10:44a.m. 9th July 2008

| By Damian Bathersby

Hibiscus Retirement Village resident Val Robinson wants chronic traffic gridlock around Chancellor Park shops fixed. Photo: Barry Leddicoat/175896

Val Robinson remembers the first time she laid eyes on Chancellor Park more than a decade ago.

“I said to my husband, ‘I don’t think I could live out here. It’s going to be too quiet’,” she said.

It would be funny if the 75-year-old wasn’t so worried the once semi-rural suburb is being choked as thousands more people move in and the inadequate road network becomes increasingly gridlocked.

She’s been aware of the problem for a while and plans her outings to avoid the suburb’s notorious traffic jams before and after school, but an incident last Friday brought home to her just how bad the situation had become.

With no after-school rush to worry about, Mrs Robinson dropped into Chancellor Marketplace shopping centre for a few supplies about 2.15pm.

The traffic in the carpark and surrounding streets was chaotic but she persevered and eventually found a park.

Twenty minutes later she emerged to “bedlam”, with traffic gridlocked in the carpark and surrounding streets.

“Everybody was starting to tear their hair out,” she said.

“There was no way I was going to get the car out ... but fortunately I don’t live far away so I decided to push my shopping home in the trolley,” she said.

“I thought ‘I’ll give it an hour and come back’, so I had a coffee and walked back with my little dog about a quarter-to-four.

“But there was no chance. Things were even worse by then.”

So it was another walk back home, some dinner and then a “very dark, spooky walk across the park” to retrieve her car at 6.45pm.

She eventually retrieved her car after a “spooky walk across the park” about 6.45pm.

Mrs Robinsons says she worries about the future, particularly when there are hundreds of older people living in the immediate area.

“It was a reality check for me,” she said.

“If this can happen now, what’s going to happen in the future?

“I was shocked and disappointed.

“What if it had been one of the really old ladies who couldn’t get their shopping home and was traumatised by it all?

“I was a little bit traumatised, to be honest, and a little bit angry.”

She will never leave the retirement village she calls home but says unless something is done to fix the problem, she and many other elderly residents will increasingly become prisoners in their own homes at certain times of the day.

“The reality has hit me – what does the future hold for us if this keeps up?” she said.

“It’s normal for a school day.

“It’s almost impossible to get about from eight o’clock to 9.30 in the morning and between two o’clock and four o’clock in the afternoon so I make sure I avoid those times if I can.

“If I am out and about, I either make sure I get home before school finishes or stay with friends on the other side of town until it clears.”

Councillor Christian Dickson said he sympathised with Mrs Robinson and other residents of the area but much of the current situation was caused by millions of dollars worth of roadworks being done to fix the traffic problem.

And he said a lot more was planned.

“I’ve always said that things are going to get worse before they get better,” he said.

“Council knows Sippy Downs has an issue with traffic – it’s the biggest issue in the whole of Division 6 and across the entire Sunshine Coast.

“We are working very hard on it.”

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