[U/C] M2 North-South Motorway

[rhino]

Perhaps we could have a name to commemorate the contribution of famous South Australians e.g. Oliphant, Bragg etc.

Good idea. These guys were both scientists, but Robert Richard Torrens gave the world the Torrens Title system, still recognised as the best system in the world for recognising and delineating ownership of land, and now used all over the world (not everywhere, but all over - you know what I mean). The motorway will not be called the Torrens Motorway because his name is all over the state already, I just find it interesting that he's overlooked so much as a South Aussie who really gave something to the world.

[Norman]

Or, alternatively, instead of naming it after a person or place or group, how about we just call it the M2?
I assume it's going to be the M2 for the entire length in the metro area, just rename the NEXY from M20 to M2.
The South Eastern Freeway is the M1..

AFAIK the Northern Expressway is already the M2.

What about these:
-Playford Expressway
-Dunstan Expressway
-Oliphant Expressway

Or, have the northern section above Sir Donald Bradman Drive as the Playford Expressway, and the southern part the Fleurieu Expressway.

[SBD]

I think Southern Expressway should be named Onkaparinga Expressway. The Northern Connector should just be Sturt Highway

Freeways, expressways and highways are different standards. (why they have introduced motorway into the mix, I'm not sure). By all means, call the Northern connector Sturt Expressway...but not Sturt highway.

Are you sure the "type" word of the various roads has defined standards? The Northern Expressway and South Eastern Freeway look pretty similar standards to me.

The Sturt Highway between Gawler and Nuriootpa has more in common with Port Wakefield Road than it has with the Stott Highway (Angaston to Loxton) or Thiele Highway (Gawler to Morgan).

[rhino]

The Sturt Highway between Gawler and Nuriootpa has more in common with Port Wakefield Road than it has with the Stott Highway (Angaston to Loxton) or Thiele Highway (Gawler to Morgan).

The Sturt Highway between Gawler and Nuriootpa, and Port Wakefield Road, are both very similar to the Hume Freeway in northeast Victoria, in that they have uncontrolled access at minor roads that don't require a high-speed entry or exit

[crawf]

AFAIK the Northern Expressway is already the M2.

What about these:
-Playford Expressway
-Dunstan Expressway
-Oliphant Expressway

Or, have the northern section above Sir Donald Bradman Drive as the Playford Expressway, and the southern part the Fleurieu Expressway.

Wasn't there a proposal months ago to rename the Southern Expressway to the Fleurieu Expressway?

Interesting (subjectively) snippet:

South Road of today was until the 1970s known by a string of names: Shillabeer Avenue (north of Torrens Road), Government Road (between Torrens and Port Roads), John Street (Port to Grange Roads), Taylors Road (between Grange and Henley Beach Roads), Fisher Terrace (Henley Beach Road to Anzac Highway), and South Road from Anzac Highway southwards.

Interesting. I never knew this.

[SBD]

Interesting (subjectively) snippet:

South Road of today was until the 1970s known by a string of names: Shillabeer Avenue (north of Torrens Road), Government Road (between Torrens and Port Roads), John Street (Port to Grange Roads), Taylors Road (between Grange and Henley Beach Roads), Fisher Terrace (Henley Beach Road to Anzac Highway), and South Road from Anzac Highway southwards.

I thought it was consolidated earlier than that, I used to go into town from Henley on the bus as a kid in the late 1960s and it was South Road then. I seem to have lost my old man's 1968 Fullers Street Directory, unfortunately. When my Dad bought a car in '69 and we started driving around, I remember South Road ending at a stop sign at Regency Road, with fields beyond. Regency Road had no kerb on the northern side, and looked like a country road on that stretch.

The 1940 street directory has the join between Fisher Terrace and South Road at the Hilton/Rowland Road intersection (now Sir Donald Bradman Drive). It shows the tram line left the city on Glover Road/Henley Beach Road, with a branch turning off Henley Beach Road onto fisher Terrace, then west on Rowland and Cowandilla Roads (now SDBD) and south on Marion Road to a terminus at West Beach Road (now Richmond Road I think).

There is not really a discernible main road between Days Road and Churchill Road on the 1940 map north of Torrens Road. Shillabeer Avenue runs from Lamont Street to Islington Road (now Regency Road)

[Mr Smith]

Or, alternatively, instead of naming it after a person or place or group, how about we just call it the M2?
I assume it's going to be the M2 for the entire length in the metro area, just rename the NEXY from M20 to M2.
The South Eastern Freeway is the M1..

AFAIK the Northern Expressway is already the M2.

What about these:
-Playford Expressway
-Dunstan Expressway
-Oliphant Expressway

Or, have the northern section above Sir Donald Bradman Drive as the Playford Expressway, and the southern part the Fleurieu Expressway.

Dashing Donnie D would turn in his grave if you named an expressway after him. He put the kibosh on the MATS plan remember.

