Community Response and Concerns Against Proposal CSR

To Marcus Brennan,
The Assessment Manager
Sunshine Coast Regional Council
6th May, 2013

Community Response and Concern Against -Development application CSR MCU 12/0216
Point of Concern: External  Vehicle Movements from the former Brickworks site
1.Comparison of vehicle movements in and out of Old Brickworks Site 271 Lake MacDonald Drive
Hazard – Significant unacceptable increase of both traffic noise and dust to affected residents along Lake MacDonald Drive.
I would like to point out that haulage of clay material into the brickworks site during past operations when the Brickworks were operational involved vehicle movements along Lake MacDonald Drive from Quarries in both a North and South Direction of the Brickworks.  With the calculation of vehicle movements for this new proposal, ALL vehicle movements in and out of the brickworks site will be concentrated in the Southerly direction towards the Cooroy Township.  We live along Lake MacDonald Drive to the North of the Brickworks, near the Botanical Gardens, and when the former Brickworks trucks were carting clay past our residence there was a constant stream of trucks passing our house for a couple of weeks at a time. Fortunately for us this only happened several times/year and was not a weekly event, as the truck movements greatly increased traffic noise and considerable dust from the air movement that the trucks generated from the road verges. The speed limit is 60 km/hour on Lake MacDonald Drive where we live. This did not help either the noise or the dust. To keep out the noise and dust we had to constantly close all of our windows and doors in our house, which was unbearably hot in summer as we do not have air-conditioning.
I would also like to emphasise that the Brickworks trucks were single trucks, without the dog trailers. The new proposal is to use truck and dog. This will generate significantly more noise, with the additional rumble of the trailers, and considerably more airflow with resultant dust.
Residents living along the 1.4 km section of Lake MacDonald Drive where these trucks will be passing will be significantly impacted with both traffic noise and dust. The hours of truck movement is 10 hours/day 5 days/week - Monday to Friday, and 8 hours/day on Saturdays, over 2 years. The number of loaded truck and dog movements/day is 50. This will also result in an additional 50 movements/day generated back to the Westridge quarry to reload, making the total movements/day at 100. This equates to 1 truck turning in and out of the White Pit Quarry entrance road every 6 minutes.
2. Re Traffic Assessment
Hazard – My concern is that there will be a High Risk of Motor Vehicle Accidents occurring at the approaches to the entrance to the White Pit Quarry due to slow-moving turning trucks (and dog trailers) and the close proximity to the Crest of the hill South of the White-Pit entrance route. (even with the entrance being moved 100 metres north of the old access driveway) For the truck-driver to gain full visibility of traffic before making a turn out, the truck will have to come to a complete stop. This will make their entrance out onto the road a slow one as they gradually accelerate.
Motor vehicle drivers driving North from Cooroy township have zero visibility of trucks turning until they actually drive over the crest of the hill. If a truck heading North has just begun to turn out onto Lake MacDonald Drive, the approaching car heading in the same direction will have to apply their brakes and slow right down until the truck can accelerate. This poses a high risk of accidents occurring if other cars follow without equal caution.
The same scenario will occur as South-bound trucks and dogs are turning across the North-bound lane of Lake MacDonald Drive into the White-Pit driveway entrance. This will be at the rate of 1 truck turning every 6 minutes onto and across a major road infrastructure, near the crest of a hill, including peak traffic hours ie 7:35-8:35am and 3:20-4:20pm. With the daily traffic volume being around 200 vehicles/hour this surely poses significant risk of accidents and fatalities.
The proposed reduction in speed limit of 80kms/hr to 60kms/hr does not guarantee drivers will comply with this speed reduction. From our experience of living on Lake MacDonald Drive, there are many impatient speeding drivers who do not follow the designated speed limits.
My other concern is that the existing Lake MacDonald roadway is not wide enough for these trucks to safely turn in and out of the White Pit quarry. I will email you a photograph ( will attach it to an email in the next 24 hours) taken by myself on Sunday 5/5/13 of the dusty tire marks visible on the bitumen made by quarry trucks that have been used to cart soil into the new entrance driveway into White Pit during the past week. It is clearly seen that the trucks cross the central line of the road into the oncoming lane with each North bound truck turning out onto Lake MacDonald Drive.

Yours sincerely,
Anne Yang
379 Lake MacDonald Drive
Cooroy, 4563.