State Govt releases South Road study ‘overview’
The State Government has released an “overview” of the much-awaited South Road planning study and its outcomes.
The 29-page document, given to InDaily by the Government this morning, provides a justification for the Government’s decision to prioritise for upgrade a section of South Road, from Torrens Road to the Torrens River.
The Government’s move came as the RAA today repeated its call for the State Government to release its planning study into South Road, as new questions emerged about the coordination of Adelaide’s transport system.
The Premier Jay Weatherill promised in May that the planning study would be released after he announced a major upgrade of a key northern section of the South Road corridor.
Questions arose about how that particular section was prioritised for funding, with the Federal Government’s most senior transport bureaucrat revealing that the idea to upgrade the Torrens Road to Torrens River section of South Road was the State Government’s idea.
A spokesman for transport minister Tom Koutsantonis said today the document released to InDaily was “an overview of the South Road planning study and its outcomes with a focus on the Torrens-to-Torrens project”.
“The document is being made available to members of the public from Sunday as part of the next stage of the community engagement and consultation process,” he said. “The document provides an outline of the two phases of the South Road Planning study – preliminary concept planning of the entire 9-kilometre length between Regency Park and Anzac Highway and the more detailed concept planning of the T2T section.”
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The document argues that the priorities for South Road’s upgrade had been based on traffic analysis and “guided by the location of the most significant bottlenecks” that cause the greatest delays to traffic.
Based on this approach, the Gallipoli Underpass and the Glenelg Tram Overpass were the first to be constructed, followed by the Superway project.
“Planning efforts were then directed towards Darlington where long delays were being recorded at Sturt Road,” the document says.
This was the Darlington interchange project promised by the State Government before the last state election and then all but scrapped in 2011.
The document says “in February 2011, Australian Government funding made possible a major planning study of alignment options for the non-stop South Road”.
“The study identified the highest priority based on traffic delay and road safety was from Torrens Road to the River Torrens,” the document says.
It was this project that was announced for major upgrade by the Federal and state governments in May, with the state Opposition crying foul over the abandonment of an upgrade at the Darlington end, which has been supported by federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
It is yet to be seen whether the release of this brief overview will satisfy transport experts, such as the RAA’s Mark Borlace. who said today that the motoring group’s latest congestion study highlighted the need for significant upgrades of the remaining sections of South Road.
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He said the Government needed to release the South Road planning study, which outlined “the overall strategy for the completion of the remaining upgrades to the north-south corridor”.
“This latest report on congestion along South Road makes it clear that significant upgrades are needed for the remaining sections of South Road between Wingfield and Darlington, to provide a smooth run along this major transport route,” he said.
In late May, a spokesman for transport minister Tom Koutsantonis told InDaily that a major South Road study had been completed in December 2011.
“The Government is committed to releasing the planning study to the public in a format that won’t compromise future tender and contract processes,” he said.
Borlace released travel time data today showing South Road was at its slowest in 10 years.
He blamed a “knock on” effect from bus priority lanes, introduced on Anzac Highway between West Terrace and Leader Street, in November last year.
“This year it took an additional 3 minutes and 21 seconds to travel between the Gallipoli Underpass and West Terrace than it did in 2012. This translates into an average speed reduction of 9km/h,” Borlace said.
Travel on the entire section of South Road surveyed – from Majors Road in O’Halloran Hill, turning onto Anzac Highway and finishing at West Terrace – now took almost nine minutes longer than last year.
Average speeds for both the morning and afternoon peak periods are at their lowest in a decade, running at 21km/h and 29km/h respectively.
“It’s congestion issues like this that shows why an overall transport plan is needed for Adelaide,” he said.
“Following the Federal Government’s funding injection back in March, we look forward to seeing a complete transport plan before any more bus lanes are added to the network.”
InDaily reported in March that the Federal Government had provided $2 million for the State Government to produce a transport plan. The plan is expected to be released for public consultation later this year.
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