Canning council want the State Government to justify $5 million in works to three intersections along Leach Highway after public outrage and a petition that surpassed 900 signatures.
Main Roads WA says that removing a right turn from Leach Highway into Shelley at Fifth Avenue and reconfiguring the intersection at Corinthian Road East is about improving road safety.
But the petition to the WA State Parliament says the project — expected to be complete by mid 2025 — would remove a sorely needed entry point into Rossmoyne and funnel traffic down nearby streets, creating ‘rat runs’.
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Lead petitioner Helend Lund previously told PerthNow she was horrified when notified about the works.
“We see a real problem with diverting everybody into Webb Street,” she said.
“Webb Street is a black spot.
“The other problem is there are three very vulnerable populations that use it.
“People’s peaceful little street becomes a rat run.”
Canning councillors Amanda Spencer-Teo and Ben Kunze on Tuesday pushed for council support to ask Main Roads to provide modelling of redistributed traffic as a result of its planned upgrades, a review of the “methodology and assumptions” used to justify the project and for the city to install traffic count devices on nine local roads.
“When the Fifth Avenue/Leach Highway proposal was first discussed in 2021 and potential proposals were floated, the supporting crash data produced was based on the period of 2017-2021, which pre-dated the Webb Street intersection improvements,” their supporting explanation said.
The motion also requested mayor Patrick Hall write to Minister for Transport Rita Saffioti and Main Roads WA with concerns about the “lack of community consultation”.
Cr Spencer-Teo said concerned residents had inundated the council with their views about the works.
A council report said data published by Main Roads WA revealed 16 crashes across five years at the Fifth Avenue intersection. There was only one last year and zero hospitalisations across the longer period.
“All too often, major changes to intersections and roads are proposed by those who don’t use them daily,” Cr Spencer-Teo said.
“When you compare that (data) to other intersections along Leach — with double, triple the amount of crashes — you really have to question if this is the best way to spend $5m of taxpayer money.”
Cr Ben Kunze said the city needed “up-to-date data” to know the real impact on the local network.
“Currently, those who find the Fifth Avenue intersection dangerous have the option to use Webb Street,” he said.
“The positives of this project need to outweigh the negatives.”
Riverton MLA Dr Jags Krishnan previously vowed he would put a halt to the project until public consultation was undertaken but Cr Spencer-Teo suggested in Tuesday’s meeting this was not happening.