Council bows to community pressure and suspends construction of new raised thresholds on Loftus Avenue, Loftus

An independent traffic consultant will be engaged to review the proposed traffic calming measures between Myrtle Street and Cranberry Street on the busy back road, which has long been a dangerous speedway.

Residents living near the proposed mid-block raised thresholds would have been impacted by the noise of vehicles breaking suddenly and there were also concerns the risk to motorists, cyclists and pedestrians would actually increase.

The decision to at least temporarily halt the works was made at this week's council meeting, where it was acknowledged there had been a lack of consultation with residents.

Chair of the Consultative Traffic Forum, Cr Leanne Farmer said, "We are now getting an independent planner to help with some issues".

"I just want to thank the staff for recognising the need for better community consultation. I know a lot of the community were not happy about things, but I can say it was a very positive thing moving forward," she said.

Cr Diedree Steinwall said she wished to "acknowledge the distress residents along Loftus Avenue were going through, caused by a lack of ongoing consultation".

"The D Ward councillors received many emails and we have now moved to put a halt to all the work that was to take place under the Black Spot program so we can have an independent look at this.

"The residents had legitimate concerns and hopefully independent, fresh eyes will help."

Cr Steinwall said the D Ward councillors, who also include mayor Carmelo Pesce and Cr Greg McLean, worked together to achieve a successful outcome.

The council agreed in May 2021 to the traffic committee's recommendation to construct the raised thresholds with funding from the federal government's "Black Spots" program.

"Loftus Avenue, which has a 50km/h speed limit, already has multiple traffic calming devices, including roundabouts, oval thresholds and a raised pedestrian crossing, but there are limited physical restraints to throttle driving speeds between Myrtle Street and Cranberry Street," a staff report said.

"Council continues to receive multiple reports of speeding and requests for police presence to enforce speed limits.

"In the five-year period between 1 July 2014 and 30 June 2019, five vehicle crashes were recorded resulting in 10 injuries. Of the five crashes resulting in injuries, four resulted in a serious injury to four people.

"Of the remaining injuries, three were considered moderate and three were considered minor. At least two of the four crashes were listed as having excessive speed as a cause of the crash."

An online petition on change.org objecting to the works was started by resident Emily Murty and attracted 237 signatures.

The petition said residents who would be directly impacted by construction were notified by the council on May 26 this year.

While they had been invited to provide "feedback", they were also informed work was imminent and no further considerations or alterations to the plan would be taken into account.

The petition continued: "There has been no meaningful community consultation and, in further conversation with council it has emerged, that there has been no thorough risk assessment including data collection or analysis resulting in a mediocre understanding of the problem, there has been little consideration to the property owners who are directly effected by this proposal and no consideration of alternative methods to address the concerns of Loftus residents.

"There is further concern that if the proposed oval thresholds were to be constructed in these locations, the risk to motorists, cyclists and pedestrians would actually increase."

Reasons given for why the works should be stopped included: