Swan St drivers’ P-turn pain as travel times blow out

Swan St drivers have become casualties in the bid to improve traffic on Punt Rd, with travel times blowing out since new turning lanes were opened.

Swan St drivers have become casualties in the bid to improve traffic on Punt Rd, with travel times blowing out since new turning lanes were opened on Sunday.

VicRoads has revealed it knew the changes would cause problems on Swan St, which has been reduced to single lanes.

Traffic was banked for kilometres on Sunday when the new $110 million P-Turns were rolled out.

MAJOR HODDLE ST CHANGES AS P-TURN RULES INTRODUCED

MELBOURNE’S WORST INTERSECTIONS, TURNING LANES

TRAFFIC FLOWS AS P-TURNS DEBUT ON HODDLE ST

Motorists reported westbound traffic banking up as far as Kew in the morning as thousands of drivers struggled to quickly cross to Olympic Boulevard.

VicRoads engineers anticipated the problems but the authority expects people travelling along Swan St will use different roads as a result of the lane changes.

VicRoads spokesman Chris Miller said staff would also review the performance of the road and adjust traffic light signal times.

Peak-hour traffic banks up at the Punt Rd and Swan St turn on Monday. Picture: Tony Gough

“Melburnians responded with ease to the introduction of Victoria’s first continuous flow intersection, aided by plenty of signage and special coloured line markings showing motorists the way,” he said.

“The continuous flow intersection is designed to give more “Go Time” to Punt Road, Victoria’s busiest arterial road.

“In its first morning of operation, Punt Road moved well in both directions.

“Changes to the intersection are complex, and VicRoads signal engineers will be implementing adjustments over the coming days to continue to monitor and improve the operation of the intersection.”

Peak-hour traffic trying to negotiate the new turn on Monday. Picture: Tony Gough

Cremorne resident Ben Cebon said locals had welcomed the Hoddle St upgrade but had been warning authorities about the impact on Swan St traffic for months

“There is definitely a lot of issues with the east-west traffic,” he said.

“It may be that they can fix that a bit with timing of traffic lights but the main issue is you have now only got one lane each way.

RACV general manager of public policy Bryce Prosser said the group would monitor feedback from members over the coming weeks.

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