[U/C] M2 North-South Motorway

[spiller]

^^ you obviously dont drive torrens to torrens then? I use both Darlington and t2t at different times of the week, but always in peak hour. With the extra heavy vehicle traffic and the horrid state of south road between t2t, it HAS to happen NOW.

Funding is always about compromise, especially when neither gov. has the money to give away at this point. Before everyone says "one way expressway", this new Darlington proposal has some merrit. It might not be "gold-plated" but it will get the job done. For people that have to travel a short distance from Flagstaff Hill or Sturt Road, bad luck. Those are short distances. North-South development is about funneling traffic North-South. It's the bigger picture. We can't have an exit at every possible arterial road.

[Howie]

As above ^^ Could not come soon enough.

I was concerned about how dangerous the section of the road is between Torrens and Port Road, especially after the young truck driver from Regency lost his life when he crashed into the stobie pole not that long ago. Or when a powerline was brought down by a truck. Theres four lanes (two each way) with only two usable for trucks.

Though i'm a little disappointed that there is no overpass at the Torrens/South Road intersection which would stop events like the one in February (car smashes into torrens road pharmacy) from happening. Or this one (car smashes into Torrens road McDonalds). RAA and the state government have rated this intersection a high priority blackspot, so i'm hoping that with most of the north-south traffic being diverted underground the chances for accidents will be greatly reduced.

[rev]

This is a shocking proposal and absolutely cheap and nasty way of doing the Darlington section. There were a number of options which I have seen - all of which would have cost at least $1b -$1.5b and actually solved traffic problems in the area, with a considerable number of free-flowing on and off ramps to major intersections - no traffic lights. This option just simply exacerbates the Flagstaff Hill / Marion Road bottleneck moves the Southern Expressway bottleneck down to the Ayliffes Road intersection.

At least if the State Liberals had been elected, we would have got a 'gold-plated' Darlington, instead of this shocking proposal.

Not happy at all.

Maybe if the State Liberals had been elected, we would have got a 'gold-plated' Darlington .... but we'd have no Torrens to Torrens.
Given fiscal realities .... I'd rather have both TtT and Darlington (even if Darlington is dumbed down) instead of a gold-plated Darlington only.

Again with the "I've seen this, seen that"? Really now, share some more information, details. For a change Shuz.
What are the number of other options that you've seen?

Here's the two possibilities of what would have happened under a liberal government in this state.
Possibility 1: Over a billion dollars would have been spent on Darlington. Nothing would have been done about T2T, the majority of which doesn't even have a median strip, with stobie poles so close to the road trucks are forced to use the two inner lanes...remember, no median strip.

Possibility 2: The liberals in fact would not spend over a billion dollars on Darlington, but would end up going with a cheaper option, except where Labor has announced both sections will go ahead simultaneously, the state liberal government would only go ahead with a cheaper option for the Darlington section.

I'm no expert on the technical matters on this subject, but has anyone considered that perhaps the Darlington section shown to us, is designed in a way to allow for alterations/expansion in the future when the other nearby sections of South Rd are upgraded?

Or, perhaps, given we are only seeing part of the overall plan for South Road, it doesn't look like it makes sense to do what is shown in those images, but if taken in context with the rest of the plan, would make sense? Come on Shuz, haven't you seen the whole plan yet? You seem to have seen everything else

As above ^^ Could not come soon enough.

I was concerned about how dangerous the section of the road is between Torrens and Port Road, especially after the young truck driver from Regency lost his life when he crashed into the stobie pole not that long ago. Or when a powerline was brought down by a truck. Theres four lanes (two each way) with only two usable for trucks.

x3 The stretch of South Road at Croydon/Ridleyton has been in dire need of upgrading for well over two decades now.
I'm surprised that more people haven't been killed.

Those who don't drive through this section really don't have an understanding of how bad, and dangerous it is.
Anyone who thinks Darlington should be a priority over T2T, I invite you to spend tomorrow or Friday afternoon during peak hour driving through the Croydon/Ridleyton section.

[neoballmon]

x3 The stretch of South Road at Croydon/Ridleyton has been in dire need of upgrading for well over two decades now.
I'm surprised that more people haven't been killed by now.

