Revealed: The cost of Sydney’s most bizarre roundabout
By Cindy Yin
A Sydney council has been revealed to have spent tens of thousands of dollars removing a diamond-shaped roundabout that confused drivers and vanished just days after opening.
The bungled rollout of the roundabout in Sydney’s south-west, nicknamed the Austral “Diamondabout”, has cost Liverpool City Council more than $50,000 to remove and fix, taking the total cost of the project to $139,937.
Aerial footage shows a ute doing a three-point turn to get around the diamond, while two other cars cut directly across the roundabout.Credit: Nine News
Beyond cost blowouts, the design of the roundabout was also plagued with issues – it was originally intended to be oval-shaped, not diamond, according to council papers for Wednesday’s coming council meeting.
The roundabout was never tested before it was opened to the public on June 20, when drivers found the unusual shape confusing and hard to manoeuvre around.
Aerial footage of the intersection of Twenty Eighth Avenue and Fifteenth Avenue shows one driver in a ute doing a three-point turn to navigate the narrow corner of the diamond.
Transport for NSW and the council became aware of issues with the “non-standard” and “non-compliant” roundabout as early as October last year, but the finalised design was approved in February after reviews and amendments between the council’s traffic committee, design team, and Transport for NSW.
The price to remove and remediate the roundabout – $53,914 – was more than half the $92,885 it cost to install it. A week after it was opened, the diamond roundabout was painted over and give-way signs were installed.
It is among five other roundabouts installed in Austral, following a council petition to the state government that called for “urgent upgrades” to the “chronically congested” Fifteenth Avenue.
In January, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Premier Chris Minns committed $1 billion to a major upgrade of Fifteenth Avenue from a rural road to a state-owned transit corridor. The avenue is set to become a key route to the new Western Sydney Airport.
Liverpool City councillor Peter Ristevski has been a vocal opponent of the roundabout, which he said made the council and Sydney an “international laughing stock”.
“That whole episode went viral all around the world, and has damaged the reputation of not only council, but the entire city,” he said. “The brand damage is probably irreversible.”
Ristevski was “flabbergasted” the roundabout created wasteful costs to ratepayers, and said he would raise the issue at Wednesday’s council meeting.
“You have to spend ratepayers’ money like it’s your own,” he said.
A Liverpool Council spokesperson said they “acknowledged the issue that arose”.
“This incident has been fully and transparently investigated, with the findings reported to council at the upcoming August meeting this Wednesday. The lessons learnt are already shaping improvements to how council plans and delivers future traffic projects.”
The roundabout blunder comes as Liverpool faces an inquiry into alleged dysfunction and maladministration.
A weeks-long NSW Office of Local Government inquiry is examining councillors’ conduct, as well as the council’s handling of finances, property purchases, staff employment and $150 million in state government grants.
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