[U/C] M2 North-South Motorway

[[Shuz]]

Why would you extend the tunnel to Croydon when the motorway has already been built through to the River Torrens?

And the right turn onto Anzac Highway has already been addressed - not the best solution IMO, but at least they have provided a solution.

[Nort]

I had hoped this forum would have a considered debate on extending the Northern tunnel to Croydon, the lack of a right turn on ANZAC highway, or the troubles with transparency and information provision to those affected by the future construction works.

But no, what do we have? A tit for tat debate on bike lanes.

I mean a lot of this discussion is what this is about.

As someone who lives in the area (and supports the aim of a non-stop freeway through the city), the current plans will affect me and my family by making a number of walking and cycling journeys through the area longer or more dangerous.

[rev]

I had hoped this forum would have a considered debate on extending the Northern tunnel to Croydon, the lack of a right turn on ANZAC highway, or the troubles with transparency and information provision to those affected by the future construction works.

But no, what do we have? A tit for tat debate on bike lanes.

Where would you like the tunnel to go at Croydon, under the lowered motorway, beside it? Where? What would be the purpose now?

It's too late for the tunnel the tunnel to go to Croydon.

[Llessur2002]

There was a suggestion floated a couple of weeks ago by one of the inner west community groups which involved extending the tunnel further north so that it passes underneath the Torrens and connects up with the existing lowered motorway before Grange Road - the idea being that this would remove the requirement for the northbound overpass at Brickworks and result in a better outcome for local residents as well as allowing the community centre and bowling club to remain. I presume this is what croweater888 was referencing?

I think the response from the project group was that the depth the tunnel would have to be to pass under the Torrens and then return almost to grade to connect with the start of the lowered motorway would require in too great an incline and was not feasible from an engineering perspective.

[SBD]

There was a suggestion floated a couple of weeks ago by one of the inner west community groups which involved extending the tunnel further north so that it passes underneath the Torrens and connects up with the existing lowered motorway before Grange Road - the idea being that this would remove the requirement for the northbound overpass at Brickworks and result in a better outcome for local residents as well as allowing the community centre and bowling club to remain. I presume this is what croweater888 was referencing?

I think the response from the project group was that the depth the tunnel would have to be to pass under the Torrens and then return almost to grade to connect with the start of the lowered motorway would require in too great an incline and was not feasible from an engineering perspective.

I also thought it might be practical to have the tunnel portal open directly into the trench. I am not convinced by the gradient argument as the tunnel only needs to be deep enough for the roof to be no higher than the lowest point in the stream bed.

However, digging through the saturated floodplain silt and close to the stream bed probably requires a significantly different tunnelling technique. There might also be issues if there is a significant amount of "flow" underground which would either be dammed by the tunnel, or cause it to "float", and potentially an issue if the tunnel wall becomes a conduit to feed river water into the trench.

[Nort]

There was a suggestion floated a couple of weeks ago by one of the inner west community groups which involved extending the tunnel further north so that it passes underneath the Torrens and connects up with the existing lowered motorway before Grange Road - the idea being that this would remove the requirement for the northbound overpass at Brickworks and result in a better outcome for local residents as well as allowing the community centre and bowling club to remain. I presume this is what croweater888 was referencing?

I think the response from the project group was that the depth the tunnel would have to be to pass under the Torrens and then return almost to grade to connect with the start of the lowered motorway would require in too great an incline and was not feasible from an engineering perspective.

I also thought it might be practical to have the tunnel portal open directly into the trench. I am not convinced by the gradient argument as the tunnel only needs to be deep enough for the roof to be no higher than the lowest point in the stream bed.

However, digging through the saturated floodplain silt and close to the stream bed probably requires a significantly different tunnelling technique. There might also be issues if there is a significant amount of "flow" underground which would either be dammed by the tunnel, or cause it to "float", and potentially an issue if the tunnel wall becomes a conduit to feed river water into the trench.

If it's not deep then you probably can't tunnel at all without risk of the surface road just caving in on it, and you may as well cut and cover. However if you're doing that it will take a while and so you'd need alternate surface roads in the meantime, which would likely require the demolitions the plan would be trying to avoid.

