[U/C] M2 North-South Motorway

[OlympusAnt]

I went down to the Darlington area yesterday and it looks like a desert wasteland without all those trees there

Hopefully they used the wood from them for something, not just mulch.

[Torrens_5022]

3km? It's about 1km -maybe 1.5km - Underpass under Pym Street, no off ramps etc - Bakewell Underpass coast $41m - surely this would cost less, Regency road would have on and off ramps - Gallipoli underpass cost $118m.
Road is not wide enough so houses will need to be acquired

[SouthAussie94]

I seem to recall the $500-600 million figure being floated previously (quite possibly on this forum) to complete this section. This was before the Torrens Rd extension was announced so presumably this would reduce the cost somewhat..

[ChillyPhilly]

An even better option would be to drop another $100-200m and just connect the Superway to T2T. There would have to be efficiencies. Save money in the long term.

You can't just 'do it'. The government would have to engage with the community and all stakeholders, develop plans, specifications and concepts, tender the project and so on.

Plus, where's the extra money to.do.it going to come from?

[drsmith]

An even better option would be to drop another $100-200m and just connect the Superway to T2T. There would have to be efficiencies. Save money in the long term.

You can't just 'do it'. The government would have to engage with the community and all stakeholders, develop plans, specifications and concepts, tender the project and so on.

Plus, where's the extra money to.do.it going to come from?

The above were advanced enough for the recently announced project extension. As for tendering, was the recent extension to T2T put out to tender or simply awarded to the current construction consortium as a variation ?

There are typically cost savings to be had when separate project elements are bundled together into a single package and these can be significant. The following grade separation project in Perth from a few years was done in conjunction with another an is an illustration of the savings that can be achieved.

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/Documen ... 319235.PDF

In that case, $8m or over 20% was shaved off the cost of the second grade separation and these were physically separate projects.

A possible source of funding could be from the Northern Connector if there's spare $$ left over from its budget after that's signed given the broad competitive infrastructure construction environment.

I think in the case of getting T2T to the Superway that it's unlikely though as if the Northern Connect contract is to be signed in Jan, it doesn't make a lot of sense to announce an extension to T2T only to revise that again a month or two later. In saying that though, it's a lot better than announcing something negative such as a delay in a project.

[claybro]

Have to agree Dr Smith, that the announcement of the small extension is far better outcome of any announcement of delay or cost over-run. Having spent most of my life in adelaide though, I have to say it is ad hoc approach to infrastructure that drives most adelaideans to frustration, specially when we travel to other capitals such as Perth to see not only what is being built, but to know it is generally the fruition of 50 odd years of dedicated planning, both physical and financial.

[drsmith]

Also on Matters Perth, there's some federal infrastructure coin that looks like it will be laying idle for a while after the WA EPA bungled their environmental approval for the Roe Highway extension ( Roe 8 ) component of Perth Freight Link rendering that not quiet shovel ready. That's perhaps a longer shot but wiley old Jay could ask.

[Goodsy]

An even better option would be to drop another $100-200m and just connect the Superway to T2T. There would have to be efficiencies. Save money in the long term.

You can't just 'do it'. The government would have to engage with the community and all stakeholders, develop plans, specifications and concepts, tender the project and so on.

Plus, where's the extra money to.do.it going to come from?

The above were advanced enough for the recently announced project extension. As for tendering, was the recent extension to T2T put out to tender or simply awarded to the current construction consortium as a variation ?

There are typically cost savings to be had when separate project elements are bundled together into a single package and these can be significant. The following grade separation project in Perth from a few years was done in conjunction with another an is an illustration of the savings that can be achieved.

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/Documen ... 319235.PDF

In that case, $8m or over 20% was shaved off the cost of the second grade separation and these were physically separate projects.

A possible source of funding could be from the Northern Connector if there's spare $$ left over from its budget after that's signed given the broad competitive infrastructure construction environment.

I think in the case of getting T2T to the Superway that it's unlikely though as if the Northern Connect contract is to be signed in Jan, it doesn't make a lot of sense to announce an extension to T2T only to revise that again a month or two later. In saying that though, it's a lot better than announcing something negative such as a delay in a project.

