[U/C] M2 North-South Motorway

[AG]

There's not much point comparing tunnelling costs with Sydney or Perth as they have totally different geology to Adelaide. Melbourne is the most similar to Adelaide with clay soils prominent in most the urban area.

[rev]

It was the construction federation that claimed it would cost 11 billion to do tunnels. It wasnt "decision makers" ie government making that claim.

If people want to preserve heritage buildings which line the northern parts of the remaining corridor theres no other option but tunnels.
Theres a price to pay.

Or its all bulldozed for a trench, surface motorway or elevated motorway or a combination of all options. The end result will be the wrecking of the areas character and loss of heritage buildings which some people hold dear.

Why are we in this mess? Because no government since the scrapping of MATS ever bothered to make planning for transport infrastructure a priority particularly a north south corridor with links to an east-west corridor or even a proper ring route and a link to the SEF let alone a link to the highways from the north leading into the metropolitan area.

It always just got pushed back or ignored. Most decisions were and are politically motivated. Theres never been an overall master plan and today its pushed back to 2024 before work starts on the last section. Next state election is in 2022, so in the middle of the next government's term before the 2026 election.

This buys the Liberals ass cover, if they lose 2022, Labor will draw up their own plans for it, probably break it down into smaller sections and not all will be underway by 2026. And if we get another change in gov in 2026, more delays.
If Liberals win, they'll find some excuses to get out of doing the whole thing properly just like they have since 2018, so they can delay till 2026 election.

They just keep playing politics with it when they should have been getting on with it. These people could drag this out well into next decade.

[Listy]

Yesterday afternoon there was a drilling rig set up in the wide median strip on the western side of South Rd at Hindmarsh (ie the bit separating South Road from the Brickworks shopping center). It could be there for core sampling etc.

[rev]

Yesterday afternoon there was a drilling rig set up in the wide median strip on the western side of South Rd at Hindmarsh (ie the bit separating South Road from the Brickworks shopping center). It could be there for core sampling etc.

If it was a truck with a short drill rig on the back then I'd say you're probably right.
A few job sites I've been on in the past they had trucks like that turn up. One driver/operator, they do a few holes and take the samples/dirt away.

[EBG]

5/9/20 work has started on installing interlocking panels for the side walls of the reinforced earth ramp for the over pass bridge on north side of Regency Rd.

[ChillyPhilly]

Yesterday afternoon there was a drilling rig set up in the wide median strip on the western side of South Rd at Hindmarsh (ie the bit separating South Road from the Brickworks shopping center). It could be there for core sampling etc.

I saw this too. A small truck with yellow rig.

[SBD]

Yesterday afternoon there was a drilling rig set up in the wide median strip on the western side of South Rd at Hindmarsh (ie the bit separating South Road from the Brickworks shopping center). It could be there for core sampling etc.

I saw this too. A small truck with yellow rig.

I saw it Saturday with its own little fence around it, not operating, just parked. It looked bigger than the trucks used for soil sampling for house blocks, but nowhere near as big as a water drilling rig or mining geology rig.

[ChillyPhilly]

A position has been released on the 'I Work for SA' State Government job website for 'Director, Communications and Engagement' for the N-S Corridor.

The North-South Corridor (NSC) Delivery Program is a multi-billion dollar project that will complete the final and most complex stages of a 78km free-flowing motorway that is vital to both the future economy and the liveability of Adelaide.

This Program will be the single biggest infrastructure project in South Australia’s history, and it will deliver the final piece of the North-South Corridor. This missing link is the 10.5 kilometre section between the River Torrens and Darlington, which will deliver: Adelaide’s only cross-city motorway and 78 kilometres of non-stop free flowing motorway.

https://iworkfor.sa.gov.au/page.php?pag ... _jbcontent

[dbl96]

It was the construction federation that claimed it would cost 11 billion to do tunnels. It wasnt "decision makers" ie government making that claim.

If people want to preserve heritage buildings which line the northern parts of the remaining corridor theres no other option but tunnels.
Theres a price to pay.

Or its all bulldozed for a trench, surface motorway or elevated motorway or a combination of all options. The end result will be the wrecking of the areas character and loss of heritage buildings which some people hold dear.

Why are we in this mess? Because no government since the scrapping of MATS ever bothered to make planning for transport infrastructure a priority particularly a north south corridor with links to an east-west corridor or even a proper ring route and a link to the SEF let alone a link to the highways from the north leading into the metropolitan area.

It always just got pushed back or ignored. Most decisions were and are politically motivated. Theres never been an overall master plan and today its pushed back to 2024 before work starts on the last section. Next state election is in 2022, so in the middle of the next government's term before the 2026 election.

This buys the Liberals ass cover, if they lose 2022, Labor will draw up their own plans for it, probably break it down into smaller sections and not all will be underway by 2026. And if we get another change in gov in 2026, more delays.
If Liberals win, they'll find some excuses to get out of doing the whole thing properly just like they have since 2018, so they can delay till 2026 election.

They just keep playing politics with it when they should have been getting on with it. These people could drag this out well into next decade.

Its not an either or situation though, with the tunnels. For some reason, the current assumption seems to be that in order to protect a few heritage buildings at intersections, it is necessarily for the whole thing to go into a very expensive bored tunnel. This is not the case. As has been discussed time and time again on this forum, the vast majority of the route can be built either in a trench, at grade or on a viaduct. Short cut-and-cover tunnels (essentially extra-wide bridges) can be built at intersections like the one at Thebarton where there are buildings of heritage value. There is absolutely no need for tunnel boring machines.

See the diagram below. Orange is cut-and-cover, white is surface level roads, red is the above ground motorway.

