Business owners in the South Armadale Industrial Estate are fuming after Metronet revealed the new traffic lights at the Stone Street/ South West Highway intersection won’t be installed in time for next week’s permanent closure of the Byron Rd level crossing, as promised.
The Byron Rd level crossing connects dozens of local businesses and residents in the industrial estate with Haynes, Brookdale and major arterial roads heading westwards.
Its permanent closure as part of the Byford Rail Extension is still set for next Tuesday.
The closure will create a bottleneck of industrial traffic exiting onto the South West Highway – a situation that was supposed to be alleviated by the installation of traffic lights at the Stone Street intersection, and further up at Eleventh Rd.
Eleventh Rd is touted by Metronet to be an alternate route to the west when the road over rail bridge is completed.
“The new traffic lights will be operational when the Byron Road level crossing closes,” read the Metronet website until just this week.
But yesterday, a spokesperson confirmed that the lights won’t be up in time.
“Metronet has been working closely with Main Roads on the installation of traffic signals on South Western Highway but unfortunately this is now expected to occur after this date,” the spokesperson said.
Melissa Proudlove owns Western Forklifts in the industrial estate and said they were ‘guaranteed’ the lights would be operational before the level crossing closure.
“They have not held up their promise,” she said.
“This is going to make it crazy for all in the industrial area especially the trucks having to try and turn right,” she said.
“This is going to be a nightmare leaving and coming into the industrial area.”
The Metronet spokesperson said they are “currently assessing options to ensure safe and efficient access is maintained in and out of the industrial estate and will provide further guidance to the community in the coming days”.
The roadworks began on February 12.
