Perth Voice Interactive

VINCENT council has taken another breather on a plan to turn part of Harold Street into a one-way street after deciding residents hadn’t been adequately consulted about which direction it should go.

The little slither between Beaufort and Vincent streets has long been a source of frustration for locals because of rat-runners and pick-ups from the Sacred Heart primary school, and last year the council ditched a Main Roads-funded plan to block right turns from Harold (“Vincent steers away from blocks,” Voice, August 31, 2024). Objectors feared it would simply push the problem onto other streets.

The City’s traffic planners went back to the drawing board and modelled Harold as a one-way street and found the analysis stacked up.

“Overall, the study found that providing intervention treatments that divert traffic is not desirable because while crashes may be treated at the intersection in questions, adjacent intersections are consequentially likely to be negatively impacted with an increased safety risk,” a report to this week’s council meeting said.

It said traffic volumes on Harold would decrease and speeds would be slower.

Despite the planners’ confidence, North Ward councillor Alex Castle successfully moved to defer the item, saying she had concerns.

“If we make this road one way I realise that would achieve a drop in volume, but we are restricting movement between Harold Street heading north, because if you were to go Beaufort to Vincent you can only turn left, you can’t turn right,” Cr Castle said.

“The other bigger concern is that when we discussed this at council last time the reason we didn’t make a decision at the time we because we wanted to consider it in the context of the entire precinct.

“I’m really cognisant that the community is desperate for a solution and I’m not comfortable that we are taking so long with that, but I also don’t like a proposal that hasn’t got the rest of the precinct planned in it.”

Cr Castle was also unhappy that residents hadn’t been consulted on which was the traffic should flow if Harold went one-way.

Several residents fronted public question time to urge councillors not to delay a decision.

Ian Merker lives a block away on Broome Street and said Harold had been acknowledged as a black spot, though a note in the planning report said while it hadn’t been assessed as such, Main Roads had approved a black spot project.

Mr Merker said he was a little alarmed by the council’s consultation which found that out of 60 respondents, 34 were against any change to the flow and only 21 supported it.

“I’d like you to look a little bit deeper into those numbers, because a lot of the people who were against it, we believe were parents from the school who just want to look at literally dumping off their children in the morning and picking them up after school,” Mr Merker told the meeting.

Mt Lawley resident Ralph Greenwell said those parents would be more likely to support the change if they prioritised safety over convenience.

“We are all aware the community will be voting for immediate change following a child, parent or resident being seriously injured,” Mr Greenwell said.

“As Harold Street residents we have all witnessed motorists speeding up our street to Vincent Street.

“My recent experience was on the first day of school in late January when a motorcyclist decided to do a wheelie up the street from outside our house at 8.15am in the morning.

“Just 15 minutes later when the school drop-off started, who knows what might have happened.”

by STEVE GRANT