My Adelaide Road & Rail Plan

[Straze]

Thanks Aidan for your comments, i live up in the northern suburb near Elizabeth but i go down South quite often on the bus. I have been on the Scania Artics many times it can take a bit of power to get up that hill on the Southern Expressway near Darlington but its manageable thought. The Jumbo railcars have good power of 1000hp i am sure the new electric railcars would have around the same or more so they should be able to go up the hill okay. I have also considered a station at Trott Park, most of the stations that i propose would be close to main roads, Old Reynella will be at the current bus interchange.

[Straze]

The intersection of Main North Road, Grand Junction Road and Port Wakefield Road at Gepps Cross is one of Adelaides busiest intersections, everyday thousands of vehicles use it including cars, commercial, buses and freight, i have witnessed and experienced long delays and traffic jams. For example i was waiting for my bus during peak time and it took around 5 minutes to get through the junction let alone get into the bus zone. I have looked at many options for what could be done here, this is the best one - constructing a underpass from the west side of Grand Junction Road to the east side and an overpass from the south side of Main North Road to the north side, this idea i think would work well in reducing travel times for the majority of traffic. Of course land surrounding would have to be bought and cleared to make way for the grade separation and the side lanes for Port Wakefield Road and turning traffic.

[pushbutton]

I agree that busways would make more sense and be more interesting and innovative than tramlines. I would have thought they'd also be a whole lot cheaper to build as well as there's no need for overhead cables to be installed. It's a lot more flexible too as the buses can run on normal roads as well as the busways, and of course they're also much faster and therefore more efficiently get people around.

However, it seems the SA government has made up their minds that trams are the future of Adelaide public transport, and to be fair they do work well in lots of cities around the world and at least they are doing something in terms of building new transport infrastructure now, after endless years of doing nothing, so I must give them credit for that.

[Straze]

Adelaide Hills Busway

The Adelaide Hills region is growing especially the Mount Barker area which is growing at quite a fast pace, during peak hours Glen Osmond Road can become slow due to the traffic jams along the section between the City & Glen Osmond, I have been looking at the possibility of a busway due to unlikelihood of trains ever making it up the hill due to cost or the indirect corridor provided at present. The busway would start at the Hutt Road/Glen Osmond Road intersection whereby it would run underneath Glen Osmond Road between the City & Glen Osmond it would then come up to ground level in the median strip of the South Eastern Freeway near the old tollgate where the buses would merge with existing freeway traffic. The busway would have a lane in each direction. The existing 861 bus route would be extended to Crafers so that passengers requiring stops along Glen Osmond Road can transfer at a safe place.