Those who don't drive through this section really don't have an understanding of how bad, and dangerous it is.
Anyone who thinks Darlington should be a priority over T2T, I invite you to spend tomorrow or Friday afternoon during peak hour driving through the Croydon/Ridleyton section.

It bothers me that this section was even able to be built to this standard in the first place. Granted, traffic volumes have increased since it was built, but trucks have always been the same dimensions, so whose stupid idea was it to put a) a narrow road so close to leaning stobie poles, or b) stobie poles so close to a narrow road? There is room for them to be set back, and this should have been done on the first place! Will be glad to see the end of this horrible stretch next year!

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[rhino]

It bothers me that this section was even able to be built to this standard in the first place. Granted, traffic volumes have increased since it was built, but trucks have always been the same dimensions, so whose stupid idea was it to put a) a narrow road so close to leaning stobie poles, or b) stobie poles so close to a narrow road? There is room for them to be set back, and this should have been done on the first place! Will be glad to see the end of this horrible stretch next year!

This section of road used to have another name (Taylors Road rings a bell) and was never meant to be part of the main north-south route. Even when I was a kid, South Road ended at a stop sign at Regency Road. The main north-south route was meant to somehow reach the Main North Road, which was always meant to be the main road to the north of Adelaide. I would suggest that the route was meant to be South Road - Anzac Hwy - South Tce - King William St - King William Road - Oconnell St - Main North Road. Don't forget that King William Street has always been the widest main street of any capital city in Australia, and when the road network was surveyed, there were no cars.

[[Shuz]]

There are about 20 or so options bandied around with the Darlington section - basically changing the variables slightly for each option;

New roadway west of Main South Road (either in a trench or viaduct);
1a with no on/off ramps to Flinders Drive and Sturt Road and no access to Southern Expressway from the existing South Road.
1b with no on/off ramps to Flinders Drive and Sturt Road and access to Southern Expressway from the existing South Road.
1c with on/off ramps to Flinders Drive and Sturt Road and no access to Southern Expressway from the existing South Road.
1d with on/off ramps to Flinders Drive and Sturt Road and access to Southern Expressway from the existing South Road.

New roadway in the centre of Main South road (either in a trench or viaduct)
2a with on / off ramps to Flinders Drive and Sturt Road and access to Southern Expressway from existing South Road.
2b with no on / off ramps to Flinders Drive and Sturt Road no access to Southern Expressway from existing South Road.
2c with on / off ramps to Flinders Drive and Sturt Road and no access to Southern Expressway from existing South Road.
2d d with no on / off ramps to Flinders Drive and Sturt Road and access to Southern Expressway from existing South Road.

Extension of the Southern Expressway to Laffer Drive/Sturt road intersection;
3a underpass Sturt Road and continue into a new freeway viaduct atop the Tonsley rail corridor
3b overpass Sturt Road and continue into a new freeway viaduct atop the Tonsley rail corridor
3c underpass Sturt Road and continue into a new freeway alignment west of the Tonsley rail corridor
3d overpass Sturt Road and continue into a new freeway alignment west of the Tonsley rail corridor

Then basically options 1 and 2, with regards to the Ayliffes/Main South Road intersection provides an option for;
4a Ayliffes / Main South Road intersection - underpass of Main South Road to South Road.
4b Ayliffes / Main South Road intersection - overpass of Main South Road to South Road.
4c Ayliffes / Main South Road intersection - underpass of Main South Road to Ayliffes Road.
4d Ayliffes / Main South Road intersection - overpass of Main South Road to Ayliffes Road.

[jase111]

Hey just going through various state budget papers from last night there is a project in Brisbane called legacy way project cost 400 million and is 4.6 km long would this be a better option cosidering Darlington is 2.3 km ?

[spiller]

As above ^^ Could not come soon enough.

I was concerned about how dangerous the section of the road is between Torrens and Port Road, especially after the young truck driver from Regency lost his life when he crashed into the stobie pole not that long ago. Or when a powerline was brought down by a truck. Theres four lanes (two each way) with only two usable for trucks.

