MITCHELL Freeway Extension Community Working Group chairman Albert Jacob hopes the group’s hard work will help avoid time “blow outs” on the proposed freeway extension, announced by the State Government on Sunday.
The $499 million northern suburbs roadwork package includes $315 million for a 6km freeway extension from Burns Beach Road, Kinross, to Hester Avenue, Clarkson, scheduled for 2014 to 2017.
The extension, to help relieve pressure on local roads, will be dual carriageway with provision for three lanes in the future.
Mr Jacob hopes Transport Minister Troy Buswell will retain the core working-group as a reference group and its six-month deliberations will count towards public consultation, speeding up the process.
“Every time the freeway is extended, there are usually (time) blow-outs such as the Burns Beach Road extension, which was several months over,” he said.
“The group could take some new members on and some might not want to continue, but it will keep the works on time.”
In a joint announcement, Mr Buswell and Premier Colin Barnett said the extension would include major traffic interchanges at Burns Beach Road and Neerabup roads and making Hester Avenue dual carriageway to Wanneroo Road.
Construction of Neerabup Road, west of the freeway would be dual carriageway and single carriageway to Wanneroo Road.
There would be an upgrade of key local roads feeding into the freeway system.
The package also includes $30 million to widen 7.2km of the freeway from Hepburn Avenue to Hodges Drive northbound from two to three lanes next year.
Other features include-
- Reid Highway-Malaga Drive upgrade, including two traffic bridges, cost $75 million.
- Making Reid Highway dual carriageway for 2.2km from Duffy to Erindale roads in Carine, including a new bridge over the Mitchell Freeway, cost $48 million.
- Widening Mitchell Freeway from the city to Hutton Street to increase capacity from the Graham Farmer Freeway on-ramp northbound, cost $31.1 million.
Mr Buswell said the freeway extension would help relieve pressure on local roads in the growth suburbs of Clarkson, Butler and Jindalee. “This pressure will only increase with the future residential developments further north, at Alkimos, Eglinton, Yanchep and Two Rocks,” he said.
“Without this extension, traffic volumes on Perth’s two major north-south arterial routes, Marmion Avenue north of Burns Beach Road and Wanneroo Road, would soon rise to dangerous and unmanageable levels.”
Mr Jacob said his group’s recommendation for a freeway extension included half-diamond interchanges (similar to Erindale Road) at Neerabup Road and Hester Avenue.
He said it would be cost effective for the government to act on this, freeing up funds to improve some of the 10 intersections recommended by the group in its report, released to the public last Thursday.
He added the group’s recommendation for a further freeway extension – an expressway from Hester Avenue to Romeo Road, Alkimos (2017 to 2021) – was the best and most affordable way to move farther north in the future.