Toowoomba council votes to keep and optimise Margaret Street traffic lights following new report

The Toowoomba Regional Council appears to have resolved the issue of what to do with the city’s most controversial traffic lights, following an hour-long debate featuring plenty of heated moments.

The new set of lights on Margaret St has caused motorists confusion and residents inconvenience.

The long-running saga over the future of Toowoomba’s most controversial traffic lights appears to over, after council endorsed a plan to keep the new $1.4m Margaret-Mackenzie Street intersection in place.

After an hour of arguing, councillors voted at Tuesday’s ordinary meeting to further optimise the signalling at the controversial lights in East Toowoomba, which have faced significant backlash from residents and motorists since their installation in March last year.

Drivers said the staggered lights system (installed due to the misalignment of Mackenzie Street on either side of Margaret) was confusing to navigate, while locals along Curzon Street petitioned the council to argue it was diverting huge volumes of traffic from Mackenzie Street down a local road.

This was supported by data provided the TRC in November, which prompted unprecedented and untested ideas from councillors like turning the lights off during certain times of the day or even pulling them out altogether.

The new set of traffic lights on Margaret Street has caused major changes in vehicle movements through East Toowoomba.

A January report by Queensland government-owned transport solutions firm Transmax, which manages the platform STREAMS that all Toowoomba traffic lights run on, recommended creating a “co-ordinated operating plan” for the intersection.

Transmax has argued the changes would reduce wait times at the intersection by up to 40 seconds, “helping to service each movement more quickly while continually trying to maintain tolerable queue lengths”.

TRC road operations acting principal Joe Bannan recommended to councillors for the outcomes of the report be adopted, and that the council “not support operating the intersection … with non-functioning traffic signals”.

Infrastructure general manager Mike Brady argued these measures, coupled with an extra $160,000 in works along Curzon Street to disincentive rat-running drivers, would ease concerns.

Councillor Trevor Manteufel during a council meeting. Picture: Kevin Farmer

But that didn’t stop councillors Trevor Manteufel and Kerry Shine again floating the idea of replacing the federally-funded traffic lights with a concrete strip in the middle of the road to stop right-hand turns onto Margaret Street.

“I’m still getting phone calls and emails about them — we seem to be patching holes, we’re now getting complaints on Lindsay Street,” Mr Manteufel said.

“I would be happy to eliminate the lights, in my opinion.”

Councillor Carol Taylor. Picture: Kevin Farmer

During debate, Mr Shine said the “irritation, aggravation and confusion” caused by the lights’ existence outweighed the potential reputational harm to the council of having to pull out a federally-funded traffic system — which was also funded by ratepayers to the tune of $684,000.

“While it would be embarrassing to pull the lights down, sometimes you have to make difficult decisions,” he said.

This sparked a furious rebuke from councillor Carol Taylor, who said the voices of pedestrians, cyclists and people with disabilities were going unheard in the debate.

“I have received feedback from many people who are appreciative of the lights being there, who have got children in wheelchairs who can safely access the road, women with prams and young children,” she said.

“The safety of pedestrians, schoolchildren and cyclists should be paramount in our minds, recognising of course the impacts of residents, which I believe every effort is being made to lessen those impacts.

“Road safety is part of our responsibility, and councillors need to consider that — we’re not traffic engineers, and neither are the public.”

Councillor James O’Shea successfully amended the original motion to ask for a report to come back to the chamber on the outcomes of the optimisation process, which he believed would allow the council to communicate with residents.

“It gives us an action and gives (the council) an opportunity where it can be monitored,” he said.

The motion was passed 9-2, with Mr Shine and Mr Manteufel the only dissenters.

Originally published as Toowoomba council votes to keep and optimise Margaret Street traffic lights following new report