2016-02-02 I&S Committee - Item 4 - Attachment 1 - Noosa Traffic Study

8 CONCLUSION
Noosa Council is preparing a new planning scheme. As part of that process, and to inform the
new Local Government Infrastructure Plan, this traffic study was commissioned to identify road
system upgrading requirements within the Noosa Council area to the year 2036.

This study deals only with the car based travel component of the transport system.
Subsequent studies will be undertaken to assess public transport, pedestrian and cycle
requirements.

Noosa has a long history of having a documented strategic direction to maintain a free flowing
road system, based on having roundabouts at major intersections, so that vehicles are not
delayed at traffic signal controlled junctions. This is an important strategic input to this study.

The majority of traffic issues in Noosa are contained within the Coastal area comprising
Tewantin, Noosaville, Noosa Heads, Sunshine Beach, and extending down to Peregian Beach,
where the majority of the population and commercial areas are located, however, there are also
issues at Cooroy.

The coastal area road network comprises roads that are controlled only by Noosa Council.
State-controlled roads provide the major access to the coastal area, but do not intrude into the
coastal area.

Beyond the coastal area of Noosa Shire, the primary roads are State-controlled roads
administered by DTMR including Bruce Highway, Eumundi Noosa Rd south of Beckmans Rd,
Emu Mountain Rd, Cooroy Noosa Rd (west of Gyndier Dr), Cooroy Connection Rd and
Pomona Connection Rd, Kin Kin Rd, Louis Bazzo Drive and McKinnon Drive. DTMR is
currently conducting a separate study to plan for upgrading requirements to their roads.

Traffic growth within the Noosa Shire into the future will be driven primarily by growth in the
population of the area, as well as by new commercial developments within Noosa. Population
projections have been supplied by the State to the year 2036, and these indicate that
population growth within Noosa will be low. Noosa town planners have advised that additional
commercial development within Noosa over the period of this study is also expected to occur at
a low rate.

In the circumstances outlined above, with expected low rates of population and commercial
area growth, this traffic study has reasonably been undertaken in the absence of area wide
road network modelling, and has been undertaken on the basis of applying growth factors to
existing traffic movements. Because intersection capacities essentially define the capacity of
an urban road network, extensive traffic counts were undertaken throughout the road system as
a basis for intersection analysis using the SIDRA package, following application of growth
factors.

The study concludes that the existing road network can be suitably upgraded to satisfactorily
accommodate traffic flow projections to the 2036 design year, while retaining the free flowing
roundabout based system, without need to create fully controlled signalised intersections,
unless there is significant development that has not been anticipated. Recommended
upgrading of intersections to achieve that outcome and associated suggested timing to
maintain congestion free conditions during the busy holiday times of the year were outlined in
Section 6 and Section 7 respectively.


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