The farce of rural road maintenance

The great letdown by the Rural City of Wangaratta since amalgamation has been the upgrading of rural roads throughout the municipality. RCoW often uses the excuse that they have over 2000 kilometres of unmade road and they cannot seal them all. The reality is that probably less than 20 kilometres have been sealed in the 11 year life of the municipality.

At this rate, it will take over 100 years to seal our 2000 kilometres of unmade roads. Considering that the worlds oil supply will run out within 40 years and that bitumen is a by-product of oil, our rural roads will never all be sealed.

In my own area, the upper King Valley, there is a road section that needs to be sealed more than most. The Edi Upper primary school, located on the Edi-Cheshunt Road (a.k.a. the back road), is one of two schools in the State of Victoria still on unmade roads.

In the RCoW Register of Roads, the function of the Edi-Cheshunt road is classified as 'Rural Collector' providing a route ...through residential, industrial, agricultural, tourist and forest traffic nodes and the Rural Link and/or Declared road network. In other words, the Edi-Cheshunt road is more significant than the 'Rural Access' roads that service your property and less significant than the 'Rural Link' such as the Wangaratta-Whitfield Road.

Not only is the school located on an unmade road, the Edi-Cheshunt road is of such poor quality that the Rural City of Wangaratta puts a 12 tonne ban on it from July to November. Yet, at the same time, it is a school bus route servicing both primary and secondary school bus services. The school bus also has to negotiate other 'Rural Access' roads with 12 tonne limits such as the Lake Buffalo-Whitfield Road.

The Edi-Cheshunt road was part of the original pioneer road between Wangaratta and the Upper King Valley. The 2.1 km connecting link now known as Cook's Gap Road (previously Chapel lane) was also part of the original road. Many years ago, an island was placed outside Cooks dairy farm to redirect traffic to the right past the Edi Upper primary school. Cooks Gap road enjoys the lesser 'Rural Access" classification and is not subject to the 12 tonne winter ban. To this day, it is used as the main track as it is 1.5 kilometres shorter than the official Edi-Cheshunt road diversion.

The Edi-Cheshunt road and Cooks Gap road form a circular route that has caused consternation to local residents since the beginning of 2004 when the back road was declared a heavy vehicle detour awaiting repairs to the Cheshunt bridges. Signage anomalies were reported in The Watchdog including 60kph signs inside 40kph schhol signs and
60kph sign mounted upside down (09kph) on Cooks Gap road.

This nonsense continues to this day. A couple of months ago, the RCoW removed all speed signage from the area. All 80kph and 60kph areas have now become unrestricted.

The latest absurdity is the erection of a 'Give Way' sign on the throughway of a T Intersection. The throughway is at the junction of the Edi-Cheshunt road and the Black Range Creek road. At this T Intersection, the Edi Cheshunt road diverts at right angles from the throughway taking you past the Upper Edi primary school.

Those of us who live in the area know where the road goes and what precautions are necessary. However, travellers from outside the area would not have any idea of the hazard of this signage. Vehicles facing the give way sign can not readily determine if there is anything to give way to and vehicles approaching the throughway have no idea that there is a give way sign on the throughway. In any other road jurisdiction, this type of signage would be illegal.

What makes the Rural City of Wangaratta so special?