[SBD]

There was a suggestion floated a couple of weeks ago by one of the inner west community groups which involved extending the tunnel further north so that it passes underneath the Torrens and connects up with the existing lowered motorway before Grange Road - the idea being that this would remove the requirement for the northbound overpass at Brickworks and result in a better outcome for local residents as well as allowing the community centre and bowling club to remain. I presume this is what croweater888 was referencing?

I think the response from the project group was that the depth the tunnel would have to be to pass under the Torrens and then return almost to grade to connect with the start of the lowered motorway would require in too great an incline and was not feasible from an engineering perspective.

I also thought it might be practical to have the tunnel portal open directly into the trench. I am not convinced by the gradient argument as the tunnel only needs to be deep enough for the roof to be no higher than the lowest point in the stream bed.

However, digging through the saturated floodplain silt and close to the stream bed probably requires a significantly different tunnelling technique. There might also be issues if there is a significant amount of "flow" underground which would either be dammed by the tunnel, or cause it to "float", and potentially an issue if the tunnel wall becomes a conduit to feed river water into the trench.

If it's not deep then you probably can't tunnel at all without risk of the surface road just caving in on it, and you may as well cut and cover. However if you're doing that it will take a while and so you'd need alternate surface roads in the meantime, which would likely require the demolitions the plan would be trying to avoid.

A tunnel under the Torrens would have to be excavated from below as there is no way to stop the water for long enough to cut-and-cover across the stream. it shouldn't collapse if the reinforcing is built strong enough. It would be a different construction than being bored through rock.

[Brucetiki]

There seems to be quite a lag on maintenance work on the M2 of late:

- Some resurfacing works were done about 2-3 months ago on a couple of lanes on the R2P section, resulting in this section being reduced to 60. Surely the time for the new surface to settle has been long enough for this section to revert back to 80.

- There's a random 60 section just before the Port River Expressway exit on the Superway for no apparent reason.

- The power at the southern end of the Northern Connector has been out for about 6 months

- There's a random 60 speed reduction just before the Bolivar exit for no apparent reason. This one I feel is particularly dangerous as many drivers are just ignoring the 60 speed reduction and still going at 110. All it's going to take is one driver doing 60 through this section, and an inattentive driver doing 110 ploughing into the back of this vehicle and we'll have a catastrophe in this area!

Besides the safety issues around some drivers just ignoring the reduced speed limits because there is no work being done in these areas, it's also quite annoying to be constantly changing speeds through these sections.

[Llessur2002]

There's also usually quite a lot of debris on the lowered T2T section - they really need to send a sweeper in here overnight on a more regular basis.

[Leigh744]

There seems to be quite a lag on maintenance work on the M2 of late:

- Some resurfacing works were done about 2-3 months ago on a couple of lanes on the R2P section, resulting in this section being reduced to 60. Surely the time for the new surface to settle has been long enough for this section to revert back to 80.

- There's a random 60 section just before the Port River Expressway exit on the Superway for no apparent reason.

- The power at the southern end of the Northern Connector has been out for about 6 months

- There's a random 60 speed reduction just before the Bolivar exit for no apparent reason. This one I feel is particularly dangerous as many drivers are just ignoring the 60 speed reduction and still going at 110. All it's going to take is one driver doing 60 through this section, and an inattentive driver doing 110 ploughing into the back of this vehicle and we'll have a catastrophe in this area!

Besides the safety issues around some drivers just ignoring the reduced speed limits because there is no work being done in these areas, it's also quite annoying to be constantly changing speeds through these sections.

The 60km section heading south has been extended from closer to the lowered section back to the Regency Rd overpass which is quite frustrating.

I am assuming the 60 section before the Port River Expressway has something to do with the damaged bollard/metal near the turn off west towards Port Adelaide. By the time you've reduced speed to 60 you're at 90 again. This is also the case heading south near the Grand Junction Road exit.

The section near Bolivar is because of damaged fencing in the median... again seems over the top to have to reduce your speed to 60.

Just wait until they resurface a pot hole in the left lane heading south just before the Regency Road exit

[rev]

There seems to be quite a lag on maintenance work on the M2 of late:

- Some resurfacing works were done about 2-3 months ago on a couple of lanes on the R2P section, resulting in this section being reduced to 60. Surely the time for the new surface to settle has been long enough for this section to revert back to 80.

