Two "major" traffic incidents in the past five years have been credited with the need to improve road safety at the intersection of Wombat and Berthong Street.
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Hilltops Council Director of Infrastructure John Osland met with mayor Brian Ingram and Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke on Friday morning to view the project design.
Mr Osland explained why this intersection was selected.
"A couple of major incidents have occurred here over the last five years. They were fairly major and caused a fair bit of injury. We assessed this intersection against others. It's a fairly major route to Chinaman's Dam, there's a bus route, a number of heavy vehicles go up and down here, we've looked at the amount of pedestrians walking through here to schools and the hospital," he said.
"When we've added all those things together this was the best location for improvement. The other locations didn't have as many accidents, and weren't as severe as the accidents here."
He also explained the reason behind installing a roundabout, rather than take other road safety measures.
"Council works with Roads and Maritime Services to find the best solution. Roundabouts slow traffic down the best. It's about slowing traffic down on the through route of Wombat Street. So when people do come out of the intersections, if they don't see others, the incident isn't as severe. Roundabouts are our best option to slow traffic down," he said.
"[the roundabout] is single lane all around, it's a single lane roundabout. We've made it mountable so we can get buses and coaches around for tourists heading to Chinaman's Dam using the road."
The state government is providing $250,000 towards the project from round three of its Safer Roads Program through Saving Lives on Country Roads.
This will be one of five new projects in the Cootamundra electorate to receive funding during the 2020/2021 financial year.
"I spend half my life travelling the roads around the Cootamundra electorate and know first-hand how dangerous some of them can be. That's why I'm so pleased the NSW government is funding these improvements," Steph Cooke MP said.
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