LNP MP Bleijie Jarrod

A section of the Bruce Highway is so dangerous the local council has told its staff not to use it, a Sunshine Coast MP said this week.

Opposition member Jarrod Bleijie (pictured) said Sunshine Coast Regional Council had instructed their staff members not to use the section of the highway or the entry and exit points as they understand it to be a very dangerous area.

“Council have instructed their drivers to stop coming out of Sippy Creek road, so that’s even council directing their staff not to use it,” he said.

Mr Bleijie told a rally on Wednesday the site was a “death trap” that urgently needs upgrading to six lanes.

“It really is a death trap here where you’ve got cars coming down at 100 kms per hour into here and they have to slow down because there are trucks crossing from a standing start,” he said.

Angry residents and local employees of the area held a rally yesterday demanding something is done about the notorious stretch of the highway between the Caloundra exit and the Sippy Downs interchange.

Mr Bleijie told the rally the federal and state governments hadn’t done enough to ensure the area is safe for motorists and residents.

“They have responded and said enough is enough, they have invested $1.3 million to look at the issue,” Mr Bleijie said.

“That’s $1.3 million to basically get a few people from Brisbane to sit down on a map and have a look at it – there’s no money for construction.”

Developers of Aussie World were originally responsible to upgrade the merging lanes. But when the re-development of Aussie World fell through so to did the upgrade to the roads.

Mr Bleijie, member for the local electorate of Kawana, said the Government had then labelled the area as a “dangerous black spot”.

“What they are saying is that it is such a dangerous black spot but now it’s not so dangerous now as the developers aren’t going to pay for it,” he said.

“We’ve talked about developers but the reality is this is a federal highway, this is our number one highway, the governments being federal, state and local have a responsibility for providing a safe access entry point to the residents.

“What we are saying is that the government has a responsibility to fix this road.”

LNP member for Glasshouse Andrew Powell echoed Mr Bleijie’s concerns over the safety of the road and said developers were running ahead of the game with infrastructure which hadn’t been designed to keep up.

“It really needs a six-lane upgrade to the highway and intersection and, as part of that, they really need to address the entry and exit points along the way,” Mr Powell said.

Local resident Carol Dahler, who has lived in the area for more than 30 years, says nothing has ever been done to improve the road.

“The group of residents who live here are concerned with the entry to their homes. It’s not safe, it’s because the highway has increased so much in traffic and there has been nothing done for years. We have lived here on 50 acres for 32 years and it’s virtually the same,” Mrs Dahler said.

“There’s no merging lanes, there’s no safe access at all onto a major highway.

“I really do believe that people spell a lot out to the government and they have to listen. We should form a group, find out how many people have had accidents here, deaths also as I know there have been some and get it to the government.”

Residents and workers in the area said they would rather spend an extra 10 minutes driving around the problem area rather than face the speeding traffic.

Newsbytes is awaiting comment from the mayor of Sunshine Coast Regional Council, Bob Abbot.