On Monday April 12, motorists were stuck in gridlock on the F3 Freeway after a crash involving a B-double fuel tanker at Mount White.
The crash occurred just before lunch time, however, a contra-flow emergency plan was not put in place until late in the evening. Traffic was backed up for a significant distance during the evening peak hour.
NRMA Motoring & Services President Wendy Machin said the RTA’s traffic management plan for dealing with incidents on the F3 needs a major overhaul.
The NRMA’s analysis of the F3 traffic management plan has found:
| • | Two years after the $28 million plan was announced, it appears that five of the proposed cross-overs still have not been installed. |
| • | The cross-over located south of the crash site could have been used to divert northbound traffic onto the F3′s southbound lanes. The two cross-overs just north of the crash could then have been used to re-divert traffic back on to northbound lanes. None of these three cross-overs are finished. |
| • | Purpose-built sheds to store traffic cones and water supplies may be situated away from the cross-over sites, making it harder for contra-flow to be quickly put into place. |
| • | After the incident was contained, the priority should have shifted to managing its traffic impact. This does not appear to have happened. |
| • | Insufficient information was given to motorists approaching the F3 or those already caught in the congestion. |
The RTA’s traffic management plan was also supposed to enable the RTA and State emergency services to quickly distribute bottled water to stranded motorists.
“Instead, NRMA patrols on the freeway encountered many distressed motorists and provided bottled water of their own accord,” Ms Machin said.
According to the RTA website, the F3 Freeway is the main link between the Central Coast and Hunter regions and Sydney, with more than 75,000 motorists and 7000 freight vehicles using it each day.
What needs to be done to avoid extended delays on our roads? Were you stuck on the F3?
Apparently the contra-flows were not opened on advice from Fire Brigade who said petrol fumes wafting across to other lanes could be ignited by static electricity sparks. From what I understand, that risk did not abate until evening say around 7-8pm when the contra-flow openings were announced.
Not sure of the legitimacy of those reports, but imagine a massive fireball from a fuel tanker! What’s worse…being caught in traffic for a few hours or seeing a few emergency service personnel die on duty.
Yes I was caught up in the whole rigmarole & didn’t get home till 10:15pm, so I was there & frustrated like everyone else.
Before whingeing that the lanes didn’t open sooner, let’s see if there really was a risk of explosion from drifting fuel fumes. If not, then the RTA have a serious case to answer. If so, then I’d rather wait until the coast is clear than risk a fireball.
This is straight forward public servant incompetence. It’s time some of them were disciplined. The RTA is a rogue agency.
The priority should always be on keeping the traffic flowing. If an accident requires investigation, it can be done with at least one lane kept open. If it’s too dangerous for that, an alternative route should be the first priority.
We need an alternate route west of the F3. The Pacific highway and the F3 can be rendered impassable by bush fires and other natural disasters as well as by traffic accidents.
If contraflows aren’t possible, then at the least the RTA could have initiated an emergency response of calling radio stations to provide updates to commuters and call contractors to bring in port-a-loos and food/water supplies. An alternate western route seems like the best long term solution.
About time the RTA or some other govt body established a 24/7 radio channel for continuing traffic advice – perhaps this could have prevented many people from getting caught up in the first place.
The RTA camera web site needs an upgrade to allow images from many more cameras to be accessed. There is no reason why an individual should not be able to choose all cameras relevant to a particular journey. If they can be made available to some control room they can be made available to web users.
I understand that the last few “biggies” have included petrol tankers. There was some call for petrol (and dangerous goods generally) to be put on rail. I thought that was a goofy call at the time, but maybe I’m not sure anymore. Surely the petrol could be railed up to a hub (say Newcastle) and trucked from there?
I work at Castle Hill and live at The Entrance. I left Sydney at 6pm thinking that after nearly six hours, the traffic might have cleared a little or that the crossover points would be open. Wrong. I had a 7.5 hour trip home. The crossovers were finally opened after 10pm.
It’s wrong. I was lucky I had some food and didn’t need to go to the toilet but water would have been great. There were people around me with kids trying to get home from the Royal Easter Show.
