The Bantry Bay community enjoy significant connectivity and social inclusion through the footpath connection from Karingal Crescent to Warringah Road at both the eastern and western ends. The footpaths connect the community to Forest Way shops, to the Hospital site and to buses on Warringah Road and the Wakehurst Parkway. The noise barrier design must not remove this access. Possible methods for addressing this would be to have staggered walls at the footpath connection, similar to the access points along the East Hills railway or to extend the noise barriers down the connecting footpaths.

Many residents along Karingal Crescent enjoy connectivity to the community space along Warringah Road through access via their back fence. How will the likely loss of this community connectivity be addressed and compensated?

I support all of the proposed design, with the exception of the following issues, which are poorly considered in the design and require modification to the Project scope to resolve. There are also a number of issues where the impacts have not be adequately considered in the traffic impact assessment, and these require an update to the work undertaken to ensure the impacts of the project have been assessed correctly, and hence the scope of the Project is appropriate to mitigate all significant impacts.

*Warringah Council has a proposal to construct a bike path/ shared path along Warringah Road. The Project must consult with Council to determine if the path is to travel along the northern side of Warringah Road, and if so, the footpath proposed between Allambie Road and Wakehurst Parkway, should be constructed as shared path as part of the Project.

*The section of footpath proposed on the north side of Warringah Road between Maxwell Parade and the Forest Way Shopping Centre should be constructed as shared path, as this route connects with the pedestrian/ bicycle bridge proposed at the Forest Way intersection, and also provides connectivity for cycle routes between regional cycling destinations accessed via Roseville Bridge, and the Forest Way pedestrian/ bicycle bridge via the quiet back streets of Forestville, on the north side of Warringah Road. A shared path instead of a footpath is required along this section as part of the project.

*Shared paths proposed as part of the project encounter a number of signalised intersections. Bike lanterns should be incorporated as part of the pedestrian crossing lanterns at all signalised intersections to enable cyclists to cross intersections without having to dismount their bikes.

*The shared path on the northern side of the intersection of Warringah Road citybound and Fitzpatrick Avenue East incorporates a ramped access in the shared path to accommodate grades encountered at this location. The design of the shared path should also include stairs so that pedestrians do not have to travel the length of the ramps.

*The prevention of straight ahead movements from Hilmer Avenue northbound into the hospital is unlikely to be effective. A superior design is to relocate the eastbound entry from Warringah Road into the Hospital to a location further west of the intersection of Hilmer Street, so that a slip lane is created into the hospital to the immediate west of the Hilmer Street intersection.

*There is no ability to turn right from Aquatic Drive to travel northbound on Wakehurst Parkway as part of the Stage 2 roadworks package. This increases the traffic demand on Allambie Road/Warringah Road intersection and on Frenches Forest Road East. Total travel time and total delay time in the traffic modelling may be lower if the right turn is permitted from Aquatic Drive directly onto Wakehurst Parkway, and hence be a superior outcome. The GTA traffic report does not identify if this scenario has been assessed, or what the results were.

*The scheme does not consider the faster arrival rate of vehicles downstream of Forest Way, in the AM peak period travelling citybound. Currently, congestion occurs at the intersections of Currie Road, Starkey Street, Darley Street and Forestville Avenue. The release of upstream congestion proposed by the Project will relocate queues to these downstream intersections. Currently, bus journey times between Forest Way and Forestville Avenue are protected to a degree from queues at these downsteam intersections due to vehicles being held at upstream locations. These enables buses to move at a decent average speed through the network between Fitzpatrick Avenue East and Forestville Avenue. Additionally, overall bus journey times in the study area are currently protected to a degree at the upstream locations due to the provision of bus priority/ bus lanes and bus queue jumps, enabling buses to move through the network at a good average speed. The construction of the project will impair bus journey times, relative to their current journey times. Buses are a key part of the long term strategic transport task for the Northern Beaches, and the impairment of bus journey times to any degree is unacceptable at the opening year or any future modelling horizon year. The project has not provided any improvement to bus operations or bus priority. The GTA traffic report does not consider bus journey times downstream citybound of Forest Way and is a gross oversight.

*The approach routes to the Northern Beaches Hospital is counter intuitive from some approaches, in that right turns from Warringah Road westbound into the Hospital are not permitted. As a result, vehicles travelling from Wakehurst Parkway northbound, as well as vehicles travelling westbound on Warringah Road east of Allambie Road, and vehicles travelling north of Allambie Road south of Rodburough Road, are at a high risk of taking the wrong approach route to the hospital, and risking illegal or dangerous movements in order to then access the hospital. A guide sign scheme to identify the correct route to approach the hospital for the 3 counter intuitive approach routes should be provided as part of the Project.

*Saturation flows on the eastbound approach of Warringah Road to Allambie Road are unbalanced, which is likely to lead to weave conflicts and unbalanced queue lengths on the eastbound approach lanes. From the midblock location of Warringah Road between Wakehurst Parkway and Allambie Road, only the kerbside lane provides access to the through traffic movement eastbound across Allambie Road. There will be a high weave movement into this single approach through lane. There is a risk of side swipe crashes, rear end crashes or aggressive and dangerous merge movements closer to the intersection. There is only approximately 150m of weave length available, and if queues extend back into this weave length, there is a risk of flow breakdown and rear end collisions in the eastbound underpass. The GTA traffic report identifies that Level of Service at the Allambie Road/ Warringah Road is likely to be poor, and as a result congestion and queuing on the eastbound approach is likely.