- There's a random 60 section just before the Port River Expressway exit on the Superway for no apparent reason.

- The power at the southern end of the Northern Connector has been out for about 6 months

- There's a random 60 speed reduction just before the Bolivar exit for no apparent reason. This one I feel is particularly dangerous as many drivers are just ignoring the 60 speed reduction and still going at 110. All it's going to take is one driver doing 60 through this section, and an inattentive driver doing 110 ploughing into the back of this vehicle and we'll have a catastrophe in this area!

Besides the safety issues around some drivers just ignoring the reduced speed limits because there is no work being done in these areas, it's also quite annoying to be constantly changing speeds through these sections.

LOL they drop the speed limit over every minor thing.

The crash barrier on the off ramp near Port Road has been hit, instead of fixing it promptly (you know, the motorway being a major key piece of infrastructure for the state), they placed some bollards around it and dropped the speed limit. I wonder how much longer it's going to sit like that before it's fixed?

Car breaks down? Cool lets drop the speed to 40km/h and leave it like that long after the broken down car has moved on or been removed.

Debris on the motorway? That, they don't worry about. They don't even clean it up.


Only in Adelaide.

[Brucetiki]

There seems to be quite a lag on maintenance work on the M2 of late:

- Some resurfacing works were done about 2-3 months ago on a couple of lanes on the R2P section, resulting in this section being reduced to 60. Surely the time for the new surface to settle has been long enough for this section to revert back to 80.

- There's a random 60 section just before the Port River Expressway exit on the Superway for no apparent reason.

- The power at the southern end of the Northern Connector has been out for about 6 months

- There's a random 60 speed reduction just before the Bolivar exit for no apparent reason. This one I feel is particularly dangerous as many drivers are just ignoring the 60 speed reduction and still going at 110. All it's going to take is one driver doing 60 through this section, and an inattentive driver doing 110 ploughing into the back of this vehicle and we'll have a catastrophe in this area!

Besides the safety issues around some drivers just ignoring the reduced speed limits because there is no work being done in these areas, it's also quite annoying to be constantly changing speeds through these sections.

The 60km section heading south has been extended from closer to the lowered section back to the Regency Rd overpass which is quite frustrating.

I am assuming the 60 section before the Port River Expressway has something to do with the damaged bollard/metal near the turn off west towards Port Adelaide. By the time you've reduced speed to 60 you're at 90 again. This is also the case heading south near the Grand Junction Road exit.

The section near Bolivar is because of damaged fencing in the median... again seems over the top to have to reduce your speed to 60.

Just wait until they resurface a pot hole in the left lane heading south just before the Regency Road exit

I noticed that they extended the 60 section on R2P. I jokingly wonder whether someone's trolling us for calling out the overuse of reduced speed limits.

The weird thing about the one at Bolivar is - northbound they've dropped the speed, but they haven't southbound. Wouldn't the issue with the median affect both ways?

[rev]

A lot of the ceash barriers on the off ramps seem to be damaged, even the Superway off ramp to Grand Junction Road has been impacted.

When will any of it be fixed?


Today there was a bunch of traffic control cars in the inside lane heading south around the Superway/PREXY/NC interchange...
Doing absolutely nothing but sitting there lane closed off for probably 50m, lights flashing.

[neoballmon]

DIT is waiting for their buy in bulk discount then they'll fix them

[Norman]

Some of the community infrastructure projects were announced today as part of the $125m in funding available to locations along the route. The main headline is a new community hub for Thebarton.

City Shaping Initiatives (as of February 2022)
$125 million worth of projects was announced in February 2022 with the aim of rejuvenating and further greening local neighbourhoods along the project corridor.

The first of these involves the T2D Project working in partnership with local residents, plus the City of West Torrens, to create a new Thebarton community hub on the eastern side of South Road.

Other projects in the $125 million package for community space includes:

$20m for developing vacant land within the corridor for new and displaced businesses
$2m for a safe and direct linkage between Edward St, Edwardstown, and Raglan Ave to reduce congestion
$4m for sporting infrastructure, including revamp of Glandore Oval
$4m for better local traffic management
$3m improving public transport infrastructure to support lift in patronage
$6m to improving landscapes and amenity of sections of South Rd

Source: https://dit.sa.gov.au/nsc/torrens_to_da ... ban_design