To DC: Traffic southbound – where the contra-flow would have been flowing – was never closed so the fumes explanation is questionable.
We will wait and see what Ken’s findings are.
There are factors too variable to really completely blame anyone with any certainty. If someone made the decision that intially it was quicker to clear than implement contra-flow and this turns out not to be the case then a bad judgement was made.
It is poor performance by the RTA not to implement warnings and communicate the issue to drivers.
What is more important is that lessons are learnt from this incident and put in place to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. No doubt though some thing different will happen at some point and they’ll need to learn from that and put that in place etc. etc.
All the equipment required to put in place a contra-flow should be stored at each cross over point and crews required to put in place the contra-flow should be flown in by helicopter. As the road would be blocked to traffic there should be no problem finding a landing sight for the helicopter near the cross over points.
Having to use the road that has the problem for access to fix the problem is ridiculous.
What bright spark thought having the required equipment off site would work?
I heard nothing in the 6pm ABC news re the debacle. I live in Hornsby – west of the rail line – and guess what?! At 6.30pm I was 5 cars short of not being able to get home, trying to turn near Asquith Boys High. F3 is nowhere near my home and I was still affected, as were all others on the old highway north of Hornsby.
Change the expensive governance – too many bureaucrats, too much spending on administration ans speculative politics, not enough money for positive actions.
E.g. the proposed upgrading of M2 is a joke as an alternative to railway. The surveying has started and sections of the road are already closed before the real work started – can you imagine the traffic on this freeway during construction works which certainly will last for many months? The increasing traffic resulting from rapid growth of population in north-western suburbs will exceed the capacity of “upgraded” freeway anyway. This is a very short sighted approach. I don’t even want to think what would happen on this freeway in case of a more serious accident – need to travel by the old route via already congested streets.
As usual, the truck in the right was blamed by some who dont know any better. My wish is for a political conference to be held on the central coast and all the pollies travelling by car get held up and cant move for 10 hours without any means to escape. Lets see how long it takes for the bumbling fools to get the message then. My God, in this day and age, this sort of problem happens far to frequent and all the departments shifting the blame instead of solving the problem. And on the subject of sacking people, that polititian should learn by his mistakes and resign immediately and you will find half the problems would disappear, and get Jim Lloyd into the position and everything will just happen properly
It is ludicrous that Sydney has one main large feeder road to the north. The Pacific Highway is totally inadequate as a back up road, even when traffic is managed well.
The current government needs to seriously look at alternate routes for traffic to the north. Something from Parramatta/Blacktown that goes directly north and hooks on to the F3 around Gosford or Wyong would make a huge amount of sense.
And of course getting the rail traffic working more efficiently so that people can rely on trains and not have to choose to use their cars would be a great step forward too.
The F3 has gone past its use-by date. Time to rattle the RTA’s cage, put a bit of stick about! Time to build the new link from the west, Windsor to Singleton (Putty Road) combining both rail and road. This new link would also divert west bound mountain traffic onto the Golden highway to the west with appropriate route upgrades.
all they had to do was stop south bound traffic on pacific hwy,at mt white, divert them onto the f3,any one who needed to go on pacific hwy south would travel to hawksbury river, then go north on pacific hwy.then two lanes diverted north bound off the f3, & rejoin the f3 at mt whiteif this had taken place when accident happened[at 11/40am.] there would not have the peak hour traffic banking up behind traffic all ready at a stand still.
Start booking cars for tailgating, most of the drivers are the blame for driving to close to the car in front and have no idea how to drive on a freeway.
Why was traffic not stopped from entering the F3 after the accident. The cars then at the back could had been turned around and sent via the Pacific Hwy instead. Traffic management police could have been put on point at the entrance to the F3 to direct the returning vehicles.
If traffic was still travelling south then there was obvioulsy no fear of sparks and this is the side of the road traffic would have been driving on if the contra flow had been put in place.
Plainly lessons can be taken from this incident and management can be improved, quite probably along some lines described in other posts.
