ANYBODY who has had to cope with peak period traffic in Sydney or Melbourne knows the frustrations and countless hours wasted on commuting.
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One of the great advantages of living in places such as Albury-Wodonga and Wangaratta is knowing that, barring a major drama such as a crash, you won’t be overly delayed on the roads.
Sure there are breakfast radio traffic reports, but you hardly need to sweat on them, with the commercial FM station updates tending to be populated by words that are more opaque than obvious when it comes to spelling out snarls.
The lack of motoring headaches has been underlined in a new report on Albury’s traffic which has been compiled jointly by the city’s council and the NSW Roads and Maritime Services and presented to councillors this week.
The key findings of the modelling produced for the report include the city having “short sharp peaks generally less than 15 minutes” and “peak traffic 8.15 – 9.15am and 4.30 – 5.30pm”.
It was deemed there was “ample capacity” in the road network and “limited major infrastructure demand in the short to medium term”.
The report includes a bar graph showing the vehicles per day that use key arterial roads.
Interestingly more than 10 years after the internal freeway opened, the most heavily used section of road is part of the old Hume Highway.
Wodonga Place, south of Hume Street, which forms the traditional southern gateway for Albury, averages 19,839 vehicles per day.
Borella Road, east of the Hume Freeway, had 17,880 and Waugh Road, north of Fallon Street, 16,185.
Much of the focus has been on Thurgoona and the report notes that the bulk of population growth in the city will be in that direction and “corridor strategies” for Thurgoona Drive and Borella Road are planned.
The council is now seeking feedback and hosting information sessions.
This is an opportunity to contribute ideas, which may be as simple as changing the traffic light sequencing at an intersection.
While traffic may be worsening at some times, it is worth remembering we’ve got nothing on big cities when it comes to bottlenecks and with good planning may that situation continue.