Council is aware of community concern in Cooma over the impact of road closures on Vale and Commissioner Streets as we construct wombat crossings where existing zebra crossings are located. A wombat crossing is the name given to a pedestrian (zebra) crossing that is placed on a flat top road hump – which is what is being installed. This is a significant road safety improvement for the school children and other pedestrians of Cooma.
We apologise for the sudden nature of the temporary road closure while this important work is undertaken. The timing was unavoidable as Council has a funding deadline of the end of October to complete the works and has been trying to secure contractors to undertake the work for 6 months, unsuccessfully. Only very recently were we able to secure a Canberra based contractor who has confirmed their timeline this week, to undertake the works, with road closures yesterday afternoon.
We have had discussions with Snowliner Coaches and Cooma Coaches today and as a result will be modifying the road closure on Monday morning to better accommodate school bus movements.
While construction work was planned to commence on Monday, favourable weather conditions have allowed construction to commence today. When these works are completed, we will have much safer pedestrian crossings in place.
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