Hahndorf’s traffic troubles expected to go before parliamentary inquiry after former senator Rex Patrick’s signature marks 10,000th signatory needed

Traffic issues plaguing an Adelaide Hills town could soon face a parliamentary inquiry after a former senator marked the 10,000th petition signature needed.

Traffic congestion issues plaguing the Adelaide Hills town of Hahndorf could soon come before a parliamentary inquiry after more than 10,000 people signed a petition calling on the government to take further action.

At a Hills Transport Forum on Friday, former senator Rex Patrick became the petition’s 10,000th signatory, making the matter eligible for a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr Patrick said the government “has abandoned Hahndorf”.

“It’s happy to collect the revenue generated by the tourist activity there, but not so happy to invest in the town’s infrastructure,” he said.

“It is proper that the Parliament now takes a good look at the issue”.

Former senator Rex Patrick became the 10,000th signatory on a petition calling for the state government to reverse a decision to divert heavy trucks onto River and Strathalbyn Roads and build a new Hahndorf bypass. Picture: Supplied

The group will now need to get a member of parliament to table the petition before it can be referred to a committee for the inquiry.

The petition calls on the state government to reverse a decision to divert heavy trucks from the town’s main street and onto River and Strathalbyn Road as well as build a new Hahndorf bypass.

The government earlier knocked back the residents group’s proposal to build a 3km link road around the town, saying the estimated cost would top $100 million — significantly more than the estimate submitted by the group.

But residents believe the cost-benefit analysis failed to consider the town’s tourism value.

River Rd resident and forum organiser Anne Fordham said she hoped the inquiry would provide some transparency around the truck ban and the decision to reject the link road proposal.

“There seems to be an inflationary component to how they’ve costed it,” she said.

“And it’d be really good to see whether we could come up with a more progressive model of delivering these sorts of projects involving local contractors ... working through the council a bit more, rather than through state government who has quite high overheads.”

Former senator Rex Patrick became the 10,000th signatory. Picture: Supplied

Dr Fordham said Hahndorf was also becoming more congested.

“[There’s an] enormous amount of tourists and it just keeps growing,” she said.

“And we think that the government’s not giving enough credence to the economic importance.”

Around 100 people, including state and federal MPs, attended Friday’s forum to brainstorm solutions aimed at fixing traffic issues plaguing Hahndorf and surrounding areas.

Federal Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, who was among the attendees, said local residents have “had to develop their own project plans and costings as Labor walks away from funding solutions to the bottlenecks and rat runs created by government inaction”.

“These roads were never designed to take the heavy traffic and trucks that are now being forced to be used,” she said in a statement to The Advertiser.

Infrastructure and Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the link road plan submitted by the residents’ group did not include cost escalation, design and project management costs in addition to making some incorrect calculations around land acquisition and project scope.

He added that Bridget McKenzie and Tony Pasin “have not accepted that they had underfunded and undercosted” infrastructure across the country while they were in government.

“There is no Liberal solution to this. They are the ones that walked away from the project and won’t commit to reinstate funding,” he said.