[COM] New Royal Adelaide Hospital | $2.1b

[Ho Really]

Who says the hospital will go ahead? When they've cleared the site and about to do the remedial work they may find it to be too contaminated. What then? It still may be possible unless they've taken core samples while the sheds were up. Anyone know for sure? I have lost track of this.

The biggest reason why this hospital should not be going up where it is planned is what just happened in Christchurch. God forbid, if we got something similar, maybe even a shallow 5.5 magnitude quake along the fault line where the hospital will be built we'll be in serious trouble. I mean, you could have other buildings destroyed or damaged, but if you lose a hospital what are you going to do then? I don't want to be a doomsayer but what about if it really happens. It seems the world is currently going in that direction. Shouldn't we be more cautious?

Cheers

PS. Hope I don't get flamed...

[Pikey]

Thread locked, and a new construction thread will be created.

It's being built, no matter what you want on the site, it's going ahead, so get over it.

[Pikey]

http://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/c ... e+hospital













From the Advertiser:

Trains make way for the new RAH

DANIEL WILLS From: AdelaideNow February 22, 2011 10:10AM



Train operations have been shifted from the North Tce railyards in preparation for construction of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. Picture: Brooke Whatnall Source: The Advertiser


ADELAIDE'S rail operations have been shifted to Dry Creek in preparation for the new city hospital.
Premier Mike Rann said the shift, finalised today, was the start of an "exciting new chapter" in the city's history.

Commencement of construction on the North Tce railyards site, expected this year, will deal a near-fatal blow to the Liberals' proposed covered city stadium, slated for building on the same site.

Infrastructure Minister Pat Conlon is today expected to meet with AFL boss Andrew Demetriou to discuss the Adelaide Oval rebuild.

Adelaide City Council will tonight hold a confidential meeting to determine a collective position on the Oval plan.

As legal custodian of the park lands and landlord of the Oval, the council has the power to block the proposal or place strict regulations on the construction plans.

"The momentum continues to build - we have announced the SA Health Partnership consortium as the preferred bidder to build the new hospital and work is well underway on the adjacent South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute," he said.

"Site works for the brand new Royal Adelaide Hospital will begin this year."

The Opposition remains critical of the project, claiming cost blowouts are likely and reconstruction of the existing RAH in the city's east would allow more money to be spent on regional and suburban hospitals.

Health Minister John Hill said moving rail operations away from North Terrace means remediation of the site can proceed uninterrupted and the new RAH remained on track to be delivered by 2016.

Mr Rann today said the new Dry Creek train depot was open for business after maintenance crews, equipment and full train operations took two weeks to move from the old railyards.

"The network is being upgraded with new track, electrification and new stations so it's fantastic that our operations and maintenance facility is just as modern and functional," he said.

Mr Rann said the $1.4 billion desalination plant, new RAH and the $2.6 billion public transport overhaul were "flagships" of the state's "record breaking" infrastructure investment.

"Over the next four years we are rolling out a $10.7 billion capital investment program to make sure South Australia continues to be the best place in Australia to live, work and do business," Mr Rann said.

[Pikey]

This thread will be used to discuss the construction and development of the new RAH.

Keep the banter, whinging about what's being built, the government, public money, soil remediation, conspiracy theories, aliens, Mexicans, Victoria Bitter and space bowls for another thread, or go tell your Mum about it.

----------------------

In today's news, two large mobile cranes are now on site in the rail yards, and one of the sheds has already been razed.

[shiftaling]

Those renders look pretty cool, but then renders always do. Not so sure it's a good idea to have those open plaza areas so exposed, perhaps if they were broken up with planter boxes and trees there'd be less chance of it being a windswept desolation in winter.

[stumpjumper]

Does anyone have any drawings or information on traffic management around the North Tce/West Tce/Port Rd intersection?

[Xaragmata]

Some pics from Thursday, with demolition commencing:













http://xaragmata.cable.nu/album/adelaid ... _4305.html

[AtD]

Does anyone have any drawings or information on traffic management around the North Tce/West Tce/Port Rd intersection?

http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com.au/a ... ssment.pdf

From
http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com.au/d ... ation.html

[Howie]

Have a few people at my work asking me if I know where the fault line is over the site? Is there an overlay I can download somewhere? I tried PIRSA website but I couldn't get a detailed map.


And I was hoping someone can help elaborate on what construction methods can be used to back up this claim by the minister for health?

Health Minister John Hill is defending the new hospital plans against claims it is going to built on an earthquake fault line.

When I was doing some research I stumbled upon this article by the Geoscience Society of New Zealand.
http://www.gsnz.org.nz/info_page/safe-b ... s-i-1.html

And this caught my eye.

The Commissioner's report points out that there is no existing technology that will prevent damage to buildings caused by fault rupture. For this reason it is unacceptable to site buildings on or close to active faults. Fault rupture is one of the most predictable and avoidable earthquake hazards.

Someone was speaking to was saying they could place springs between support pillars, but i'm wondering what happens if there's a split along the fault line.. like this one in new zealand of a couple metres.

new_zealand_earthquake.jpg (72.33 KiB) Viewed 4266 times

Can a building really survive that?

[AG]

The fault line that the new RAH site is adjacent to is the West Para Fault Line. It's not directly on the fault line, but some distance to the east of it. The fault line runs in a north-east to south-west direction through the northern and western suburbs. A key difference is that the earthquake that hit Christchurch originated from a fault associated with the Alpine Fault Line (an inter-plate fault), which forms a major tectonic plate boundary. Christchurch itself is some distance from the fault, so it was surprising that Christchurch was hit and not Auckland or Wellington. The fault lines that run through Adelaide (Para and Burnside-Eden Fault Lines) are all relatively minor intra-plate faults in comparison.

[King]

Only in friggen' Adelaide would we build two major hospitals (Flinders & RAH) on or near an earthquake fault line!

You'd think we'd have learnt from the mistake made the first time.

[AG]

Actually, now that I do some research back through some material I have on fault lines in Adelaide, the East Para Fault Line looks like it runs directly past the western side of the hospital site. This map I have from doing geotechnical design work comes out of "Engineering Geology of the Adelaide City Area" published in 1982.

The risk is still very low though considering that the epicentre of most intraplate earthquakes almost never lies along the faults themselves. Also, Christchurch is built on a lot of soft sands and clays. In comparison, the soil material that underlays most of Adelaide is rather stiff. Given that earthquakes of the scale seen in Christchurch are extremely unlikely in Adelaide and the soil types are different, the amplification of earth movement and liquefaction are unlikely here. The type of soil is a much more reliable indicator of risk to an area than the infraplate faults themselves which aren't always easy to identify.

[crawf]

That is very fascinating, thanks AG.

After seeing the horrific footage of Christchurch and hearing news reports that Adelaide itself is overdue for a major earthquake, did make me a tad concerned.

[Howie]

Thanks AG, that's very informative.

I was watching a documentary about the fault lines in California and they were talking about how they were concerned with the build up of housing along fault lines, but it was interesting to note they they weren't allowed to build over one. There's quite a bit of discussion in American news sites about the New Zealand earthquake because of their concerns about the San Andreas fault... it's an interesting read.

[Howie]

AG do you also have a maps showing fault lines in suburban Adelaide? Just curious, would love to develop a layer for google.