An interesting observation about the roundabout at the intersection of George St, Richmond Rd and Blacktown Rd at Bligh Park. Have you ever noticed that all exits from the roundabout are single lane but part of the roundabout is 2 lanes? Here is where this becomes a problem. Traffic turning right from George St into Blacktown Rd (heading towards Richmond) enters the roundabout. Where the roundabout becomes dual lane this vehicle occupies the lane closest to the centre of the roundabout until it exits to Blacktown Rd. Vehicles going straight ahead from Richmond Rd to Blacktown Rd (heading from Blacktown towards Richmond) enters the roundabout where it is dual lane and uses the outside lane. The problem is that you end up with a vehicle in the centre lane and one in the outside lane and there is only 1 lane exiting the roundabout onto Blacktown Rd. This forces 2 lanes to merge into 1 in the roundabout. We are not aware of another roundabout in New South Wales where this happens. It is okay for people who are locals and know that this happens, but what about people who are not regular users of the roundabout? Being forced to suddenly merge with another lane without warning while trying to negotiate a roundabout has the potential to cause an accident. It is also poor traffic engineering. The exit to Blacktown Rd needs to be made into 2 lanes immediately so that traffic can merge outside the roundabout before there is a serious accident. We recommend having a look at an overhead photo of the roundabout on Google Maps. We would have posted a picture of it here except it would be a copyright infringement.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 21:37:28 +0000