[VIC] Has The Punt Road Continuous Flow Intersection Been a Success or Failure?

So we are nearly up to 1 year of this so called continuous flow intersection and was wondering what people thought?

Personally I think it has been a massive failure.

Main reasons are (in peak hour):

  • Traveling from the east on Swan St is now insane, can easily take 25 minutes to get from the Coles to the actual intersection where as this used to take 5 minutes tops. They took 2 lanes straight through and 2 turning lanes onto Punt Road and turned this into 1 P turn lane and 1 lane straight ahead and that 1 lane now extends to under the train line.

  • Traveling from North to South on Punt Rd to turn right onto Olympic Blvd seems to be completely unchanged, also when you actually get a green light to turn, often the left hand of the 2 lanes is blocked by people who are doing the P turn the other direction (South to North, turning Right into Swan St) or people who tried to fit on the other side of the intersection (that will make sense to those who drive through it).

  • Traveling West to East on Olympic Blvd is not too bad if you want to turn onto Punt Rd, it is probably a few minutes worse than before the intersection was complete, going straight through to Swan St seems to be much worse though.

Just can't understand why we wasted so much taxpayer money on something that has made little improvement if any. Interested to see how others feel.

Poll Options

  • 9
    Success
  • 8
    Failure

Comments

  • +1

    Most of the traffic is going North South so that's where they improved it most. Going South to North turning right into Swan street, cars used to build up and block the through roads. I agree though it does suck a bit harder if you are going West down to Alexandra Ave/City road, there's no other way of getting down that way unfortunately.

  • +1

    What is this Punt Road place you speak of?

    • I think it is here?

      • -1

        It is (I knew that as a Sydneysider) but the point is that the OP should have put VIC in the title (which a mod ended up doing) … It's OzBargain, not VICBargain

  • I read somewhere that the benefit to punt road was about 4 mins in the peak. And the loss for swan street was about the same. Seems like a waste of time and money to me.

  • I thought it was to help trams get through and help north south traffic. If you're going through Swan st I guess it's tough shit because it's always been crap through there, haven't driven it since the change though.

    • Yeah, I agree. Going through Swan St has always been painful. Don't have any numbers/times to back it up, but I personally feel it is a lot worse now with the new design, especially during peak hours.

  • To validate the success or not of the change, you should also consider the relative traffic volumes for each impact.
    For example, more traffic volume may be now quicker on the North/South route, whilst less traffic volume may be delayed on the East/West route.

    I think you should also eliminate from the analysis any delays caused by traffic blocking intersections. I don't know why it happens so much in Melbourne, but there are so many intersections where drivers think they can be selfish enough to cross and block other traffic, it is probably the thing that annoys me the most.

    BTW, I don't use Punt Rd., so am not voting.

  • Has any flying cannon balls been seen recently?

Login or Join to leave a comment