[COM] Southern Expressway Duplication | $445m | 22km

[neoballmon]

The line up on Goldsmith Drive was back past the Bunnings roundabout for the Beach Road lights today. A green light only allowed about 2 or 3 cars to get through, and it was at this point I did a u-turn and got to South Via River Road.

Snapchat-20131101043346.jpg (212.22 KiB) Viewed 6139 times

Traffic also couldn't exit right out of Bunnings as I was leaving because the median was full and no one else could fit.

Honeypot was definitely closed too early.



Sorry for picture size I think. Seems big from my phone.

[85trainfan]

The beam's for the Sheriff's Rd bridge are now up on the Northern Side of the road. Sheriff's rd was closed last weekend between 4am sat 16th to 4pm Sunday 17th to allow this, with Traffic diverted to the O'Sullivans beach rd bridge to cross the Expressway. The Southern Side beam will be installed this weekend, with a closure of Sheriff's again allowing this installation.
The Exit ramp heading south is coming along nicely now to, with the road and light poles altered to suit the new alignment.

[neoballmon]

The new ramps at Beach Road as well as the one at Sherrifs road will be open on December 1st. The bridge will be ready at Beach Road too, so traffic will be 2 lanes in each direction. The roundabout will be moved and a temporary roadway put in place.

Brodie Road North will also be temporarily re aligned while they take away the old roundabout and ramp and create the new ramp and T intersection.

[85trainfan]

Took a drive along the full length of the Expressway this afternoon. A few interesting things caught my eye.

Retaining wall adjacent the South rd and Sturt river bridge is progressing well, and the approach ramp to the Marion Rd bridge is about half done. (Marion Rd will be closed this weekend to allow the Bridge Beams to be installed).
The earth wall on the new Western Roadway (Downtrack) is completed, and has been sprayed with concrete. It looks horrible (I don't see our fascination with the whole concrete sprayed wall, The eastern side with the checkerboard retaining wall looks better).
Re-Sealing of the Existing Roadway has taken place in patches along the entire length, seem like no certain order to do it. The most noticeable parts are around the Marion rd Bridge, Under Seacombe Rd and part of the Roadway that was realigned at Darlignton for blasting works.
Most of the New Western Roadway has been leveled between Majors Rd and Seacombe rd and is awaiting sealing.
Majors Rd bridge is now open to traffic again. The bridge looks weird due to the different length of the spans and the different abutments on either side.
The Glenthorne Path bridge is still standing, but looks like works have started on its dismantling.
The Reynella Entry bridge now has 3 out of the 4 spans in place, with the Western side abutment the last remaining piece to be built.
The Drainage crews are now working in the cutting between the Young St Bridge and the Reynella Entry ramp.
The bridge over the Field Valley at Reynella now has all beams in place and steelwork ready for the concrete pour in place. A crane has been placing the beams into position during the last 2 weeks.
The new Sheriffs Rd exit (& temporary entry) is now in use. The design from my point of view is somewhat skeptical. A short Down hill run to a set of lights at the end. Not the long run off that was there before, With a lot of trucks using this exit, I'm only guessing its a matter of time before an incident at that intersection (or on the ramp itself). The new Northbound exit isn't much better in design, Road rises to meet the new Bridge span then suddenly the Exit ramp spins off to the left to meet Sheriffs Rd underneath.
This weekend also sees the concrete pour of the new Western side of the sheriffs rd bridge, with contra-flow in effect from sat morn to sun night.
The last remaining heavy earthworks are adjacent the O'sullivan Beach Rd bridge and the Hammer excavators have been working flat out for the last month ( If the wind blows right we can hear them at my place over 3Kms away).
The new Glenhelan Pedestrian Bridge is completed, and actually looks better than some of the road bridges. The other 3 pedestrian bridges further down the road (Pozan path, Perry path and forget the other) are all complete, each with a different design on the outside of the canopy.
The Flaxmill Rd bridge, is still along way form completion. The current western side abutment is still in place to just below the bridge which is up on jacks. The new Western Abutment must have just been done as the ends still have formwork around them. The Services bridge on the southern side of the road is completed ( The small bridge carries the fibre optic cables, sewer, recycled water pipe etc etc)
Beach Rd, where to start. New entry and exit points are open on the Eastern side now, again the new entry ramp (Headed South) has a decent lead in time, but exiting (Headed Sth) is similar story to Sheriffs Rd rd, short exit ramp,with lights at the top, but this time going up hill (At least up hill provides some extra resistance). The present Traffic jams associated with beach Rd can be put down to a number of factors. Only one lane each way for part of the Rd, Lights that are not in-sync with Goldsmith drive (and reduced speed limits at those lights) and when buses stop to let passengers board or alight have no bay to pull into. Hopefully will end soon.
Honeypot Road is now closed and has been jacked up and the new western Abutments poured.
Most of the new Western Road bed has been leveled, with some actually sealed near the Noarlunga end of the Expressway.