[TorrensSA]

To save the Tbebarton Theatre you want to destroy the inner west, by demolishing 500 houses and creating a giant trench in the middle of the area. A tunnel is justified for the river to Mile End South area. As by other areas already done you will need to take out houses on both sides and the second row on one side. South Road houses are worth easily $500K, second row $600K+. A 2.5Km tunnel - lets say 2km of housing on each side plus second row on one side equals 6km of house frontage 6000m / 12m = 500 houses at $500K = $250M. The majority of the rest of the 11km section is commercial properties, spending extra on the 2.5km "5031" section is worth it, trench the rest / cut and cover in sections, this could work in Edwardstown. Heading north you enter the tunnel just after James Congdon Drive (Mile End South) and come out at Adam Street (Hindmarsh). TBM are expensive, once it's used on South Road, use it on the city train tunnel.

[Spotto]

TBM are expensive, once it's used on South Road, use it on the city train tunnel.

Impractical, a TBM built for a 2 or 3 lane motorway would be too large for a single track train tunnel. It would be more practical find another use for the motorway TBMs (Cross Road Motorway link to SEF comes to mind) and acquire the Melbourne Metro Tunnel TBMs, which are suitable for train tunnelling, to dig a city rail link similar to Brisbane acquiring the Sydney Metro TBMs.

[ChillyPhilly]

It was the construction federation that claimed it would cost 11 billion to do tunnels. It wasnt "decision makers" ie government making that claim.

If people want to preserve heritage buildings which line the northern parts of the remaining corridor theres no other option but tunnels.
Theres a price to pay.

Or its all bulldozed for a trench, surface motorway or elevated motorway or a combination of all options. The end result will be the wrecking of the areas character and loss of heritage buildings which some people hold dear.

Why are we in this mess? Because no government since the scrapping of MATS ever bothered to make planning for transport infrastructure a priority particularly a north south corridor with links to an east-west corridor or even a proper ring route and a link to the SEF let alone a link to the highways from the north leading into the metropolitan area.

It always just got pushed back or ignored. Most decisions were and are politically motivated. Theres never been an overall master plan and today its pushed back to 2024 before work starts on the last section. Next state election is in 2022, so in the middle of the next government's term before the 2026 election.

This buys the Liberals ass cover, if they lose 2022, Labor will draw up their own plans for it, probably break it down into smaller sections and not all will be underway by 2026. And if we get another change in gov in 2026, more delays.
If Liberals win, they'll find some excuses to get out of doing the whole thing properly just like they have since 2018, so they can delay till 2026 election.

They just keep playing politics with it when they should have been getting on with it. These people could drag this out well into next decade.

Its not an either or situation though, with the tunnels. For some reason, the current assumption seems to be that in order to protect a few heritage buildings at intersections, it is necessarily for the whole thing to go into a very expensive bored tunnel. This is not the case. As has been discussed time and time again on this forum, the vast majority of the route can be built either in a trench, at grade or on a viaduct. Short cut-and-cover tunnels (essentially extra-wide bridges) can be built at intersections like the one at Thebarton where there are buildings of heritage value. There is absolutely no need for tunnel boring machines.

See the diagram below. Orange is cut-and-cover, white is surface level roads, red is the above ground motorway.

Thebarton theatre.jpg

Same as what I came up with. The only error we made was to put a South Road surface road on the west (south of Henley Beach Road). On the eastern side of South Road, there are no heritage properties.

[Listy]

The 'new' South Rd / Grange Rd intersection occupies an area about 85m X 85m. A similar designed intersection at HBR won't quite fit with the existing road alignment if you want to preserve the Thebby & the school opposite, but if you shifted that bit of HBR south by 20-30m it'll fit much more easily. It won't be a big deal if HBR has a little kink in it for 300m or so. Alternatively, as it's not a major intersection (ie not much traffic uses it to actually make a turn relative to the amount of through traffic on both roads), remove it altogether and just have HBR fly right over the top of South Rd - it would improve CBD commute times from the western suburbs & the big interchange at Bradman Rd is only going to be about 500m away anyway for the traffic that does want to turn onto or off the motorway

[Spotto]

The 'new' South Rd / Grange Rd intersection occupies an area about 85m X 85m. A similar designed intersection at HBR won't quite fit with the existing road alignment if you want to preserve the Thebby & the school opposite, but if you shifted that bit of HBR south by 20-30m it'll fit much more easily. It won't be a big deal if HBR has a little kink in it for 300m or so. Alternatively, as it's not a major intersection (ie not much traffic uses it to actually make a turn relative to the amount of through traffic on both roads), remove it altogether and just have HBR fly right over the top of South Rd - it would improve CBD commute times from the western suburbs & the big interchange at Bradman Rd is only going to be about 500m away anyway for the traffic that does want to turn onto or off the motorway

Not sure about removing the intersection entirely, but there definitely doesn't need to be motorway access at HBR. Barely 60 seconds down the road, Don Bradman and James Congdon will likely be the site of a combined interchange catering for City and Airport with northbound entry/southbound exit just north of SDBD and southbound entry/northbound exit just south of JCD which will cater for traffic movements across both intersections.

Would also aid the proposal to turn Currie and Grenfell Streets into a transit mall (whether it happens or not), encouraging more city traffic to use Grote and Wakefield instead of being funnelled onto Currie and Grenfell via HBR.

[bits]

500 houses at $500K = $250M.

Exactly $250m is dirt cheap compared to tunnelling that distance.
Much cheaper and easier to just buy the land.

Not only will it be cheaper and less risky upfront it will much cheaper and less risky for the life of the road, aka forever.