TRAFFIC MISMANAGEMENT

There is plenty of examples in Adelaide of poor traffic management and it is something that drives most of us almost insane.  I believe that Colonel William Light who is buried in Light Square and who holds the distinguished honour of being the only person buried within the CBD would be turning in his grave at the complete and total mis-management of traffic in our beautiful City.

Our City is one of only a handful in the world that was planned.  Our wide streets are the envy of much bigger Cities than ours, like New York or London.  Colonel Light in his infinite wisdom planned our City on a grid pattern with wide streets, which were designated as the main thoroughfares.  Other narrower streets were designed as distributor roadways and thus designed not to be a part of the main traffic routes.

On any day one enters the City and finds themselves constantly stopping at the numerous traffic lights.  One asks themselves why?  Why can't they be synchronised?  In any direction of travel on North Terrace, King William Street, Grenfell Street, Currie Street, Wakefield Street or Grote Street often find themselves being stopped at each intersection.  Yet if one goes to New York, one can travel from one end of Manhatten to the other without stopping.  The lights go green one after the other and if you maintain the speed limit they go green one after another in sequence at any time of the day.

This simple concept is lost to Adelaide.  We stop traffic at King William St then James Place then Gawler Place then the Car Park then Hindmarsh Square then Frome St.  It is crap and totally unacceptable.

Why can't the James Place pedestrian lights be replaced with an underpass.  A fence running up the middle of the roadway to prevent pedestrians from J walking.  Why must trams have to sit for sometimes two minutes waiting to turn from King William Street into North Terrace? 

Car parking / Loading Zones and Taxi zones should be moved from the major thoroughfares and into adjacent side streets.  All street car parking should be banned within the CBD as there is more than enough in car parks and on the periphery.

The Government has the opportunity to make millions by adopting the American style of illegal parking.  Fining and removing the vehicle.  We must set up a large compound out at say Gillman.  Any vehicle that is parked illegally, is swiftly removed and towed to this location.  $300 + the parking fine to retrieve your vehicle.  After 6 months the vehicle if not claimed is sold at auction.  Cars parked illegally in Adelaide cause traffic chaos.  Fining the vehicle does not remove the traffic hazard.  If people don't like it stiff. Don't park illegally.

However, the powers that be must seriously get their collective heads out of their arses and start managing our traffic better than they have been.  If New York and London can do it, surely Adelaide would be a piece of piss.

That's my opinion.