It will be funded by the federal government as a sweetener for losing the submarine contract. I would bet my house on it

[drsmith]

There were recent media reports that with section 2 of Perth Freight Link, the federal government was prepared to top up savings from other WA road projects (~$140m) to bridge most of the gap for a more expensive funnel option (~$260m costlier than the presently funded option) leaving the state government to contribute an additional $25m for that tunnel option to be fully funded.

It's difficult to see how, politically at least, the submarine contract (or parts thereof) and road project funding could be directly related but it's possible the federal government could top up T2T funding for the above mentioned extension with the expectation the state would do the same, at least to some small extent.

[mawsonguy]

I am not sure of the cost/benefit ratio in extending T2T up to the superway. This is the widest section of South Rd north of the old Mitsubishi plant. It has very little retail and most of what there is has off street parking. So few cars parked on the road. Days Rd to the West and good side street access to Regency road and Torrens road to the East mean that there is very little traffic joining South Road from the side streets. The result is a section of South Road that moves quite freely. The only real hold up is Regency Road so a bridge over that might be justified.

[drsmith]

The tie-in to the Superway for works approaching from the south I imagine would be around Tikalara street as that's where the 6-lane expressway standard road begins.

An 6-lane underpass at Regency Road I imagine could be done for under $100m. Land acquisition for that may be limited to the southwest quadrant as in the northwest quadrant, there's space west of the existing South Road (which with the exception of a few small car parks) is undeveloped.

What it would then cost to then get to the existing proposed trench entry point south of Pym Street would depend on what was done. If Pym was severed (the other streets between Regency Road and Torrens road being severed is a given), the 6-lane expressway could return to grade before and easy tie-in with the presently proposed trench entry point. This option would be suited to both a current and later separate build as the tie-ins at both ends would be relatively simple.

The other alternative would be a continuous trench from under Regency Road to tie in with the proposed trench north of Pym thus allowing Pym itself to cross grade separated. It's an interesting question as how much more expensive this would be than the above. Cost synergies as part of a continuous build within T2T would be greater for this option than the above due to the trench tie-in at the southern end and you have to trench under Regency Road in any case leaving only a relatively short distance in between.

As for BCR, that may not be a major issue if I again use the Perth Freight Link for comparison. The BCR for that overall was assessed as 2.8 by the project proponent. While BCR's have not been made publically available for each of the two components for that project (just overall), there were some early figures floating around that enabled a crude BCR calculation for each of the two components. To cut a long story short, it worked out from the figures publically available that the BCR for the additional cost of the section 2 tunnel option above was around 1.0. In other words, the BCR hurdle may not need to be particularly high for additional funding if there are other factors at play.

I notice there's now also a map of the T2T extension to Pym Street.

http://infrastructure.sa.gov.au/__data/ ... PROVED.pdf

[Shahkar]

[SouthAussie94]

My gut feeling is that we could end up with a similar "surprise" for the intersection of South and Ayliffes Road. The concept design has been quite ambiguous regarding this intersection and dropping out of the competitive tender process we could see savings sufficient for the design to incorporate that intersection too.

Muzzamo called it!

$620m Darlington upgrade set to be extended by 1km to Flinders University and medical centre

THE Darlington upgrade project is set to be extended by a kilometre north of Tonsley Boulevard to Flinders Uni and medical centre, under a proposal announced today.

The tender for the $620 million project also has been awarded to Gateway South, a joint venture between Fulton Hogan and Laing O’Rourke, the State and Federal governments announced in a joint statement.

Under the proposal, the existing Tonsley rail line would be extended to the Flinders University and Flinders Medical Centre and complement work already being undertaken between Tonsley and the Flinders precinct.

The revised scope of the Darlington project involves reconfiguring about 3.3km of South Road, from the Southern Expressway to north of Tonsley Boulevard, into an expressway-standard road, Federal Member for Boothby Andrew Southcott said

“It will include a lowered non-stop motorway that passes underneath Flinders Drive, Sturt Road, Mimosa Terrace/Sutton Road, Ayliffes Road and Tonsley Boulevard,” Dr Southcott said.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... 8bcfc2cfcb

[phenom]

Nice resolution of the Ayliffe's Road / South Road intersection - probably more elaborate than I was expecting.

[Wayno]

My gut feeling is that we could end up with a similar "surprise" for the intersection of South and Ayliffes Road. The concept design has been quite ambiguous regarding this intersection and dropping out of the competitive tender process we could see savings sufficient for the design to incorporate that intersection too.

Please change your profile name to Nostradamus.