Cost of adding tram right turn from King William St to North Terrace revealed to be $117 million
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sou ... 9c8fa8b502
The cost of adding a right tram turn on to North Tce to fulfil a State Government election pledge would be $117 million – a blowout of $80 million.
And millions more would be needed for other changes to deal with the crippling traffic congestion the project would cause.
A new engineering report says the project would involve ripping up hundreds of metres of track and permanently slow peak-hour traffic to a crawl.
The Aurecon Australasia report says motorists would face sitting in traffic for an extra 10 minutes to travel 1.2km along North Tce in the morning peak, up from three minutes to 13 minutes.
Tram travel times would also blow out and there would be flow-on effects to traffic outside the CBD as well.
The $37 million budgeted to retrofit the right-hand turn is $80 million short of the actual cost.
Most of the extra amount, $70 million, would be for upgrading the tram fleet because many current trams would be at “high risk” of derailment while making the turn. The other $10 million would be for roadworks.
The long-delayed North Tce extension, finally opened last month, has already cost $130 million, an overrun of $40 million.
The report, delivered to the Government more than a month ago, concludes that adding the turn is possible. But it should not go ahead without significant changes to the intersection to improve traffic capacity that would blow out the cost by even more than the $80 million.
The Government will not comment on the findings until they are released today but it is understood the project is now in serious doubt.
Aurecon’s traffic experts find congestion would become so bad at the city’s main intersection that even trams themselves would have to queue to get through.
The RAA has called on the Government to abandon the project or face what it called the “dire consequences” of the traffic gridlock throughout the CBD and beyond.
“That is our recommendation based on the effect on that intersection, which is the pivotal intersection for traffic in the city of Adelaide,’’ the RAA’s Mark Borlace said.
“It has a huge impact on both north-south and east-west traffic flow and if one of those legs has a problem, it would have dire consequences. “That has been our issue from the beginning, the impact on traffic, during construction and after.’’
The report, exclusively obtained by the Sunday Mail, involved multiple independent engineering and design firms as well as traffic experts, and concludes the turn would cut the current traffic capacity of the intersection by a quarter.
Opposition transport spo-kesman Tom Koutsantonis said Labor would hold the Government to its election promise, because it had known the barriers to the project beforehand.
“The turn can’t be done and won’t be done but they promised to do it and we expect them to deliver,’’ he said.
“They had all this information in answers to questions before the Economic and Finance Committee of Parliament last year.’’
Other problems highlighted in the report are:
CITADIS trams, the newer red models that make up half the fleet, would be at “high risk” of derailment because of their design
MOTORISTS stopping at the intersection would have inadequate visibility, and have to drive through pooled water in wet conditions, making aquaplaning while braking likely
TRAM travel times would blow out as trams would also have to queue at the intersection, and fewer tram runs could service the route to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Entertainment Centre
UP TO 365m of track, electricity lines and mature plane trees at the intersection and beyond would have to be removed
ADELAIDE City Council said it was unlikely to approve the loss of more trees
TRAFFIC times outside the CBD would also rise. The worst stretch would be North Tce, between Magill Rd and East Tce. Travel time would double from 10 to 20 minutes.
The former Labor government rejected the right-turn option because of similar concerns to those detailed in the Aurecon report about traffic problems and costs.
The Sunday Mail understands the report has rung alarm bells at the highest levels of government about the future of a key election promise.
The report has been with the Government for more than a month but it has refused to release it while considering how or if the project should proceed.
The Liberal Party promised to reverse Labor’s rejection of a right-hand turn if it won this year’s March state election, seizing on public disbelief throughout 2017 that the turn could not be engineered without major disruption.
This culminated in an advertiser.com.au poll in which 90 per cent of 2100 people said a right turn was “a no-brainer”.
The North Tce extension opened last month – six months after deadline and $40 million over budget.
Rather, if someone thinks it's definitely going to go one way or another, or they WANT it to go one way or another, then if they don't have the figures to support their case either way, they are going to be mighty disappointed if things don't turn out the way they want. So, you could well be right...or wrong, but who knows?