PRO: Tonsley Rail Extension

[mattblack]

You seem to have the awnser to everything Aidian although I dont agree with you but do you have the awnser to life, the universe and everything?

If you want a better answer than 42, I suggest you rephrase the question.

Thought you might be one of the handful of people in the world that knows why. Guess not.

[koalaboy]

That's not the situation at all. I considered the issues, but without a copy of the design standards to hand, I went by what is done elsewhere in the suburbs.

That's where you are continually going wrong, looking at the design of the suburbs - completely different design principles - arterial roads are designed to maximise throughput and residential streets are designed to minimise speed. Residential streets are now designed to have minimal straight sections and unless they are a distributor to other streets, they now have narrow widths. In general, they are designed to keep speeds down because capacity is not an issue. Try looking outside Hallet Cove perhaps? How about the Prexy / South Rd interchange, Mt Osmond Interchange. Learn about things called shoulders and breakdown bays as well.

Off peak it will. And in the peaks, having too much capacity on South Road is likely to be counterproductive

Can't believe that this quote came from the same person that wants the expressway duplicated. Darlington isn't congested off-peak now, nor is most of Adelaide, so technically you job has already been done. What are you trying achieve with your scheme? An increase in capacity or neutral? Neutral is best achieved by doing nothing, which is cheaper than your scheme. In the land of common sense money is usually spent to make the road perform better. Because money doesn't come around often, the upgrade needs to last more than a couple of years.

Since when have new noise requirements been mandatory for existing roads?

For several years now, look at Gallipoli underpass. If you upgrade a road section, you need to satisfy ALL of the current standards. For noise, if the existing kerb is moved closer to an existing house, the new standards apply. Poor design historically is not a excuse to repeat it.

My plan adds two lanes to the road - that's 7m. Assuming 4m for slip lanes, that's still 4m spare even before you start to consider how much land could be freed up by narrowing the median.

Where are your Southern Expressway overpasses in all of this? Gores, barriers, gantries, inside and outside shoulders, breakdown bays? Oh that's right, Aidan can pick and choose what he thinks is required. The commonwealth will love to give us 50% of the money for a road that doesn't meet national standards.

It's not a capacity issue, and not all traffic starts off on South Road. Southbound traffic from Brighton Road (or any of the coastal suburbs) would have a much quicker journey if they could join the Expressway at Sherrif's Road, but it always seems to be going the wrong way.

There is no consistency with your reasoning, but I should give up now. I think everyone else has already given up trying to find a grain of common sense in your arguements.

Yet you're apparently happy for hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to be wasted on a grossly overengineered South Road

Once again, statements without any factual arguement. You're not a traffic engineer(most likely not even an engineer of any kind), don't know the standards apart from the examples in Hallet Cove's backstreets, don't understand traffic theory and yet you KNOW it is over engineered. I am not happy to have hundreds of millions spent on duplicating a road purely because there is an existing road going the other way when a perfectly good alternative already exists.

[Omicron]

I can see you have it all sorted. You use such definitive statements for your scheme, without virtually any consideration of design realities (trust me, you haven't considered most of them)

And that's NOT a principle that South Road needs to follow.

It wont be free flowing for long if you don't

Good point

But the noise wall doesn't have to be big enough to screen out the road entirely - just being big enough to block most of the wheel noise would be a significant improvement.

New noise requirements may contradict this, the height isn't plucked out of thin air.

On the contrary, my footprint would be entirely within the available space, not encroaching on the houses at all.

How do you know? Being so definitive without a designed or even sketched scheme once again reduces your credibility.

I never thought of it that way

It can branch off South Road earlier if required, and South Road's speed limit does not need to be raised to 80km/h. As for tight curves, is there any reason why advisory speed limits couldn't be used?

Once again your lack of knowledge in this area highlights a massive reason why you should not be so quick to criticise. A design speed +10km/h of the posted speed is relatively standard because people drive over the speed limit. It will remain a 70km/h road. For 50km/h, you need a 50m absolute minimum curve radius (this applies to your spiral, so like I said, say goodbye to Laffer). Even with a 50m radius design, your spiral may still have a lower advisory speed sign. Advisory speeds are based on driver comfort, not design.

I agree

Duplicating the Southern Expressway is a worthwhile road project that will make a lot of journeys significantly shorter.

Are you serious? South Rd running parallel to the Southern Expressway is an existing road asset that has plenty of capacity. Darlington and Edwardstown are choked with traffic in many ways because of the Expressway. Very strange logic. Yes it's nice to have the farce fixed, but the state has dozens of over saturated road sections that should have been fixed first.

I agree

Continual widening South Road is not the best way to accommodate future growth. Making provision for infrastructure we'd be better off without isn't futureproofing.

Duplicating the Southern Expressway is somehow good, yet upgrading the road it feeds into is wasteful. There is no logic for your aguement, unless you live south and always travel against the peak flow. That would explain why you think South Rd doen't need upgrading and the Expressway needs duplication.

