A COUPLE of Coogee residents want Main Roads and Cockburn council to have another crack at making the pedestrian crossing into Coogee Beach safer.
The council is preparing a masterplan for the reserve, but it doesn’t include the crossing over Cockburn Road, which Alan Jacka and Jen Wieland say isn’t safe despite the council organising a pelican crossing about a year ago.
“I’m terrified watching the oldies and youngsters trying to get across there,” Mr Jacka told the Herald.
“The area is getting busier and busier and the traffic just rushes through there. It’s like a big slingshot.”
Mr Jacka says the pelican crossing is in the wrong spot because it’s a fair distance from the intersection of Beach Street and Cockburn Road and many teens who use the two bus stops nearby simply cross the road rather than trek up to it.
• Jen Wieland and Alan Jacka say not even the pelican crossing near Coogee Beach makes them feel much safer. Photo by Steve Grant
The ramp heading onto the crossing is quite steep, and he says he watched with concern as an elderly gentleman struggled to negotiate it on a bike recently.
He says the entrance to the new Coogee Surf Life Saving Club is also a problem, as the car park is often packed on weekends and cars line up waiting for the slightest crack in the stream of traffic that shoots along the road.
“The beach is getting chockers—it’s heaving and it’s great that they’re planning for that, but there’s a lot more families trying to get across and even if they slow cars down in that section it would be safer,” he said.
The pair say a walkway or lights is in order. Ms Wieland also wants the council to install shade sails over the beach, saying families are huddling under the jetty to beat the sun.
by STEVE GRANT