A LONG line of southbound cars backed up the motorway at Ewingsdale trying to get in to Byron Bay is today, unhappily, a regular occurrence.
In fact, it’s a nightmare and downright dangerous. A lack of foresight and planning, including the ridiculous mini-roundabout at the new hospital, is responsible for the fiasco.
It just adds to the drama of getting into the Byron Bay CBD along the choked Ewingsdale Road.
Even getting out of town in the afternoon peak has its own problems.
While it’s far worse today, problems at the intersection of Ewingsdale Road and the Pacific Highway are nothing new.
It was a well-known ‘black spot’ more than 30 years ago.
Back in March 1992, Cr Bob Higgins made a very dramatic point about the dangers associated with a planned upgrade of the intersection.
Cr Higgins said the improvements would still leave drivers crossing the highway from Myocum Road ‘seven seconds from death’.
He said the improvements concentrated on traffic entering the highway from Byron Bay, with no work planned to make it safer for drivers leaving Myocum Road, on the other side of the highway.
In fact, he said, the work by the Roads and Traffic Authority which had started a month earlier, would make the situation worse for people coming from Myocum Road.
“There are heaps of people coming out of there every day, including our wives and children,” he said.
“Every time you come out of there, you endanger your life.
“I have sat there and timed it.
‘You have seven seconds either way to get across that intersection.
“So, you are seven seconds away from death every time you cross that intersection.”
Cr Higgins said an earth bank on the northern side of Myocum Road needed to be cut back to improve vision up the highway, but he said the best outcome would be to construct a roundabout at the intersection.
That roundabout eventually came – the photo shows it under construction – followed eventually by the extension of the motorway and construction of ‘on’ and ‘off’ ramps.
And while the ‘seven seconds from death’ fear has been eliminated, it has been replaced by the hair-pulling ’ 30-minute crawl to the Byron Bay CBD’.
But that’s another story.
Hi Gary
I am so often amazed at the long line of traffic on the motorway wanting to turn into Byron Bay and see this as multiple vehicle accident waiting to happen. The old road runs parallel to the motorway for quite some distance I think an exit off the motorway much further out maybe as far as Kennedys Lane would be a good idea. Also do away with the hospital roundabout and have a good size one at Mcgettagins Lane intersection so all vehicles going to the hospital can only turn left into the hospital and vehicles leaving can only turn left and go to the big roundabout to head into Byron Bay
Hello Cheryl. You probably wouldn’t get much traction from authorities on using the old highway, but I reckon a major roundabout at McGettigans Lane and getting rid of the one at the hospital has some merit.