Yeh good point

Is there any way I can open this thread and not read Aidan's posts? Surely I'm not the only one whose thinking that...

+1. Imagine how much of our tax dollars are wasted on having to respond, although I think DrSmith and Rubberman may be right and they may have only read the first few lines.

Maybe.

[Aidan]

That's not the situation at all. I considered the issues, but without a copy of the design standards to hand, I went by what is done elsewhere in the suburbs.

That's where you are continually going wrong, looking at the design of the suburbs - completely different design principles - arterial roads are designed to maximise throughput and residential streets are designed to minimise speed. Residential streets are now designed to have minimal straight sections and unless they are a distributor to other streets, they now have narrow widths. In general, they are designed to keep speeds down because capacity is not an issue.

Flinders Drive is neither - it's high capacity but low speed. I understood it to be classified as a collector road, so I thought the standards would be similar to other collector roads. If I'm wrong, fair enough - changes can be made. I thought my response made it clear that the altered Google Earth image was an example of what could be done, not a detailed plan? Were it the latter, I would've consulted the standards.

Try looking outside Hallet Cove perhaps? How about the Prexy / South Rd interchange,

Two high speed high capacity roads. A completely different situation!

Mt Osmond Interchange.

A slightly more relevant example, but still very different from the situation at Bedford Park.

Learn about things called shoulders and breakdown bays as well.

If you have a point to make about shoulders and breakdown bays, feel free to make it instead of just assuming my ignorance and leaving me to second guess your intention!

Off peak it will. And in the peaks, having too much capacity on South Road is likely to be counterproductive

Can't believe that this quote came from the same person that wants the expressway duplicated. Darlington isn't congested off-peak now, nor is most of Adelaide, so technically you job has already been done.

I wasn't referring to Darlington, I was referring to nearer the City. Overprovision of capacity around Darlington won't actually be counterproductive, it would just be a waste of money. And even though it's not congested off peak, there's still significant time spent waiting at traffic lights, which is worth addressing.

What are you trying achieve with your scheme? An increase in capacity or neutral? Neutral is best achieved by doing nothing, which is cheaper than your scheme.

An increase in capacity and free flowing traffic on South Road.

In the land of common sense money is usually spent to make the road perform better. Because money doesn't come around often, the upgrade needs to last more than a couple of years.

In the original South Road upgrade in the early '90s, they futureproofed this stretch quite well. On one side they moved the road away from the houses a bit, and on the other they left plenty of room for future upgrades. The sensible course of action is to use it for the forthcoming upgrade. The silly course of action is to bulldoze the houses, put the road in an enormous trench, and put in more lanes than traffic levels could ever justify!

Money wasted means money will come around even less often in future!

Since when have new noise requirements been mandatory for existing roads?

For several years now, look at Gallipoli underpass. If you upgrade a road section, you need to satisfy ALL of the current standards. For noise, if the existing kerb is moved closer to an existing house, the new standards apply. Poor design historically is not a excuse to repeat it.

I never suggested moving the kerb closer to an existing house, I suggested moving it a bit further away!

My plan adds two lanes to the road - that's 7m. Assuming 4m for slip lanes, that's still 4m spare even before you start to consider how much land could be freed up by narrowing the median.

Where are your Southern Expressway overpasses in all of this?

Further south. Obviously the measurements would be different there, but there's still space.

Gores, barriers, gantries, inside and outside shoulders, breakdown bays? Oh that's right, Aidan can pick and choose what he thinks is required. The commonwealth will love to give us 50% of the money for a road that doesn't meet national standards.

I'm not suggesting South Road should be substandard, nor am I denying there are other potential demands for space in the corridor. My point is there's plenty available, some of which could be used to increase the distance between the road and the houses.

It's not a capacity issue, and not all traffic starts off on South Road. Southbound traffic from Brighton Road (or any of the coastal suburbs) would have a much quicker journey if they could join the Expressway at Sherrif's Road, but it always seems to be going the wrong way.

There is no consistency with your reasoning, but I should give up now. I think everyone else has already given up trying to find a grain of common sense in your arguements.

You don't see common sense in wanting to improve connectivity???

Yet you're apparently happy for hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to be wasted on a grossly overengineered South Road

Once again, statements without any factual arguement. You're not a traffic engineer(most likely not even an engineer of any kind),

Considering your lack of comprehension, it seems a bit difficult to think of you as an engineer either!

don't know the standards apart from the examples in Hallet Cove's backstreets,

I think you misunderstood the point of what I posted. I'm certainly not suggesting putting in tight uncanted curves like the one in Freebairn Drive - that was just to disprove your claim that advisory speed signs were just about comfort.

don't understand traffic theory

Exactly what part of traffic theory do you think I don't understand?

and yet you KNOW it is over engineered.

