection to cut the high number of crashes there.

A Main Roads spokesman said that in the five years up to the end of 2018, there had been 22 reported crashes at the intersection.

However, a resident who lives nearby, who asked not to be named, said there were crashes there on a more regular basis and labelled the risky turn-off a “recipe for disaster”. He said a car had crashed through his fence two years ago.

Rather than attributing the crashes to driver error, he said the intersection had been badly designed and needed a rethink.

“The issues are the trajectory of the turn-off, and the fact there is a drop and that you have to cross two lanes of traffic to get across,” he said.

“Sometimes when the weather is bad you have visibility that is less than 50m and you’ve got other cars going 100km/h at you.”

In a space of four days last week, there were three crashes there.

Sick of the high number of crashes, residents and the community have been calling for lights to be installed. An online petition has attracted more than 3000 signatures.

Although they had been considering a roundabout, Main Roads has now said this option is off the table. It is now looking at “treatment options” that include full median closure to prevent right turns onto and from Royal Palm Drive, or installing traffic signals at part of the intersection.

A spokesman said design was currently progressing for both options.

Traffic lights are installed at the intersections before and after the Royal Palm Drive exit.

Lights were installed at Port Kennedy Drive in 2014 after eight people died in crashes there over a 15 year period.

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