An Oakford resident said he wants action taken on some Serpentine Jarrahdale’s worst road blackspot areas, some of which have previously claimed the lives of motorists.
On August 7 Oakford resident Morgan Byas met with shire director of engineering Doug Elkins.
At the meeting Mr Byas said he discussed the five worst intersections in the shire and was told about the road hierarchy model as a possible solution.
The model classifies the shire’s roads into various categories to allow standards of maintenance and upgrades to be set for the 830-kilometres of roads over an area of 900-square kilometres.
It will allow council to determine maintenance and upgrade standards for its road network and create a system to prioritise investment.
The intersections he named included Thomas-Hopkinson Road, Thomas Road-Kargotich Road, Tonkin Highway-Rowley Road and South Western Highway-Beenyup-Abernethy roads.
Mr Byas also brought up other areas of interest including the dips on Kargotich Road.
He said although he was concerned with how council was managing the finances and investing in infrastructure the meeting was a positive one.
“It was a constructive discussion,” he said.
“There is some good news about the dips on Kargotich Road as the works for this one are priced into this financial year with the approval for funding to go before council for sign off at the August council meeting.
“So far my fingers are crossed as we may see some action on this one sooner rather than later.”
Mr Byas questioned how council would be able to afford building and maintaining a safe local road network.
“How high will our rates go or what services do they intend on cutting?” he said.
“These are important questions that we as a community need to be asking especially ahead of council elections in October.”
Although he did not give an exact date shire president John Erren said the shire was working on a revised asset management plan for roads this financial year and the road hierarchy model was an element of this process.
Mr Erren also said the shire was investing $2.3 million on routine road maintenance as well as $18.9 million with the assistance of grant funding on new road and footpath construction and upgrades including Abernethy Road.