Yes, because it has too many lanes and providing an ever increasing number of lanes is not the way to solve our traffic problems.

I am not happy to have hundreds of millions spent on duplicating a road purely because there is an existing road going the other way when a perfectly good alternative already exists.

It's not purely because there's an existing road going the other way, it's because on the southern section there's no good road going that way. The case for the northern and central sections is much weaker, but it will improve journey times and probably reduce fuel use.

[AG]

Thread reopened. Let's try and drop the "My thinking is right and yours is wrong attitude" now, okay?

[fabricator]

Thread reopened. Let's try and drop the "I'm right and your wrong attitude" now, okay?

Fixed for you

Anyway I can't remember what I was going to post yesterday, so will post about something else.

The bus terminal is a mess, here are some randomly placed roads, around some randomly placed buildings with some randomly placed bus stops.

My idea is to use the existing parking lanes on Sturt road as bus stops, together with a rebuilt Tonsley station as an interchange. As most bus routes use South, Marion or Sturt Road it won't effect routes too much.

[skyliner]

Is there actually any more news on this guys?

So encouraged to see all the proposals and developments in transport. Not even thought about not so long ago. This one speaks of real urban development

SA - STATE ON THE MOVE

[fabricator]

According to the official website:

An external reference group consisting of local councils, key representative bodies and industry has been established. This group will provide input throughout the study process.

Open houses were held on 6th and 9th November 2010 at Flinders Medical Centre and Flinders University. Over 150 people attended the open houses where they had the opportunity to learn more about the Study and discuss their ideas with project staff.

Public displays are now on until the 26th November 2010 at Flinders Medical Centre, Flinders University, Marion Council office, Onkaparinga Council office and Mitcham Council office.

Written submissions on the Environment Report will be accepted until 29 November 2010 and should be posted to: Darlington Transport Study, Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure, Reply Paid 83100, GPO Box 1533, Adelaide SA 5001

So its all finish for now, I doubt we'll see much action till next year. Even still there is no funding, costings or timeline on this project.

[skyliner]

Thanks mate - much harder to trace over here in the outer antipodes.

SA - STATE ON THE MOVE

[drsmith]

Opening is defined as 2021, so, well, it will be a little while before the 1'st sod is turned, even if the construction phase is 5 years.

Has enybody else noticed the two new signalised intersections on Sturt Road between Marion Road and South Road ?

[witsend]

Looking at it, I'd be inclined to scope out the following items as part of the project.

- Removal of Ascot Park from Noarlunga to the new line, station at Daws Rd.
- Hybrid Tram/Train & Train Platform at Woodlands Park, ie High/Low Level
- Removal of Edwardstown, Emerson, and Clarence Park High Level Platforms
- Better Placed Tram/Train Stations to suit travelling public to replace the current High Level Platforms.
- Also allows for a small stabling yard for Tram/Trains at Edwardstown (I guess two could be stabled at Flinders Uni), or a Park-N-Ride
-

I'm at a loss for ideas for Goodwood Station due to room, nominally, I'd have a tram/train stop at Leader St itsself, you could slew the ARTC Main Line immediately after the crossing.
Mile End and Keswick could both have low level platforms as well.

The advantage is that the Noarlunga/Seaford trains could continue express to Adelaide after Marion, with the Stop at Woodlands being the final.

What do you think?

[dbl96]

It just seems stupid to put trams rather than trains through to flinders. Obviously the only reason they are doing it is to cut costs, if you were building heavy rail you would need to develop a dedicated corridor that would likely include bridges. Putting in trams defeats the whole purpose of extending the tosley line because trams do not move as fast as trains or have high enough capacity. By putting in trams you are getting the same as you were getting for busses, except less congestion. Flinders is just too far out for trams. Trams are a great thing, but this government is just overly obsessed with them. They had a sucess with trams in the past and all they care about is staying in office, so they propse trams whenever they can, because they have had success in the past with it, even if it isnt the right asnwer for the situation as it most clearly isnt here.

All that said though, i am still glad they are building this because better something than nothing.

[metro]

dbl96, they probably wont be trams, but they wont be trains either. The idea of tram-trains are pretty good for this area, cheaper than putting in a rail line and delivers the best of both worlds with the sexyness of low floor trams, but with speed and capacity of rail.

Tram-trains arent that bad, and even in Paris, one of the worlds biggest cities, they're doing what was once a trains job:

http://www.qwiki.com/q/#!/Siemens_S70

I dont think the government have said how they intend to run them once they're at Ascot Park though, but i forsee 3 possibilities: it terminates at Ascot park and people transfer to the train, or it joins the rail line at Ascot Park and runs on the rail network to the city somehow, or it runs to the city on another route, perhaps in the median of Marion rd to join with the Glenelg Line. We will have to wait and see as work isnt intended to start on this until around 2015/2020.