Mona Vale Road upgrade: Safety concerns raised for drivers around $340m deferred road works
Drivers using a notorious northern beaches’ accident black spot could be in more danger from issues linked to a ‘deferred’ $340m road upgrade, a construction insider claims.
Manly
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Soil and debris blowing from a “deferred” $340 million Sydney road upgrade has sparked safety concerns for motorists using a busy commuter route.
Grit and other material from the site of the Mona Vale Rd improvement — part of which is now on the backburner for at least two years — is making the existing two-way accident black spot more dangerous for drivers, according to a project insider.
A meeting of Northern Beaches Council was told by independent councillor Vincent De Luca that an anonymous source had alerted him that the material was making a stretch of road, between Terrey Hills and Ingleside, dangerously slippery for vehicles.
More than 37,000 vehicles use the road each day.
In September last year, the NSW Labor Government confirmed that work on the Mona Vale Rd (West) upgrade was officially deferred for at least two years.
Money for the 3.4km upgrade — a four-lane carriageway from McCarrs Creek Rd, Terrey Hills, to Powder Works Rd, Ingleside — had been set aside in the 2022 state budget drawn up by the previous Coalition Government.
But despite work on the adjoining upgrade project — Mona Vale Rd (East) from Ingleside to Mona Vale — being almost completed, the Labor government halted work on Mona Vale Rd (West).
Before the deferral, contractors had managed to build a massive earthworks bank, stretching about 800m south from Tumburra St, Ingleside.
Cr De Luca said that he had been advised by his source that soil, sand and grit was blowing from that embankment onto Mona Vale Rd.
“I’ve been told by an anonymous source that this is compromising safety of motorists using what is already a dangerous road,” he said.
Cr De Luca argued that the council must lobby the state government to press ahead with the Mona Vale Rd (West) upgrade as soon as possible.
Road crash data collected by council staff, and pried to Cr De Luca, showed that on the stretch of Mona Vale Rd that runs through the Northern Beaches local government area, there were 448 accidents – 217 causing injury and eight deaths – between 2010 and June 2024.
In a statement, a TfNSW spokesman said that while the Mona Vale Rd (West) project had been deferred, the road embankment had been built as part of the Mona Vale Road (East) project.
But TfNSW documents state Mona Vale Rd (East) runs between Manor Rd, Ingleside, and Foley St, Mona Vale and not the area where the embankment was built.
“Unseasonal wet weather conditions have impacted the completion of these works,” the spokesman said.
“The earthworks are in their final stages of completion, with the top of the embankment to be protected with erosion and sedimentation measures. The sides of the embankment are being seeded with a native vegetation mix for stability and erosion control.”
The eastbound shoulder on Mona Vale Rd has been closed during the construction of the new road embankment with a 60km/h speed limit in place.
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