Holidaymakers heading to Kangaroo Island for long weekend getaways will soon have a faster trip to and from their destination thanks to the Marshall Liberal Government's $560 million Fleurieu Connections Package.
The usual mass exodus of South Aussies to our beautiful Fleurieu Peninsula and beyond causes major traffic congestion along Main South Road and a painful bottleneck at the Aldinga roundabout every long weekend and holiday period.
Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Corey Wingard, said that will be a thing of the past once the Fleurieu Connections package is delivered.
"We know that every long weekend South Australians pack their cars and head off in droves down south and over to KI," Minister Wingard said.
"We've seen a big spike in hits on the southaustralia.com website of people looking at what the Fleurieu Peninsula and KI region have to offer.
"Views of Fleurieu Peninsula tourism products have increased by almost 60% month on month with more than 143,000 hits and views of KI tourism products listed have increased by more than 60% month on month with 81,000 hits.
"SeaLink experienced a bumper October long weekend with nearly double the number of services to and from KI to cater for the influx of people escaping the city for some R & R.
"On Friday and Monday, there were 12 return trips, running from early morning through until 10:15pm to meet the demand and nearly all of them fully booked.
"We're proud to be delivering a road package that will compliment this service and make this journey faster and safer while also giving families more time to spend enjoying themselves rather than sitting in traffic.
"Everybody knows the one-lane roundabout at Port Road in Aldinga is an absolute nightmare during peak times with cars often queued for kilometres.
"Despite the positive reception from the public to our solution, SA Labor MP Leon Bignell has been talking down the upgrade to residents and anyone who could be bothered to listen.
"Former Minister Stephen Mullighan boasted about having $305 million on the table and the best they could come up with was a series of roundabouts.
"We know all too well how the one roundabout they did manage to deliver at the junction of Port Road and Main South Road in Aldinga has panned out – it's a nightmare and frankly hated by everyone who uses it.
"According to a Facebook post by Mr Mulligan, they were then planning on building another two roundabouts, one at Tatachilla Road and another at Aldinga Beach Road that would have only served to create more headaches and traffic congestion for motorists.
"The mind boggles as to why anyone would put more roundabouts in without grade separations. It's like the views of residents in the south don't matter to Leon Bignell or SA Labor.
"Our solution not only replaces that useless roundabout with a grade separation, but we're also building an overpass at Tatachilla Road.
"The rest of the package, which includes duplication of Main South Road, from Seaford to Aldinga, a '2+1' lane road layout from Aldinga to Sellicks Beach and duplication of Victor Harbor Road between Main South Road and the McLaren Vale turn off is based of detailed traffic analysis and consultation with the community.
"Traffic modelling has identified duplication south of Aldinga is not needed until after 2050 and the '2+1' lane road layout which is a three-lane road, consisting of two lanes in one direction and one lane in the other, alternating every few kilometres will be more than suitable.
"The Fleurieu Connections Package is a much better use of taxpayer's dollars and is only one of a number of major projects from the Marshall Liberal government's $17.9 billion infrastructure pipeline that we are proud to be delivering."
