[COM] South Road Superway | $842m | 3km

[Patrick_27]

Yes.

Given Shuz's track record, I'd say he's informed on something. Am I right, or am I right?

[rev]

Yes.

Given Shuz's track record, I'd say he's informed on something. Am I right, or am I right?

He's taking a guess. We always see infrastructure announcements during election years.

[drsmith]

I'm a little skeptical about this opening in December. Southbound opening in September I can believe, but northbound, they haven't even started the new connection to Salisbury Highway at the Northern end, and going along the PRExy, it looks quite clear that the end of the superway won't link into the current bridge.

Having viewed the project (southbound) this week, there does seem to be a worrying lack of viaduct segments on the northbound carriageway south of the Salisbury Highway interchange in relation to a December finish.

When complete, the Superway will link into the current bridge over Salisbury Highway, but only as a temporary arrangement prior to the construction of the Northern Connector. The bridge abutment on the Superway has been designed to connect with the future Northern Connector Bridge. When that is constructed, the existing bridge will be demolished.

I also note that the existing connection north bound from South Road onto the Salisbury Highway over the current bridge has indeed been closed.

Is several years short enough to be 'temporary'?

I am assuming that the northern end of the completed Superway will connect to the existing South Road/Salisbury Highway interchange, yes?

Prior to the construction of the Northern Connector, there's nowhere else for the northbound carriageway to go.

The connection is obviously temporary in the context the Northern Connector. How temporary that is in relation to time obviously depends on the construction schedule of the Northern Connector itself.

As for any possible announcements during the federal election campaign, what can we speculate on ?

1) South Road at Darlington: Former pet project of SA Labor, now favoured by the Federal Opposition.
2) South Road upgrade in the vicinity of Port Road: Current favoured project of state and federal Labor.
3) Gepps Cross grade separation: Who remembers that ?, it seems to have long since sunk without a trace.
4) Northern Connector: Still unfunded.
5) Port Wakefield Bypass: A Howard government promise in the 2007 federal election that's gone very quiet since.

1 and 2 have already been the subject of political announcements all be it by opposing parties. Of the rest, one would imagine that the Northern Connector would be the front runner if something was to be announced.

[Patrick_27]

If I remember reading correctly; the Northern Connector was timeline'd to begin construction from 2016. So, granted Labor stay in power we'll hopefully see that date stuck to. However, Liberal's strongly support road infrastructure especially in the interests of freight; so we may see it under a Liberal State or Federal government also, but whether they stick to the existing proposal or not would be interesting to see.

If Labor were smart, they'd go all-out and allocate funding to the Darlington section (as well as the Torrens to Torrens) to counter Liberal's promise.

[Dog]

The politically smart thing to do would be to commute to building the whole thing north to south over the next 10 - 15 years, basically just continuing to its complete. Has to be build one day, might as well get started.

[rogue]

So it begins...

Federal Government push to make $1.1bn Northern Connector South Australia's first toll road

Duane Schultz
The Advertiser
August 13, 201311:14PM

THE Federal Government is pushing for the option of the planned $1.1 billion Northern Connector to become South Australia's first toll road.

It puts the State Government, which is vehemently against the idea of toll roads, on a collision course with Federal Labor, which should it win the election would need to fund the bulk of the project.

The Northern Connector would link the South Rd Superway with the Port River Expressway and the Northern Expressway to create a north-south freight route.

The National Infrastructure Plan June 2013, which lists planned major projects across Australia, has asked the State Government to investigate a toll option for the Northern Connector.

A spokesman for State Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis and the State Government was committed to the project but did not want toll roads.

Former Premier Mike Rann made a pledge after the 2006 state election to ban toll roads under Labor, mainly because traffic volumes were deemed insufficient at the time.

SA Road Transport Association chief executive Steve Shearer said the Northern Connector, originally planned to be constructed from 2016, was unlikely to start before the $812 million South Rd Superway was completed in 2018.

He said the trucking industry was a long-time supporter of charging trucks to use new roads if it helped kickstart projects. But tolls would need to be offset by savings on fuel and wages.

