Underground CBD tunnels

[crawf]

i do not disagree with you in saying that Adelaide is not an unsafe place; however, it is fair enough that many people from interstate do see Adelaide as the crime hole of Australia, or, in this case "City of Corpses".

you only have to look at cases which have had great attention from the media. of course there was truro in the seventies and snowtown in the nineties which saw Adelaide gain the label as a crime hole.

and more recently...names like megumi suzuki, maya jakic, peter falconio and carly ryan all come to mind.

so i guess its not that stupid that adelaide has gained such a nickname.

Mants your forgetting that murder is common all over Australia and the world for that matter not just SA.

Yes Adelaide does have a bad crime rate per capita (second to Perth actually), but there have been some pretty bizarre and sickening murders interstate.

I can think of quite of few in Victoria in the last 20 years...

Adelaide's not the murder capital or the crime hole of Australia or whatever, it just had some pretty bizarre murders in the past.

peter falconio

He was murdered in the NT outback not SA...

[Mants]

Mants your forgetting that murder is common all over Australia and the world for that matter not just SA.

no i am not forgetting that. thats an obvious point, which really doesnt have anything to do with the point i am making.

my point, must i reiterate, is that Adelaide is genuinely known as the crime hole of Australia by interstaters and people overseas, whether or not it is, is a different story.

He was murdered in the NT outback not SA...

i am aware of this, however his killer, bradley murdoch, was from Adelaide and followed them through SA.

[crawf]

my point, must i reiterate, is that Adelaide is genuinely known as the crime hole of Australia by interstaters and people overseas, whether or not it is, is a different story.

You will find that Sydney copes being the crime capital of Australia these days, I rarely hear about Adelaide. Though really in the last 20 years Victoria has had more bizarre murders than SA such as the wealthy Melbourne couple murdered by son, toodle Jayden Leski (god that was big), 3 woman in Frankston, gangland killings and a few others...

i am aware of this, however his killer, bradley murdoch, was from Adelaide and followed them through SA.

No he lived in Adelaide for a short time and committed some series offenses here, but hes from Western Australia.

[Cruise]

Adelaide's not the murder capital or the crime hole of Australia or whatever, it just had some pretty bizarre murders in the past.

Alice springs actually is the muder capital of Australia (murders per capita)

[rev]

Crawf who really cares. Your arguing about something so irrelevant and pointless, as if your going to make a difference and convince the world Adelaide doesn't have a high percentage of murders and violent crimes per capita compared to the rest of Australia.

[jimmy_2486]

Anyways back to the intended topic!!!!!

Should we try and rediscover these tunnels as they might be useful in terms of say incorporating them into an underground rail or road network??

Obviously they would have to be extended and made bigger, but would it be better in doing that than making new ones??

[Norman]

I assume it's not legal to explore these tunnels. Why not?

[crawf]

Yes I think we should, I think it could be a good idea of doing tours in some of them and incorporate it into a history tour of Adelaide (as well as including historic sites and buildings).

As for a trainline, it might be viable in future. Though it depends if these tunnels are wide and high enough.

But then again it depends how safe these tunnels are

[jimmy_2486]

Well they could be checked could they??

Also couldn't they be modified to be bigger/wider to handle rail/roads??

Or would making new tunnels be cheaper? i dunno, just throwing ideas in the air.

[Will]

Yes I think we should, I think it could be a good idea of doing tours in some of them and incorporate it into a history tour of Adelaide (as well as including historic sites and buildings).

As for a trainline, it might be viable in future. Though it depends if these tunnels are wide and high enough.

But then again it depends how safe these tunnels are

These tunnels are too narrow and small for a train line, but I can see $$$ at the thought of opening them up to the public. In Hobart they have tours of that cities tunnels, and they make the HCC quite a nice sum of money.

[stumpjumper]

I've seen the tunnels under the Treasury Building. There are really only a couple of them and they are not particularly large or long.

I believe that there is a largeish tunnel under King William St at about the southern edge of the Torrens Parade Ground. I think it may have had a rail line in it. It seems a bit much to dig a tunnel just to get horses across a road to pasture, considering the traffic in thsoe days.

I've also been told that there is a tunnel from the former G & R Wills warehouse at about 205 North Terrace leading north 'from here to the river', I was told. I've seen a bricked in archway in the cellar of that building on the north side, but it didn't look big enough to handle any sort of vehicle.

If you ask me, people are psychologically drawn to tunnels, and want to believe any story involving them.

[toby1]

i would be very surprised if it was
a) feasible to enlarge the tunnels to make them useful/safe
b) permitted by those who make the rules

i love our town, but it seems that in the next decade there just isn't likely to be enough people using public transport to make it worth spending serious $$$ on. for one, there is alot of resistance to major public projects for all sorts of reasons (damn old people dont like change ), and this town is so damn easy to move around in by car that only those that work in town, or cannot afford or drive cars seem to use public transport. and don't get me started on the $31m waste of tram line extension ...

someone once mentioned the idea of using vic sq as a hub for public transport - sounds great to me but not an idea that anyone got behind. combined this "hub" with improved public vehicles and maybe a pedestrian underground network and then maybe we could start improving our transport?

[jimmy_2486]

Well I hear a lot of talk on this forum on the fact that our train network needs to be improved but no one has actually thought deeply about a plan to make it better rather than saying to electrify it and make new lines/more services.

I believe these tunnels could possibly be a quite inexpensive way to expand our rail network making Adelaide station a north/south stopover instead of a terminus. I mean if we were to increase services we would surely need them, as the terminus style Adelaide station would get clogged up with trains turning around, especially at peak hour and with more lines/services etc.

Also this will put more stations in the city making it easier for people wherever they are in the city to go to home/work and might just create more growth in other CBD areas faster, instead of the CBD congregating near the northern side.

I mean call me crazy but could this happen?

[jk1237]

Hi there, I have also read somewhere that there was a rail tunnel built from Adelaide Railway Station to the once Exhibition building at Adelaide Uni. The Exhibition building was bulldozed for that 1960s Economics tower thing (forgotten name of building). You can actually see the layout of the tunnel at the Torrens parade ground on the southern side. Where the nice garden starts, there is a sharp mound and then a footpath that goes from about Festival Theatre to Adelaide Uni. The tunnel is just under that mound so it wasnt really a deep tunnel. Interesting if it still exists under Adel Uni. I dont think it exists anymore where the Festival Theatre was built over the top of it.

[Mants]

next time im at the parade grounds ill check it out. i dont think ive noticed it before. ive probably seen it and thought nothing of it