Next phase of historic flashing lights rollout begins
NSW Premier Mike Baird and Roads Minister Duncan Gay today marked the start of Phase Two of the NSW Government’s historic school zone flashing lights rollout that will see every school in NSW with a set of flashing lights by the end of next year.
Mr Baird and Mr Gay visited Truscott Public School in Ryde along with local MP Victor Dominello, to inspect the new style flashing lights being installed.
“The NSW Government is committed to protecting our most vulnerable and inexperienced road users – our children,” Mr Baird said.
“Our historic commitment to flashing lights has seen us this year complete the high risk roll out, with an additional 680 sets of lights installed at school zones across the State.
“Today we are kicking off the second phase of this record rollout, which will include the installation of flashing lights at more than 100 schools per month between now and December next year.
“By the time it is complete, and for the first time in the State’s history, every single school in NSW will have a school zone with a set of flashing lights, which will improve safety for our children and our communities.”
Mr Baird said the NSW Government’s $32 million program will focus on local government areas to ensure it is cost effective. The first LGAs in the rollout are Ryde, Sutherland, Blacktown, City of Sydney, Willoughby, Tweed and Wollongong.
“The first set of the new flashing lights were installed this morning at Truscott Public School in North Ryde and a second set will be installed at Shalvey Public school in Blacktown this afternoon,” Mr Baird said.
“I’m delighted today to release the full rollout schedule on the Centre for Road Safety website so that parents and school communities can see when flashing lights will be delivered to their area."
Mr Gay said the government was on track to deliver its landmark road safety commitment, with the next phase of the rollout schedule to see flashing lights installed concurrently in regional and metropolitan areas.
“Since coming into government we have invested around $14 million to install flashing lights at schools across NSW,” said Mr Gay.
“This second phase worth up to $18.5 million will focus on delivering flashing lights to more than 1,500 of the remaining schools without a set of flashing lights.
“These lights will be fitted at the main entry point for each school and include flashing lanterns and back to base technology.
“Once again I congratulate Peter Olsen for advocating to government to develop these new style of lights.
“This rollout is on top of the numerous new road safety initiatives being introduced by the NSW Government around our school zones.
“Both inside and outside of the classroom we are delivering infrastructure and exciting new education programs to help protect our school communities.
“Students are learning critical road safety skills through our road safety programs including Safety Town, and earlier this year we provided parents with a new guide to school zone safety.
“We’ve also got the popular Speed Adviser App, which uses audio alerts to inform drivers of operating school zones and if they exceed the speed limit with over 62,600 people downloading the App since it was released in February 2014.
“No government in the history of this great state has delivered this level of safety for our school zones and I am proud we have marked the start of this rollout today,” Mr Gay said.
Mr Dominello said he is extremely pleased to see the first rollout of the new style flashing lights in the Ryde electorate.
“The community of Ryde and the surrounding electorates are set to benefit from the new lights, which we know are effective at slowing drivers down.
“This initiative is a win for everyone because it improves the safety of kids around schools and reminds drivers when school zones are operating,” Mr Dominello said.
More information about the flashing lights program is available at www.roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au