The Malbon Street crossing near Bungendore Primary School in mid-2025. Photo: Michael Kruger.
Funding has been confirmed for upgrades to two Bungendore roads, including an “incredibly dangerous” road crossing.
Bungendore Primary School sits near both the Kings Highway (known as Malbon Street in the town) and Majura Street.
Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council (QPRC) recently gave its approval for upgrades to road crossings near the school.
For former Bungendore parent Michael Kruger, crossing the roads near the school always came with worry for his kids.
“It was an incredibly dangerous location to cross with your children, even more dangerous with unsupervised children … [I] don’t think parents could expect their kids to reasonably cross without adults, especially primary-aged children.”
He has spent years calling for expanded safety measures near the school, even launching a 2024 petition for a dedicated pedestrian crossing across Malbon Street that gathered more than 800 signatures.
Michael believes it would have made a big difference to his kids’ safety by better managing traffic flow in the streets around the school.
“It would have meant that I would have had increased confidence that my kids would have been able to ride to school unsupervised and, as my children got older, they could walk to school and have a safe place where they could cross.
“I would have felt confident that – if it were controlled by lights and it was [a dedicated] pedestrian crossing – that motorists would respect that.”
Designs show that extra signage will be installed near the crossing on Malbon Street, along with a children crossing flag.
Students using that thoroughfare to cross the road will also be guided by a crossing supervisor (whose position is set to be moved to this site).
During discussion, Mayor Kenrick Winchester said it would be manned during school hours but unmanned 95 per cent of the time.
A new concrete wombat crossing for Majara Street is also planned as a replacement for the existing pedestrian crossing.
Its installation is expected to feature changes to drainage and footpath height at the crossing.
Council documents state the works, which come with a $305,000 price tag, are expected to be finished by the end of this year.
QPRC general manager Rebecca Ryan told councillors that the project cost was coming from a compensation settlement from the NSW Education Department.
It’s off the back of a compulsory acquisition of council land at the Majara and Gibraltar streets precinct, as part of the government’s plan to build a school at the site.
They later backed down and moved it to a four-hectare site on Birchfield Drive, with councillors approving a Deed of Settlement to resolve outstanding property concerns in early 2025.
Ms Ryan said approval of the funding arrangement meant that QPRC could allocate part of that money to this project, with about $627,000 of the settlement identified as savings.
“We wouldn’t be returning those funds to the government,” she said of the approach.
“We would be using that for an NSW Government project. We facilitated that process.”