Though i'm a little disappointed that there is no overpass at the Torrens/South Road intersection which would stop events like the one in February (car smashes into torrens road pharmacy) from happening. Or this one (car smashes into Torrens road McDonalds). RAA and the state government have rated this intersection a high priority blackspot, so i'm hoping that with most of the north-south traffic being diverted underground the chances for accidents will be greatly reduced.

The car crashing into the pharmacy was more so stupidity in poor conditions on the part of the driver (from what I gather). Lucky it took place at 8.30am as it cleaned up a fair part of the inside of the pharmacy and could have likely killed an occupant of the store had it been during business hours.

I agree about the overpass though. Traffic still backs up a bit at this intersection but not near as bad as port and grange rd's (although with the extra cars being fed along the route, perhaps Torrens Rd will become a bottleneck). It's just a bit of a job half done considering they could have cleared the torrens road intersection and then there's a fair stretch to the next major intersection at Regency Rd rd which isnt as congested anyway.

[ml69]

Hey just going through various state budget papers from last night there is a project in Brisbane called legacy way project cost 400 million and is 4.6 km long would this be a better option cosidering Darlington is 2.3 km ?

Legacy Way construction cost is $1.5 billion, not $400 million (check Google next time). Perhaps $400 mil is the Federal Government contribution ... I don't know.

Even then $1.5 billion is quite inexpensive to construct a 4.6km bored tunnel these days. The tunnel is only 2 lanes in each direction.

[AG]

Hey just going through various state budget papers from last night there is a project in Brisbane called legacy way project cost 400 million and is 4.6 km long would this be a better option cosidering Darlington is 2.3 km ?

Legacy Way construction cost is $1.5 billion, not $400 million (check Google next time). Perhaps $400 mil is the Federal Government contribution ... I don't know.

Even then $1.5 billion is quite inexpensive to construct a 4.6km bored tunnel these days. The tunnel is only 2 lanes in each direction.

Quite different areas as well. Legacy Way runs under some dense inner city areas, whereas Darlington is relatively low density by comparison and doesn't really justify a tunnel.

[alexczarn]

More questions than answers at the moment for the Darlington interchange..


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[drsmith]

The scaled down Darlington project looks like it contains a few other bits and pieces for South Road further north,

Improvements to the intersections of Marion Road and Sturt Road, South Road and Daws Road and localised upgrading of South Road through Edwardstown.

http://www.infrastructure.sa.gov.au/sou ... port_study

The information as presented on that link (including the video and PDF) looked to me to be a little rushed.

How it reconnects to South Road at the northern end is also a complete mystery. Perhaps that's a detail not yet resolved. The West has a fresh new project out of the federal budget (Perth Freight Link) which includes Roe8. Beyond the long planned extension to the Roe Highway, the rest of the planning is even less developed.

[how good is he]

Can anyone answer why Torrens Rd wouldn't have an underpass [apart from money]? Does anyone want to hazard a guess how much extra it would cost anyway?
Considering they are spending $886m wouldn't it be chump change to add it?
There would then only be Regency Rd as a main intersection before a clear freeway North.
As mentioned, Regency Rd has enough gap between it and Torrens Rd that it would prevent the bottlenecks likely to happen at Torrens Rd, which would be crazy after spending nearly a $1billion!

[rhino]

I would say that at this point money is the main thing.

From what I have read, when the Torrens to Torrens section was announced, it is not intended to have an interchange at Torrens Road, as there is currently not enough South Road to Torrens Road traffic (and vice-versa) to warrant it. The trench will go straight under Torrens Road, and if you need to access Torrens Road you will need to get out of the trench at an earlier exit and use the at-grade South Road.
Therefore, as far as I can see, the only thing stopping the trench from continuing under Torrens Road at this point is funds.

Of course, induced demand once the trench is in use may change the situation, and when the funds are available it might be the case that an interchange with ramps is required for Torrens Road - we'll just have to wait and see.

[jase111]

From what I have read from the ia site ashwin pde to super way was 1.66 billion in total take out
The torrens to torrens section and leaves the best part of 750 million for the section from hawker street to super way