I mentioned earlier about the Different Techniques/ Materiel's used around the bridges and retaining wall structures. The New Western side has a whole different "theme" to it than the older Eastern side. To me it just makes it look weird and like it was done half arsed!! Will be interested in what others that have seen it think.

[neoballmon]

Went down today and the Glenthorne Path bridge has been removed.

[neoballmon]

I'm guessing they left the expressway on public holidays/weekend times today, because a little after 2pm I was heading north along Panas and the expressway was open. When I got to the top, there was a car sitting behind the boom gates waiting for southbound to open

Was also still open northbound when I passed the Beach Road entrance around 4pm.

[neoballmon]

From DPTI Facebook Page.

The Smith Creek bridge (Reynella), the tallest bridge in South Australia (28 metres high) is nearing completion.

[85trainfan]

Night works have commenced along the expressway, with a 7:15 (1915) to 6am (0600) closure suplimenting the 930 to 3:30 (1530) closure. is this so they can accelarate works and have a shiny new road ready for the election? or has our heatwaves causiing some lost work days?
i noticed coming home the other night that the work lights were lighting up the cuting walls through the darligjton escarpment, simimilar to the way the south eastern freeway walls are. this looked really great with the different colors of rock highlighted in an otherwise dark area. i hope this is done when the expressway is finished.

[Archer]

Night works have commenced along the expressway, with a 7:15 (1915) to 6am (0600) closure suplimenting the 930 to 3:30 (1530) closure. is this so they can accelarate works and have a shiny new road ready for the election? or has our heatwaves causiing some lost work days?
i noticed coming home the other night that the work lights were lighting up the cuting walls through the darligjton escarpment, simimilar to the way the south eastern freeway walls are. this looked really great with the different colors of rock highlighted in an otherwise dark area. i hope this is done when the expressway is finished.

The night works have been going on for a while now, can't recall exactly when it started but might have even been pretty much since they came back from the Christmas shutdown. I suspect they knew they were behind schedule, even before the heatwaves and the night works are to try and still manage to have it ready by the original opening date of Mid year. Looking at what they still have to do, they are no chance for completion before the election. I think they may even still struggle to meet the mid year timeline.

[neoballmon]

I believe the main reason for the night closures was for resurfacing the old roadway, as the day closure c is probably not long enough, and construction vehicles are constantly traveling across the road. I can't verify this and haven't been on the expressway for a few weeks so don't know how much they've resurfaced at this stage.

[Archer]

I believe the main reason for the night closures was for resurfacing the old roadway, as the day closure c is probably not long enough, and construction vehicles are constantly traveling across the road. I can't verify this and haven't been on the expressway for a few weeks so don't know how much they've resurfaced at this stage.

I'm not sure if the night closures are being used for the resurfacing or not, at least not up until now. From what I have seen driving on it in the last couple of weeks I would say not. For 2-3 weeks now the entire length of the existing roadway has had it's surface chewed up (apart from sections that had already been patched, mostly at the northern end) ready for a new surface to be laid. To date the only section to have any new surface is from the southern end almost up to Honeypot road, which I think was done either last weekend or Monday or Tuesday Night. This morning the new surface was right up to Honeypot road, so perhaps they did get some done last night.

[Rene]

I think they may even still struggle to meet the mid year timeline.

Very true - I drove past the other day and noticed that the Honeypot Road bridge still needed spans in place. Similarly the Flaxmill Road bridge is a little further advance with some spans in place, but I doubt if either will meet their projected March 2014 finish date. As has been discussed elsewhere there is still a lot to do over the next 4.5 months...

[neoballmon]

Just went along the expressway (3pm, so much for the weekend closure until 8pm), and I noticed there are a lot of what I thought to be magnetic sensors to monitor traffic volumes..

I started taking notice not long before the sherrifs road intersection, but I saw 2 before sherrifs road, one between the exits, about 6 between sherrifs road and Panalatinga road, then a good dozen or so between panas and marion road, with one more between Marion and South.

I can't see why more than 1 is necessary in each segment (I would have thought 9 along the whole expressway) and can't work out why they have 20+. Are they monitoring particular Lane usage? Or do these serve some entirely different (or additional) purpose?

[Aidan]

It's because if a breakdown or collision occurs they want to know about it ASAP.

[neoballmon]

By noticing congestion/lack of movement over the sensors? Makes sense, thanks.