Parents and students at Keiraville Public School are fed up with having to risk the intersection of Gipps and Robsons roads without a proper crossing.
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“People come flying down this hill,” father Hayden Bowmaker, treasurer of the school’s P&C said, standing at the busy corner just after 3pm .
“This is the only dip on Robsons Road that doesn’t have some way to slow traffic and it’s the closest to the school.”
He said Robsons Road was a popular “rat-run” and was particularly busy during the university session, which is why the school community has been lobbying Wollongong City Council for a safe crossing for several years.
Mr Bowmaker said he was hopeful a long-awaited access and movement study being conducted in the suburb will help to address the growing safety issue.
According to the council, the study is designed to improve the growing suburbs’ traffic and transport issues now and in preparation for future changes. The area is expected the “experience significant growth in the coming decades due to planned education and health precinct expansion, as well as increased housing densities in surrounding areas of Wollongong”.
Resident and advocate Felix Bronneberg, who has been working with other residents to draw attention to the traffic and safety issues in the suburbs surrounding the university for several years, has welcomed the study and urged others to be vocal about the “multitude” of problems in the area.
“We’re very keen to have this survey done, because there are many issues to be addressed,” Mr Bronneberg said. “It’s unfortunate that it has taken so long since the community did a precinct study, which was endorsed by the council years ago – because the main thing that came out that was that we needed a traffic study.”
He said issues could include parking on residential streets, traffic, congestion, as well as any issues to do with pedestrian and cycling safety or public transport.
Residents can get involved with the study in various ways, including filling out a survey, mapping their concerns online or applying to be among the select few to attend a council workshop.
There are 10 workshop spaces for residents and 10 for businesses, with expressions of interest open until November 15.
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
