Plans to fix the traffic bottlenecks at Springwood and Katoomba remain up in the air as traffic studies into the issue remain unreleased.
The Roads and Maritime Service has been accused of delaying moves to fix the town entry bottlenecks at Katoomba and Springwood, with Blue Mountains mayor Mark Greenhill saying the “ball is in the RMS’ court” after council completed traffic studies for both towns in July.
The studies were the fulfilment of a promise made by former Liberal MP for Blue Mountains, Roza Sage, in the 2015 state election.
“Only recently the RMS requested that council provide additional information on the options developed,” said the mayor. “This has been provided to the RMS for consideration. We await the RMS response to the options and the next steps. Council is reliant upon the NSW government to move on this. So, essentially, council has done what was asked of us and now the ball is in the RMS’ court.”
But a spokeswoman for the RMS indicated it is still waiting on information from Blue Mountains City Council.
“Roads and Maritime Services has been working closely with Blue Mountains City Council for several months to finalise the reports associated with the traffic studies carried out at Katoomba and Springwood,” the spokeswoman said.
“Roads and Maritime received and provided feedback on the reports earlier this year and requested updated documents in October. Roads and Maritime looks forward to receiving the updated documents and will continue to work with council on any future road improvements.”
Blue Mountains MP Trish Doyle said the process had been “politicised by the Liberals from day one when it was announced by the former Member [Roza Sage] in the dying days of her only term”. “Not only did it take almost four years for her promise to be acted upon, it is now seemingly impossible to see the detail of the promised report,” she said.
“The RMS are clearly being gagged by their political masters in Macquarie Street. Instead of making cheap promises, the NSW government needs to make serious investments in physical upgrades to the road infrastructure that will unclog these chronic choke-points.”
The mayor said council had prioritised the investigation of congestion at Yeaman Bridge in Katoomba and Hawkesbury Road at Springwood “due to their impacts on access to the two major town centres of the Blue Mountains”.