While traffic concerns can help form relationships within local communities, by providing talking points for neighbours and being a common ground for greater community connectivity , they can also result in community breakdown. This is more likely to occur when traffic treatments are long standing, and the residents do not understand, or remember the reasons for the original treatment. Traffic engineering has always been about community consultation. The outcomes so far have largely been to install physical treatments. Council officers now are faced with more and more requests to remove treatments as new residents move into old areas. This can result in strong community division as the new residents seek to improve their amenity, but do not have the advantage of the history of the neighbourhood issues. Resolving the competing demands of these groups is a difficult task. This paper will discuss a case example of such an event in Manningham, Victoria, where some residents sought the removal of a road closure, and others wished to retain it. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E212956.
Abstract