Building over Adelaide Railway Lines.

[Wayno]

How about development on these two car parks, over the top of the O-Bahn track? The State Government presumably owns the land. They require the provision of x-thousand park-and-ride spaces as payment for right to develop. The state gets a free car park and we get a new high rise.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&g ... iwloc=addr

Would developing over rail lines be cost beneficial? i like AtD's idea of giving "free elevated land over rail tracks" to Developers, but only if the public realises true benefits (such as a free park-n-ride, parklands, playgrounds, child care centre perhaps).

[Somebody]

Decking over a rail line and using it for a bloody carpark would be such a waste.

[AtD]

Decking over a rail line and using it for a bloody carpark would be such a waste.

I was thinking of it as a source of public revenue. The park-and-ride I mentioned is already pay parking.

[Aidan]

I've been thinking about this and come up with this idea:
1. Rebuild Goodwood station between the Royal Show and Keswick Barracks

Bad idea! Goodwood station is currently well placed - all it needs now are tram platforms!

and with 4 passenger tracks, and lower all the tracks

The costs of lowering the tracks would be enormous, but the benefits would be negligible!

(and yes fix the stupid drains too).

I presume by the stupid drains you mean Keswick Creek, but what do you mean by fix?

There are various improvements that could be made to Keswick Creek, including getting rid of the concrete, widening, destraightening, and construction of a flood control channel between it and Brownhill Creek to enable some of the water to be diverted during the heaviest storms. But none of these would make it compatible with lowering the tracks. You seem to want to change the elevation level, so how do you intend to keep it flowing?

2. Move Keswick station further south so as to be closer to GWA passenger (train) terminal.

ITYM further NORTH.

3. Connect new Keswick station to GWA terminal via overhead bridge and ramps.

If you do that then it won't need moving - just go from the other end of the platform.

The new Goodwood station would be in a cutting with overhead bridges and ramps, the remaining area could be built over.

You don't need to put something below ground level just to build over it.

If Keswick Barracks were closed this would be a good location for a new stadium or high rise.

I expect it's only a matter of time before Keswick Barracks closes and the Army moves to Elizabeth. And when it does, Keswick Barracks will be an ideal site for high rise development. But as a stadium site it's a non starter - it's nowhere near as good as Thebarton Barracks.

[AtD]

Keswick Station generates far more passengers by being next to Greenhill Road than it ever would by being next to the Parklands Railway Terminal. There's several offices around Greenhill Road, and sweet fuck all around the terminal. Not to mention the terminal receives next to no traffic...

[Somebody]

^ What he said. The terminal receives as little as one train on some days, and about two or three on the busiest.

Far more potential patronage could be obtained from the surrounding area, and from bus transfers than the GSR terminal which is dead most of the time. Build a new footbridge connecting to there.

I don't actually think Keswick is a bad choice of site if you wanted to use rail's air rights - on both sides of Grenfell Road too. One S-A member recently suggested Nurlutta as a candidate for such development on another site, and personally I disagree.

[adam73837]

Would it be possible to sink the passenger railway lines near Keswick? Understood it would be difficult to do so with the interstate freight lines, but if it were possible to sink the passenger lines, say from Wayville to the Marj site, Adelaide would gain a huge amount of inner city land for civic developments (stadiums), hotels and residential, all on public transport routes. No idea of the security or engineering issues, sadly.

If it is possible, I think that that would be an Excellent idea! I think... Norman (correct me if I'm wrong) said on another forum that he could see that area becoming similar to the Melbourne Docklands and I couldn't agree more!
Having that entire area with apartments, hotels, etc. would be fantastic, especially due to the fact that it is well served by public transport already, and if a tram were to be built to the airport from the city, well... need I say anymore. It would also effectively bring the railway terminal closer to the city (however relocating it to the Adelaide Railway Station and shifting the metro trains somewhere else -as Norman proposed, would undoubtedly be even better, but I'd be happy with either).