"We support toll roads on the proviso the level of the toll is set so it does not hurt the industry, otherwise we are happy to stick with roads we have," Mr Shearer said.

A spokesman for Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese's said any government funding was guided by the business cases for each project.

"The SA Government needs to continue to work with Infrastructure Australia to flesh out the business case for this project," the spokesman said.

The road would largely be built in the federal seat of Port Adelaide.

Federal Labor MP for Port Adelaide Mark Butler said considering toll roads was an issue for the State Government.

"The Northern Connector has been identified as a threshold project by Infrastructure Australia, which acknowledges that there is still some work to be done before it is ready to proceed," Mr Butler said.

"The Federal Labor Government will determine future infrastructure priorities based on their merit."

Liberal candidate for Port Adelaide Nigel McKenna did not return calls.

Salisbury deputy mayor Chad Buchanan said the Northern Connector was vital to securing the area's future and would help bring forward plans to build houses on the Cheetham salt pans west of Port Wakefield Rd.

"It's crucial for economic development - linking the north with the south," Cr Buchanan said.

However, Cr Buchanan said the Northern Connector should not be a toll road as it would put a financial burden on northern drivers.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messenger ... 6696649318

[Hooligan]

This would be the most pointless toll road in history if this is to be believed.

[Archer]

So it begins...

...
SA Road Transport Association chief executive Steve Shearer said the Northern Connector, originally planned to be constructed from 2016, was unlikely to start before the $812 million South Rd Superway was completed in 2018.
...

Did I miss something? What part of the South Road Superway isn't going to be finished until sometime in 2018? That's another 4 years, surely there's something wrong here?

[kingy]

So it begins...

...
SA Road Transport Association chief executive Steve Shearer said the Northern Connector, originally planned to be constructed from 2016, was unlikely to start before the $812 million South Rd Superway was completed in 2018.
...

Did I miss something? What part of the South Road Superway isn't going to be finished until sometime in 2018? That's another 4 years, surely there's something wrong here?

I'm assuming they were referring to the South Road Upgrade project. It is The Advertiser after all, no surprises that they could have gotten it wrong.

[Norman]

I think it was just bad wording, the Superway will be done in the next few months and the Torrens to Torrens section will be done by 2017, assuming it goes ahead.

Sent from my RM-821_im_mea3_306 using Tapatalk

[neoballmon]

I came across the same article onthe Herald Sun through a Google alert and it also says 2018.

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/national ... 6696649318

[kingy]

I came across the same article onthe Herald Sun through a Google alert and it also says 2018.

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/national ... 6696649318

All of the News Limited papers share the same articles, it doesn't mean they have verified it in any way.

[drsmith]

So, a delay of two years for the Northern connector and then only as a toll road and only potentially as an election promise. The toll road aspect raises the question of what would be done to PWR to discourage through traffic from using it to avoid the toll. One option would not be to toll the Northern Connector directly, but to toll PWR and the Northern Expressway to the adjacent north of the Connector's northern interchange. Either that or butcher PWR's through traffic capacity and toll the Connector directly.

It will be interesting to see what the Coalition offer. Having offered funding for the Darlington section of South Road, it's hard to be hopeful. The Northern Connector is looking more and more like WA's Roe Highway stage 8.

[claybro]

It just makes me wonder why the state Labor government is so anti toll roads. And surely with some commitment to tolls we can put a proposal to the Federal government be it Labor or Liberal, for both the Northern Connector and Darlington to commence at the same time once the Torrens section is complete.

[drsmith]

It just makes me wonder why the state Labor government is so anti toll roads. And surely with some commitment to tolls we can put a proposal to the Federal government be it Labor or Liberal, for both the Northern Connector and Darlington to commence at the same time once the Torrens section is complete.

The current Liberal government over here in the west isn't too keen on toll roads over here either. It's less of an issue here though than SA while the resources dollars keep flowing in.

Perth has some big road projects in the pipeline, all funded from the public purse of which the recently commenced $1bn Gateway WA project around Perth Airport as the flagship project. One though that gets constantly delayed is Roe stage 8 mentioned above. Perhaps it's that that will ultimately be Perth's first toll road.