letter to ministers

"Until a few days ago, traffic travelling towards the beach on Seaford Rd in Seaford and turning right down railway parade would only back up in the worst of peak times. But several days ago the light sequence was changed, now it is almost permanently backed-up for several hundred metres, up on to the bridge over the freeway. [...] People in the local community are suggesting that the light sequences are deliberately being changed to cause jams so as to justify level crossing works. Certainly there is something suspicious about an intersection which rarely backed up several days ago and now is almost unusable."

26 Feb 2018

Dear Ministers,

Until a few days ago, traffic travelling towards the beach on Seaford Rd in Seaford and turning right down railway parade would only back up in the worst of peak times. But several days ago the light sequence was changed, now it is almost permanently backed-up for several hundred metres, up on to the bridge over the freeway.

Last Sunday I sat, in little traffic, through three sets of light sequence changes, each one letting maybe two cars through, before I gave up on turning and went straight ahead. This has never happened before in my almost 20 years of living in Seaford and travelling down this road.

People in the local community are suggesting that the light sequences are deliberately being changed to cause jams so as to justify level crossing works. Certainly there is something suspicious about an intersection which rarely backed up several days ago and now is almost unusable. The last several times I have used this intersection in a beach-ward direction (I use the intersection nearly every day, sometimes several times a day) I have either given up on turning and gone straight ahead, or completely turned around and driven into Frankston and over the bridge on Wells Rd, before driving back to Seaford through back streets on the other side of the railway line.

Whilst this change is deliberate for some unexplained reason and with consultation that I am aware of - I must also note that in general the levels of traffic through Seaford have dramatically increased over the past 10 years or so - over the same period that people have been selling backyards of family homes which are then developed so as to gradually double the suburb's population - a phenomenon I attribute to

1) the ridiculously high mortgages people face putting them under pressure to sell their backyards; and
2) Uncontrolled population growth.

About the two problems above it is clear that governments cannot, or do not want to, address these. But at least the light sequence is something that should be able to be fixed, and will soon start effecting traffic flows throughout Seaford and Frankston, it certainly is changing my driving behaviour.

Regards,

Matthew Mitchell
Hallifax St
Seaford, 3198