*The Project proposes a dual left turn lane from Forest Way southbound into Warringah Road eastbound. There is a zebra crossing existing and proposed across this lane. Provision of two approach lanes to a zebra crossing is unsafe for pedestrians and must be resolved.

*The location of bus stops is not identified in the published consultation brochure Figure. It is likely that a bus stop on the eastbound frontage of the Hospital site on Warringah Road will be required in order to provide access to the Hospital. A bus stop at this location will conflict with the heavy left turn from Warringah Road eastbound into Wakehurst Parkway northbound, resulting in rear end and side swipe crashes in following vehicles, or risk of collision between buses pulling away from the kerb to continue eastbound and vehicles attempting to access the kerbside lane in order to undertake a left turn movement into Wakehurst Parkway.

*The Project does not address the need for the Northern Beaches Hospital public transport interchange, by not providing a location for this facility. Without inclusion of the facility in the design, the traffic impact of bus stops cannot be accurately determined in the traffic modelling undertaken for the scheme. If bus stops are to occur in kerbside traffic lanes, then the modelling undertaken will underestimate the network delays.

*The traffic modelling in the GTA report underestimates the number of outpatient trips, by using an unrealistic model of apportionment of outpatient trips. It divides the total number of outpatients by 10 hours of hospital operation per day, such that 10% of the total outpatient number each day arrives each hour. Most hospital outpatient services require patients to present to the hospital earlier in the day, such that an even daily distribution is unrealistic.

*The GTA traffic report fails to identify a common rat run which is for westbound vehicles on Warringah Road, using the right turn at Government Road to travel via Ellis Road and Iris Road (or for vehicles on Wakehurst Parkway southbound to utilise Dreadnaught Road and Oxford Falls Road for a southbound rat run), to then utilise Romford Road/ Hurdis Road to access Frenches Forest Road East, left turn into Wakehurst Parkway and then right turn back into Warringah Road, avoiding the 6kph average travel speed along Warringah Road between Allambie Road and Wakehurst Parkway in the AM peak period. There is the potential that the modelled results understate the level of queues and congestion likely at the Government Road/ Warringah Road intersection and hence fail to identify needed upgrades to this intersection.

I support the plan strongly. As far as I am concerned you have seriously attacked the critical bottleneck areas. Just speed up implementation.

SUBJECT: Stage 2 RMS roadworks around the Northern Beaches Hospital

As part of the Wakehurst Parkway upgrade to the north of Frenchs Forest Road (Frenchs Forest), I both suggest and strongly request that a combined pedestrian path/cycleway be constructed on the western side of Wakehurst Parkway running from May Gibbs Way to Frenchs Forest Road with a connection to Epping Drive via the easement between 44 and 46 Epping Drive.

This project does not include the provision of dedicated cycling lanes. Progressive cities such as Vancouver, Canada have dedicated cycling lanes. See <http://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/biking.aspx>, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism>.

On a recent visit to Vancouver, I noticed a huge increase in the number of cyclists and a positive change in the liveability of the city since I lived there five years ago. Cycling lanes have been rolled out during that 5-year period.

There is no way that someone could effectively commute by bicycle to somewhere like Chatswood on this road as designed.

The hospital and upgrade to Frenchs Forest Rd West will create significantly more traffic on Forestway - but the movement of traffic from Forestway west onto Warringah Rd is a significant downgrade to the existing setup. While there will be less through traffic, the turn right from Forestway will be difficult to navigate. Today drivers often struggle to merge to one lane - but when they do they have a dedicated lane onWardingah Rd to continue onto. But in the proposal, traffic will have to merge to one lane then merge into traffic travelling at 70km/h on the underpass. Today the traffic turning left off Forestway (East) travelling on Warringah Rd often struggles to merge with traffic on Warringah Rd - they need to wait for a change of lights to wait for a gap. In the setup where the traffic turning left from Forestway, there will be no gap in traffic on the underpass as the traffic coming through there will not be held up by lights. So the traffic trying to merge into Warringah Rd will back up along the one then two lanes, and all the way back up Forestway- few cars will get through a green light as they wait for a timid driver to try and merge onto Warringah Rd. today there is often traffic backed up to Adams St in the AM peak trying to turn right onto Forestway. With the additional traffic and the degraded merging experience this will only get worse. Forestway adds a significant amount of traffic onto Warringah Rd in the AM peak hour - why would the thru traffic on the underpass not have to merge to one lane (which could be managed over a hundreds of metres) and the Forestway traffic get a dedicated lane? The current plan improves the situation for those not affected by the hospital (the tru traffic on the underpass) and makes the situation for those affected by the extra traffic that the hospital will generate worse. This is clear even in the pretty animations - as you can see all of the extra traffic lights that cars will need to deal with (which the cars in the animation never seem to have to deal with!) as well as the tricky merging that people will need to manage - which as you know well is often a reason for significant traffic hotspots in Sydney.

The grade separation on the intersection of Warringah Road and Wakehurst Parkway is the most critical element and must proceed. Also, it would be very worthwhile to go ahead with extending Aquatic Drive to meet Wakehurst Parkway.

Please see attached.

Please see attached.