How depressing.. Progress..

[The_bluester]

Well, according to our PM nothing signifies progress like new roads.

I live west of Kilmore in Victoria. Kilmore has been studied for a bypass for a long time, a lot of people think otherwise but I think that the main street is damn deadly with constant traffic.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, despite it being identified by Viroads as one of the most expensive and also the least likely to be effective bypass options for the town, under a very concerted and very loud campaign by a well known local (Who, shock horror would have lost part of his property to the other options, but I am sure that had no bearing on his push) the state government has arbitrarily decided to chop off discussion and bypass Kilmore with the "Western" option.

Too bad it has been identified as the longest option, the least likely to remove traffic from town and introducing greater risk in accessing a local primary school. The critical issue for me is that on this option, a large new roundabout will be built at the intersection of the Kilmore-Lancefield road and the Northern Highway, all us poor buggers to the west of it might as well do our shopping in Lancefield on long weekends as we will face a never ending stream of traffic to give way to at the intersection to try to access Kilmore, Ditto for getting out of town at the other end of busy weekends.

Worst of all to me and the reason to post it up here, given Vicroads penchant for installing a million watts of lighting at roundabouts where 100KW would do, a potential goodbye to dark skies to my east! I guess I had better orient my planned ROR observatory with the highest wall to the currently mostly dark and very visible east.

Sigh.

[ZeroID]

Bugga .. !

[The_bluester]

And not a whole lot to be done about it now except make as much noise as possible to try to make them get the design right. And keep lighting to a minimum. The "Drivethrough" animation Vicroads made does not fill you with hope, showing about 20 lights leading up to and in the planned roundabouts.

We knew we were in strife just after the election when one of our agitators about the problems with the now selected route met with our new local member who said 'But Everyone Wants It In The West" and when pressed on it the source for that information was revealed to be "Oh, I met with Mr B.... (Who stood to loose a chunk of his property on any of the other routes) and he told me everyone wants it in the west"

I like where we live or it would be simpler just to move. The stupid thing is that the now selected option, I would have a substantially quicker and easier trip to and from work every day, and I still hate the idea.

[Renato1]

All I can suggest is to write to them and the Council and request shielded lighting in accordance with the Australian Standard Guidelines (which I know exist, though few comply with them). You'll only get poo-pooing if you mention light pollution, but rather go for aesthetics and claim it'll make the area look cheap looking with regular street lights.
Regards,
Renato

[The_bluester]

Not even council in this case as it will be a Vicroads road intersecting a Vicroads road.

It is quite depressing, the only reason a western option exists was as a planning study to placate the noisemaker. Vicroads identified at the time that it was the longest, most expensive and least likely to be effective option that was on the table, but apparently "Everyone" wanted it out here.

Hopefully the impact will not be too great and I can just re orient my planned obs (And maybe relocate it somewhat, through that would involve a lot more trench for power and network) to take best advantage of the least light polluted parts of the sky.

[Greenswale]

Establish yourself as an Observatory, then you should have serious push to do something about the lighting.

I don't have detail, but it is something that worked in the township of Snake Valley.

[barx1963]

And there is info here http://asa.astronomy.org.au/observatories.html on getting registered as an observatory.

Malcolm

[el_draco]

The thing I don't get is why these morons keep building roads?? Progress? Phewy! Every road that's built will require maintenance and probable upgrade for the foreseeable future which means a greater cost to the public. More infrastructure = more people = more infrastructure... repeat until deck of cards collapses. IDIOTS!