New Windsor Bridge plan falls short says CAWB

However CAWB member (and its former president) Peter Reynolds said the announcement was meaningless as the extra lane still just fed into the Macquarie/Bridge street intersection.

“It’s a big announcement about nothing as it’s not dealing with the major traffic problem of [that] intersection,” he said.

He said the state government’s own traffic report in 2013 by independent consultants Cambray Pty Ltd recommended the current bridge be repaired and a bypass bridge be investigated.

“Cambray also said the RMS modelling was flawed as the bridge will have a speed limit of 50km/h and the modelling was done at 80km/h. Also the traffic counts were taken during school holidays, and none of the modelling includes the Macquarie/Bridge street intersection.

“This is the problem – half the bridge traffic goes down Macquarie Street and half goes down Windsor Road. They couldn’t get that intersection to work so they excluded it from the modelling. Instead of one lane of traffic stuck there, you’ll have two lanes stuck there. The flow of water through pipes is determined by the pipe with the smallest diameter. Mr Perrottet could make the bridge 10 lanes wide and it wouldn’t make any difference.

“We need a third crossing of the river. Mr Perrottet will build a third but then remove one of them. We need to keep the current bridge and build a bypass bridge away from the heritage precinct.”

A Gazette story of January 2014 examined the RMS plans for the new bridge. In the plans the RMS stated the Windsor Bridge replacement project ‘‘is not a long-term solution to traffic congestion in Windsor’’.

The story also reported the RMS plans as saying the new bridge “was designed to become three lanes when traffic loads were considered big enough”.

Reaction from the Gazette’s Facebook page was divided. Some hailed the addition of a third lane, while others questioned its overall worth.