However I am tired of car driver’s complaints. People didn’t have water with them. Whose fault is that? How hard is it to carry a 2 litre pet bottle of water in the boot? I always have water in the car.
Everyone has to expect delays-without-notice. The Gladesville bridge fell down. Sad people step in front of trains. Delays happen.
Yes, incidents can be better managed but if people don’t have realistic expectations then no amount of investment will solve anything. Even if everyone caught in a delay was ferried home with their car by helicopter there would still be a chorus of complaint that no one got a personal apology from the Premier at their front door.
We joined the F3 a 2 pm and thankfully it only took us 3 hours for a 45 min trip (Hornsby to Woy Woy). One hard lesson to learn is ALWAYS CARRY BOTTLES OF WATER – EITHER FOR THE OCCUPANTS OR THE CAR!!!! AND SOME TOILET PAPER – USEFUL FOR WIPING THE SWEAT ON A HOT DAY.
I was not caught in this last debacle but in another one a couple of years ago and we were stuck for 5 hours.
Why was the traffic not stopped from entering the F3 after the accident occurred? This would seem to be a logical start to the problem and at least north bound traffic could be diverted to the old Pacific Highway.
The contra-flows need to be completed asap and all equipment to be stored on site.
Water/food should also be available if traffic is to be stopped for any time longer than 1 hour.
The RTA needs to understand that ‘people’ drive the cars that are on the roads, not robots.
These delays wouldn’t happen so frequently if people drove more carefully. The whole problem was caused by the driver who caused the accident, not all the other people being blamed.
It is essential that the enquiry reveal all the process failures that occurred during the course of this event and action take to address the failures.
This includes:
a) Driver behaviour causing the accidents (tailgaiting, not keeping left, overtaking on left lanes, rapid lane changing without due care, etc)
b) Why crossover points have not all been completed by now
c) Why it took forever to decant the petrol tanker – vehicle owner should have some responsibility in ensuring facilities can be readily accessed
d) Why traffic management was not put in place including signage, radio, web, etc
e) Why emergency facilities were not provided for stranded vehicles (that should not have been stranded in the first place)
f) What is being done about establishing the development of a route parallel to the Putty Rd.
Worthy of a Royal Commission.
As a regular user of F3: The F3 is an accident waiting to happen – daily.
Yes we need another expressway – but whilst we have only this one. let’s do what we can to make it less dangerous.
1)Truck drivers (B-double,tankers etc) should be forced to stick to the speed limit, should leave large gaps between vehicles and should be made to do adanced driving courses. The hoon truckie is ” “dead” dangerous.
2)Lead in roads need more signage so drivers can make preventative lane changes. (a) The Service station going north: exit has right angle bend and steep slope that make it impossible for trucks to reach any speed before entering 2-lane expressway. Savvy drivers move to righthand lane. There should be warning signs. (b) Lead in road from Wyong going north, visibility for those entering is very poor, the lead in area is short and it all happens just as 3 lanes are merged into 2 lanes. Another accident waiting to happen.
3)Accidents seem to have become a daily occurrence. RTA signs, preventing motorists entering system, should be at each lead in road. The 131700 should have a dedicated status report on the “flow” (or anticipated delay time) of the F3.
The problem is not going away. There are to be many thousands of extra homes and drivers going north yet nothing is being done or is planned for the future. The politician in charge of this long-term, inefficient system (‘Walrus’ Campbell) should be held responsible.
It should be up to the emergency services (police) to start the ball rolling for opening the ` contra-flow `…NOT SOMEBODY IN CANBERRA…I was lucky i was in Newcastle.
We need another freeway or motorway from the M7. This could run from the Richmond road exit or thereabout, to Wyong or all the way to the New England highway and join the Pacific Highway after Hexham.
Why cant we build a coast road and have 2 suspension bridges at the Sydney harbour heads and the broken bay heads. This would make a for a fantastic trip adn help the economy with such a grand project that Australia could be proud of.
Come on NSW Gov, have some forthought like the Harbour Bridge builders and put some ideas in place.
And while your at it, would someone PLEASE slap the RTA on the back side and tell them its ok to design roads and tunnels with more than 2 lanes.
