The much talked about 'Black Spot' on the Bruxner Highway is in Lismore MPJanelle Saffin's sights as she lobbies the NSW Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Paul Toole to find a solution that will save lives.

The two notorious intersections include the Alphadale Road intersection and the Cowlong Road intersection further north.

The stretch of road has a terrible history with 36 accidents and five fatalities since 2000. Ms Saffin said "it instills fear in the traveling public including myself".

Ms Saffin is lobbying the NSW Government to invest the underspent Restart NSW funding into a major realignment of the Bruxner Highway between Goonellabah and Wollongbar hill to bypass these intersections.

This week Ms Saffin wrote to NSW Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Paul Toole, calling for Transport for NSW to expedite the new alignment, which has languished on the drawing board despite partial resumption of a land corridor to enable it.

“The Bruxner caters for about 15,000 vehicles a day, reflecting strong population growth over recent decades, but this stretch of highway is no longer fit for purpose and it is endangering lives.

“I see this as a legacy issue which demands bold action rather than tinkering around the edges with band-aid treatments such as more safety signs, an acceleration lane for eastbound traffic, or a roundabout, for which Lismore City Council has made three unsuccessful funding nominations in the past three years.

“Retired Lismore Base Hospital Chief Radiographer Denys Wynn, recently approached me and told me he was sick of the loss of human life on this stretch of highway, including the Richmond Hill turnoff to where he lives.

“Denys says he spent too much of his 36-career taking x-rays of badly injured crash victims, and like me, he favours the more strategic approach of a major highway realignment which would bypass this black spot altogether.

“This approach also has the backing of the chairman of Lismore City Council’s Traffic Advisory Committee, Cr Bill Moorhouse, a civil engineer with 45 years’ experience.”

Ms Saffin said that while a realignment would require political will and major funding, it was a perfect fit for the NSW Government’s Restart NSW Fund, established in 2011 to fund high-priority infrastructure projects.

“Thirty per cent of Restart NSW funding was meant to be targeted in regional and rural areas, and that target has never been met in any year since its inception. There is an underspend of $1.75 billion,” Ms Saffin said.

The new alignment would run from Oliver Avenue-Ballina Road roundabout (Pineapple Road area), swing south of the Richmond Hill turnoff and north of Macadamia Processing Company Limited’s plant and the Alphadale crossroads (Lindendale geographically) towards the approaches to Wollongbar hill.

It probably would require a local overpass to be built on Cowlong Road, just north of the processing plant. The bypassed section of the former highway would become a local road.

In the meantime, Ms Saffin has suggested that Transport for NSW should be investigating options to reduce traffic speed in this section from 80kmh to 60kmh as an interim safety measure.

Ms Saffin said she stood ready to work with Minister Toole, his Parliamentary Secretary and State Member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis, Transport for NSW and Lismore City Council to make the Bruxner Highway safer for generations to come.

She has also asked that Transport for NSW include two other sections of the highway as part of a current major review of the Bruxner’s safety between Lismore and Ballina:

·         Straightening of the highway within an existing road reserve to eliminate a dangerous bend near Sunrise Crescent, west of the Goonellabah Media Centre – the scene of several truck rollovers which have nearly ended up in local residents’ yards. Linked to this is the equally pressing need to build a pedestrian walkway-cycleway on the western side of the highway from Sunrise Crescent to the Kadina roundabout, which serves as the entrance to The Rivers Secondary College’s Kadina High campus.

·         Finding an engineering solution to reducing worsening traffic congestion on the roundabouts either side of the Ballina Street Bridge, at the gateway to Lismore’s CBD, which is particularly heavy approaching the South Lismore roundabout during peak times.