Transport minister Bill Marmion met with locals at Mandurah’s Estuary Bridge on Tuesday morning to hear complaints about traffic congestion on Old Coast Road first hand.
Liberal candidate for Dawesville Zak Kirkup had been campaigning for an upgrade to the bridge, which had been estimated to cost at least $80 million and could be paid for with proceeds from the planned sale of Western Power.
Mr Marmion said the bridge was originally designed so that another could be built along side it when local traffic required it.
“It probably would’ve been built now if it wasn’t for the Forrest Highway – but now the population in Dawesville and Falcon is getting quite big,” he said.
“Rebuilding the old Mandurah bridge, hopefully that’ll bring a huge improvement, but nevertheless I’ve got notes from Main Roads, they’ve done all the numbers and what the people are saying here is that the traffic is growing, it’s going to increase and certainly in 10 years time it’ll be a log jam, so we've got to do the planning now.
“In this case, it is an $80 million project so it’s obviously got to be prioritised with all the other pressures around the state, but obviously it’s useful to come down here and witness it myself and meet the people.”
Retiring Dawesville MP Kim Hames supported the project.
“I pointed out to Bill [Marmion] when we talked about this – he covers Nedlands and all those suburbs like Subiaco – imagine if three quarters of your electorate had two lanes to drive on to get to work, that’s all they were allowed to go on, two lanes,” he said.
“I reckon you’d have absolute chaos in your electorate if everyone had to go to work on two lanes.”
Mr Kirkup said he would keep campaigning to ensure the bridge would be upgraded.
“To me it was important we raised this issue,” he said.
“I don’t expect it to be solved overnight, even though I would like the minister come down with a cheque to value of $80-100 million, but it’s worth bringing it to the attention of the government and to show them the issues in our community.”
A poll of Mandurah Mail readers found 89 per cent were in favour of the upgrades to the bridge as of January 31.
Nathan Hondros
Senior Journalist for the Mandurah Mail, Australian Community Media, and Fairfax Media.
Senior Journalist for the Mandurah Mail, Australian Community Media, and Fairfax Media.