Does RTA stand for Roadlanes Two Always?
I saw the sign “Traffic delays on F3″ at 3pm. I got into the left lane to turn off to the old highway but alas, was stuck.
After an hour of stopped and short starts, my old mercedes conked out. The NRMA tow truck took 4.5 hours to travel from the Berowra 0nramp to get to us. My wife is recovering from cancer/chemo and suffers from 34% heart functionality as well. My thanks go to the kind people who offered water and to the lady who gave us apples and biscuits.
Good samaritans on the F3 that day – bless you.
I ask, how can you spend $20M on traffic cones and some 20 metre strips of asphalt?. I expect permanent traffic lights at crossovers and little huts with small permanent generator in them. Radio control could initiate crossover as it is already used at traffic lights, so why not here?.
There is a need to have at least one crossover on either end of the bridge.
As has been said previously, diversions need to be invoked earlier.
I must be one of the lucky ones. I came to a stop at 2.30pm and only got held up for 4 hours!!! I set a new personal record of 10 hours getting from Campbelltown to Taree. You can only tell your kids to tie a knot in it so many times, nearly had to empty the drink bottles and re-use them.
But seriously, considering the vital importance of the F3 as the major arterial route north, contra flow lanes or not, surely there should be regular emergency entry and exit routes, linking the F3 to secondary roads, spaced out at regular intervals.
I realise we are dealing with a Government/Public Service Dept but bloody hell, what am I paying my taxes for? A complimentary spot in the worlds biggest car park? Time to clean house and get with the program gentlemen. The public expects and deserves better!
What was the petrol tanker doing on the road anyway? Is there not an oil pipeline between Sydney & Newcastle? Maybe it is time to ban trucks from the F3 during daylight hours (similar to overseas restrictions)
A dreadful situation which I think could be overcome in the future by constructing an emergency access lane in the middle of the two roads – there is space there, which could be opened to traffic in either direction should something like this occur again. Need only be used for a short distace to get traffic flowing around the blockage.
I have been travelling up and down the F3 for 23 years as a commuter. Last weeks disaster was an absolute disgrace and the worst thing I’ve ever seen in terms of emergency management. I cannot believe that the communications being broadcast on the radio from the RTA didn’t match what the fire brigade were saying on the same radio station. The RTA said a few hours, the fire brigades indicated at least 4 more hours (this was at 5pm). Surely the RTA should be getting this info and working on it!!
I suggest that at any major incident, where the freeway needs to be closed, the contra flow should immediately be initiated. Irrelevant of whether it’s 5 mins or 5 hours.
An appropriate traffic management plan needs to be adopted to manage shut off points and responsibilities. The Police seem to do nothing except sit there with their lights flashing. They failed to have any Police at any exit/entry points assiting traffic movements. Surely we could use the SES or RFS to assist. I’m sure they’d be happy to do it if the cops can’t!
Utilise the message boards for what they were installed for. To provide up-to-date traffic information, not RTA or Cityrail advertising
I’m sure after all the investigations and blaming our govt will announce it has implemnetd something that will again fail at the next event. After all, wasn’t the contra flow system announced by Premier Carr after he got caught years ago, then Iemma, when he got caught, then Rees etc
I travelled on the F3 today after 5 pm. I was travelling at 105 klm per hour
and a P plate driver passed me and the driver was tailgating a ute at a speed over over his limit. what would have hapened if the ute had braked suddenly, another crash,another hold up in peak hour traffic. Where were the police to catch this driver? That could save a lot of trouble if the police were seen on the roads and the F3.
Why Wasn’t the Petrol Tanker towed to a Save area and unloaded, there would not have been any more spillage in the area.
Stop building archaic highways. Deploy a euro style fast rail. CBD to Newcastle in 60 minutes. just like Paris to Reims takes 40 minutes.
Timo, your idea is exactly what is needed. A fast train makes a thousand kinds of sense.
In addition to having the cross-over system set up for quick deployment as suggested by others, there also needs to be a better system in place to remove crashed vehicles from the crash site more quickly. The length of time taken to remove the vehicles in this case is hard to understand.