[Mr Smith]

In view of the SA obsession with football, how about the Power expressway north of the city and the Crows expressway to the south

[rhino]

Dashing Donnie D would turn in his grave if you named an expressway after him. He put the kibosh on the MATS plan remember.

No, that was David Tonkin.

Dunstan shelved it because at the time it was not wanted, needed, nor affordable. Tonkin killed it and sold off the land.

[Mr Smith]

Dashing Donnie D would turn in his grave if you named an expressway after him. He put the kibosh on the MATS plan remember.

No, that was David Tonkin.

Dunstan shelved it because at the time it was not wanted, needed, nor affordable. Tonkin killed it and sold off the land.

Actually I think this has come up before and it goes something like this:

Dunstan didn't want 'LA style' freeway so didn't proceed, however retained the aquired land corridors
Tonkin sold some of the land deemed surplus along some of these corridors (width essentially), but retained the corridors so a future government would still retain the option of proceeding
John 'State Bank' Bannon, as well as giving us that architectural masterpiece the Myer centre, was the genius who sold off the critical land corridor reserve between Regency Park and Darlington, that we are essentially replicating with the North-South corridor.

I read somewhere that the total cost of the MATS plan in adjusted $$$$ was less than 1 billion

[Goodsy]

I read somewhere that the total cost of the MATS plan in adjusted $$$$ was less than 1 billion

That's always going to be the case with infrastructure like this. Most of the cost is in acquiring and remediating land

[rhino]

Although Bannon sold off the last of the land, it was not freeway land. By that time, Tonkin's government had sold off so much land that only a narrower road than a freeway was possible. See below.

From https://www.ozroads.com.au/SA/freeways.htm :

In Early 1980 the Tonkin Government won office and the Minister for Transport, Michael Wilson, announced a commitment by his Government to sell off much of the land acquired for possible transport corridors. Shortly afterwards he announced the abandonment of the idea of a connector between Hindmarsh and North Adelaide and the sale of land in the Hindmarsh area.

Much debate continued about the other proposed freeways in MATS, particularly the North-South Freeway. In February 1982 Wilson announced that the corridor would be halved in width and truncated south of Darlington. The idea of a high speed freeway was abandoned, although a corridor from Dry Creek to Darlington was to remain as a concept pending consideration of a redesigned, narrower road. In the immediate term, extra traffic was to be accommodated by the widening of South Road between Torrens Road and Daws Road.

Then, in June 1983, the North-South Corridor was completely abandoned - the disposal of land essential to the project making it impossible to revive should the need emerge. The abandonment of this freeway, the last surviving element of MATS, had a tremendous impact on the Highways Department as it was the first time in their history that the Government had rejected the strong recommendations of the Commissioner. It undermined the key element of what had been the Department's plans for Adelaide's future transport needs and struck at the Department's proud record of independence from politics. In a morbid coincidence Commissioner for Highways, Keith Johinke, suffered a heart attack and stroke two days later, causing his abrupt retirement.

[Hooligan]

Or, alternatively, instead of naming it after a person or place or group, how about we just call it the M2?
I assume it's going to be the M2 for the entire length in the metro area, just rename the NEXY from M20 to M2.
The South Eastern Freeway is the M1..

AFAIK the Northern Expressway is already the M2.

What about these:
-Playford Expressway
-Dunstan Expressway
-Oliphant Expressway

Or, have the northern section above Sir Donald Bradman Drive as the Playford Expressway, and the southern part the Fleurieu Expressway.

The Northern Expressway has already been named after someone. It is known as the Max Fatchen Northern Expressway.

[Kasey771]

Dashing Donnie D would turn in his grave if you named an expressway after him. He put the kibosh on the MATS plan remember.

No, that was David Tonkin.

Dunstan shelved it because at the time it was not wanted, needed, nor affordable. Tonkin killed it and sold off the land.

given what we now know about Induced demand and the social cost of dividing neighbourhoods with freeways. I think we dodged a bullet by rejecting MATS. Cities should not be designed exclusively to promote or service cars and their drivers, not if they wish to be attractive places to live and work.

[ml69]

Dashing Donnie D would turn in his grave if you named an expressway after him. He put the kibosh on the MATS plan remember.

No, that was David Tonkin.

Dunstan shelved it because at the time it was not wanted, needed, nor affordable. Tonkin killed it and sold off the land.

given what we now know about Induced demand and the social cost of dividing neighbourhoods with freeways. I think we dodged a bullet by rejecting MATS. Cities should not be designed exclusively to promote or service cars and their drivers, not if they wish to be attractive places to live and work.

In hindsight, everything is easier! Yes rejecting the complete MATS concept was a good idea, but selling off the land reservation for the north-south freeway was not. Ultimately, this was the only component of MATS that we really needed.

Now we're trying to create a north-south link at an astronomical cost with enormous disruption on South Rd. The alternative (had the land not been sold off) would have been to leave South Rd as it currently is, with the land reservation becoming the north-south motorway link.

Incidentally, does anyone have a map of where the MATS north-south corridor was planned to run, and therefore the route of the land which was sold off?