A Newcastle Liberal councillor has renewed his push to revive a Mayfield to Wallsend road project after a report stated Transport for NSW had delayed the sale of land allocations in Warabrook.
Councillor Callum Pull touted the Wallsend to Mayfield road project before the 2021 council election, and took a proposal to a council meeting in 2022 urging the NSW government to explore options to alleviate traffic congestion, highlighting the Wallsend-Mayfield project as a potential solution.
The Wallsend-Mayfield arterial road project from the Link Road to Industrial Drive was touted as an option to divert truck haulage in the mid 20th century, but was abandoned in 1981 with the announcement of the Newcastle Inner City Bypass from Jesmond to Sandgate.
The council said the ongoing upgrade of the A15 route along the Link Road to Griffiths Road, coinciding with the Hunter Expressway opening in 2014, further supplemented road capacity on this route and the closure of BHP reduced the demand for heavy vehicle haulage.
Cr Pull's proposal was heavily criticised by Labor and Green councillors at the August 2022 meeting, who said homes, businesses and public spaces would have to be demolished to create the road. The council instead supported an amendment by Labor councillor Elizabeth Adamczyk to receive a report on the property that would need to be acquired and the potential costs of the project.
But Cr Pull said the project would involve renewing old road reserves and that he was calling for the concept to be investigated, rather than for buildings to be flattened.
He said there was "massive" population growth in Newcastle's western suburbs and a solution was needed to road congestion.
"We need to be planning ahead and building roads to support the population growth that we know is coming, so that residents don't have to cop gridlock every morning during peak hour," Cr Pull said.
Cr Pull was prompted to renew his push after councillors received an update on the August 2022 resolution, which said the council was "seeking feedback" and that Transport for NSW had delayed a sale of land in Warabrook, where a proposed route could be created.
"There's a good opportunity here to take another look at these old road reserves and see if we can help get traffic moving," Cr Pull said.
"Using the old road reserve near Jesmond and connecting University Drive and Cameron Street is a perfect example of how we could streamline traffic flow and help better connect two suburbs."
Greens councillor John Mackenzie said at the August 2022 council meeting that the proposal "clearly defines that post-war road building fantasy that existed at that time".
"But there were plenty of objections to that particular approach even in the 1950s and I always think back on Lewis Mumford's comments that trying to fix congestion by building more roads is like trying to deal with your obesity by loosening your belt buckle," Cr Mackenzie said.
"In other words, you might get some temporary relief, but you don't go into any way addressing the actual causation of what causes that traffic congestion in the first instance and this is a lesson that's been learned across by cities across the globe.
"The more roads that you build the more traffic you create and it's called induced demand. There's infinite amounts of research that demonstrate that to be the case."
Cr Pull described criticism of the idea as a "scare campaign" and said action was needed to handle population growth other than cycleways and public transport.
"The Labor council sat on their hands for a decade and are only now looking at widening Minmi Road," he said.
"The vast majority of residents drive a car. No one wants to be cycling to work in the 40 degree heat we experienced this summer.
"Everyone in the western suburbs knows exactly how bad traffic flow in our city is, and how difficult it is to get across town.
"Community members I've spoken to have firmly backed my call to take a look at unused old road reserves to see if we can streamline and improve commutes across the city."