The exit at Mt Colah needs to be closed off (emergencies excepted) when there are extensive delays. Drivers hoping to escape the traffic get off the freeway and proceed to totally clog the streets leading back to the old highway. With this exit closed off, all traffic lights on the old highway could be switched off (or flashing amber) giving the traffic on that road a better chance of a run north.
I agree that the overhead signs are not well used. I also noted the sign at the F3 entrance said traffic delays – Jolls bridge or similar. It should tell you the freeway is stopped and hopelessly banked back so people don’t get stuck unwittingly.
It took me 2 hours to get from Normanhurst to Mt Colah. I’d hate being a central Coast person on such days but we can’t even get home. Another road is becomming critical.
I can say little except, this is a classic case of incompetence.
Heads should roll both in the RTA & the Government & I dont mean the heads of some poor little gophers down the line!!!
Senior RTA personnel & The Minister should go , it was embarrasing that such a mess was allowed to occur in our “lucky country”
Plain and simple, you don’t need a degree in statistics or traffic management to understand that after 12pm all arteries out of the city need to be clear and that a plan should of been put in place imeduately after the crash regardless of the estimated clearance time of an accident. Most of the guys that are in control of these decision would have a degree and be paid pretty well but I still don’t understand…you can train a monkey to identify nothbound F3 approaching peakhour, get traffic moving, it’s not that hard!
Accidents will happen. And yes drivers should be more careful. This is not going to give us safer roads however. Better designed roads, alternative routes, etc.. are required. This will come at a cost, where shall we put the priorities? The F3 is not the only problem. All the Sydney tunnel system is inadequate. Move all air-cargo to Newcastle airport and sea-cargo to Port Waratah. It will be easier to implement the required infrastructure in those areas, reducing the Sydney congestions and dangers at least for a while.
I have been travelling up & down for 23 years lucky I wasn’t caught up in it as I stay in Sydney for a week & I can pick the time when I travel I have read all the coments there very good with some great ideas.Yes I have seen it all on the F3 the trucks should be banned from the F3 during the day they are really over the top the way alot of them drive even better send it by rail anyhow I have had enough of it all & moving away from the area.Good luck to luck to all the commuters.
We are regular users of the F3 and Pacific Highway, living on the lower mid-north coast. Accidents are going to happen as traffic volume increases. Every time we use the highway we encounter dangerous drivers, mainly people who exceed the speed limit, overtake and cut in, tailgate, etc. P-platers, truck drivers, drivers of all kinds of vehicles. Most semi-trailer drivers we find professional, and we give them space. Some can be extremely intimidating when they insist on a 110kmph speed in wet weather and approach too close behind before overtaking under those conditions, or in dry weather when they drive in excess of the speed limit.
A Very Fast Train should have already been in existence. A 2 1/2 hour train trip from Newcastle to Sydney – slower on many journeys – makes for an early start and late return for a day trip, although there are times that we do it. More freeways are not the answer. Lets get serious about a train such as this from Sydney – Melbourne via Canberra, and Sydney – Brisbane, and get some of the ever-growing traffic, both passenger and freight, off the roads, and out of the air.
I have long held increasing growing comcern as to the way Australian roads have been developed and wonder how many families are increasingly been torn apart by just one aspect. This aspect is the sharing our roads with massive B-doubles. Many cars are tiny by comparison yet, have suprising performances which attract new drivers as a cheap way of getting outwardley mobile, with little driving experience. A scary thing even for drivers of great experience sharing the road with today,s giants. One thing is for sure that there there may even be a person who read these words who may yet fall foul of this sensless system. A system that perhaps occured merely because the beaucratic mind has done something which has been done just because it felt it needed to be done. And this to fullfill a transport need and not done with forsight and wisdom with the least cost to human life, a thing it certainly is not. Just ask the families of the dead and injured.
i hate cars, they sre stupid.
Well this wont be the most poular reply but hear we go , and i cant be blunter What in gods name is a national park doing slap bang in the middle of a fast growing City concrete and housing stuff the trees bulldoze the lot