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

[Archer]

Notification this morning for closure of Marion Road, although it's a bit short on details of what the closure is actually for. From what I saw driving past on the weekend I would guess work on the foundations for the new central support pier.

Marion Road Closure
I am writing to advise that Marion Road will be closed at the Southern Expressway from 7.30pm Friday 21 June until
5.30 am Monday 24 June 2013 for interchange works for the Southern Expressway Duplication project.

Throughout the closure Marion Road will be closed at Sturt Road. Motorists can detour via Sturt Road to Diagonal Road or Main
South Road. Marion Road will also be closed at Main South Road and motorists can detour via Main South Road and Seacombe
Road. Entry/exit of the Southern Expressway will be via Main South Road.

Should these works experience delays due to technical issues or wet weather, it may also be necessary to close Marion Road
overnight on both Monday and Tuesday 24 & 25 June from 7:30pm to 5:30am. Motorists will be advised by variable message
signage of these additional closures.

Advanced warning signs will be used to notify road users of these closures and all detours will be clearly marked.
Pedestrian and cyclist access will be maintained across Marion Road throughout the works.
Some bus stops and services will be affected during the closure. Please refer to the Adelaide metro website for further details.
Residents may notice some noise from these overnight works - from machinery, trucks and the diesel powered mobile
lighting towers that will be used to light the work area during the night.

Please note that the Southern Expressway will also be closed over the same weekend, from 10pm Friday 21 June until 6pm
Sunday 23 June 2013. The Veloway will remain open.

If you have any concerns, questions or require any further information about these works please don’t hesitate to contact the
project team by email at [email protected] or by calling 1300 626 097.
The project team thanks you for your patience and understanding during these important infrastructure works.

[Archer]

Variable Messages boards are now up around Elizabeth Road advising of the Re-opening of the Elizabeth Road bridge, Friday 21st of June at approximately 4pm.

[neoballmon]

A few new progress shots from the weekend.

The Elizabeth Road bridge opened on Friday afternoon, around 12:30PM from what I heard, so a few hours earlier than planned.

Unlike the O'Sullivan Road bridge, it does look like this one is complete when opened; sidewalks are all operational and nothing fenced off.


The weekend closure of the expressway also allowed the 2 southern pedestrian paths (Perry and Ponzan? Never knew which bridges were which) to be placed back in.
Southern-most bridge


2nd Southern-most bridge



These are nowhere near pedestrian-ready, as the surrounding cage hasn't gone up yet, and I dare say they're not even paved yet, and the western side wouldn't connect to a path. I dare say they'll be open again in the next couple of months.

[Archer]

Passed over the Flaxmill Road Bridge today and I was suprised to see Variable Message Boards up Advising of the closure of Flaixmill Road from July 13th until Jan 2014.

I would have thought they might have left this until they had beach road closer to completion and with greater capacity. Flaxmill road would be much busier than the likes of Elizabeth Road, I suspect this closure is going to have a much larger impact on traffic in the area than Elizabeth road did. Even with O'Sullivan Beach road being open again now I think Beach road is going to be Chaos due to the direct links with Flaxmill Road as most traffic will likely try to use this route.

Also, Beach Road traffic is due to be moved to the new northern bridge span by the end of the month, the round about has already been modified to accomadate this.

*Edit: corrected Flaxmill road closure start date.

[rhino]

sidewalks are all operational and nothing fenced off.

We call them footpaths here. You've been paying too much attention to American TV!

[neoballmon]

sidewalks are all operational and nothing fenced off.

We call them footpaths here. You've been paying too much attention to American TV!

Haha thanks for that.


As for Flaxmill Road's closure, I don't think it will be to bad on Beach Road (with exception to the first few days, like with any closure), as O'Sullivan Beach Road will probably be the prefered detour for most heading west, as there is no straight route between Flaxmill and Beach that side of the expressway.

The real problems will come for Beach Road once Honeypot Road closes I think, as Beach Road is the only detour that is relatively close to the closure. So I'd say they're waiting to finish Beach Road more for this.

[Archer]

sidewalks are all operational and nothing fenced off.

We call them footpaths here. You've been paying too much attention to American TV!

Haha thanks for that.


As for Flaxmill Road's closure, I don't think it will be to bad on Beach Road (with exception to the first few days, like with any closure), as O'Sullivan Beach Road will probably be the prefered detour for most heading west, as there is no straight route between Flaxmill and Beach that side of the expressway.

The real problems will come for Beach Road once Honeypot Road closes I think, as Beach Road is the only detour that is relatively close to the closure. So I'd say they're waiting to finish Beach Road more for this.

Interesting that you consider those travelling west on Flaxmill road, but not those that may want to travel East. In the East bound direction, there is no access to O'Sullivan's Beach Road before the express way. The only option is to go back to Dyson road and down to O'Sullivan Beach road from there, or take Morton Rd to Either Elizabeth Road or Beach Road. Elizabeth road will allow you to bypass the Beach Road bridge works, but getting from Elizabeth road onto Beach road can be a nightmare in itself at peak times.

I had hoped that they may try to accelerate the Beach Road works and delay the closure of Flaxmill Road and Honeypot road until Beach Road was nearly complete. This would have provided a greater capacity Beach road to cater for the additional demand. As it is now I suspect that Beach Road will still have major works and restrictions happening come December/January when they have to close Honeypot Road in order to have any chance of having it all finished on schedule. Perhaps the plan is to have Flaxmill finished by then to try and help alleviate the additional pressure on Beach Road as they know Beach road won't be finished when they have to close Honeypot?

I'll tell you, I'm glad I'm moving out of the area, as I agree, the Honeypot road closure will cause real problems.

[Archer]

Beach Road Traffic has this afternoon been moved to the new northern Bridge.

[neoballmon]

I'm not one to complain about changed traffic conditions, I understand it all has a purpose, but what they've done to Sherrifs road westbound is ridiculous and mind boggling.
They've gone from 4 lanes, 2 straight, 2 for right turns to Brodie North, down to 3 lanes (understandable), but it's only 1 for straight and 2 for right turns, onto a road that merges to a single Lane after 50 metres. Why the middle Lane isn't marked at straight AND right is confusing. Most people are going straight from that Lane anyway.


Also, Flaxmill Road is bow closed over the bridge, and works are being undertaken on the roundabout with Brodie Road. I'm unsure whether this is linked with the Expressway project, or if the City of Onkaparinga have waited until traffic had been decreased to do the work.

[Archer]

I'm not one to complain about changed traffic conditions, I understand it all has a purpose, but what they've done to Sherrifs road westbound is ridiculous and mind boggling.
They've gone from 4 lanes, 2 straight, 2 for right turns to Brodie North, down to 3 lanes (understandable), but it's only 1 for straight and 2 for right turns, onto a road that merges to a single Lane after 50 metres. Why the middle Lane isn't marked at straight AND right is confusing. Most people are going straight from that Lane anyway.

I agree this is confusing and far from ideal.

Also, Flaxmill Road is bow closed over the bridge, and works are being undertaken on the roundabout with Brodie Road. I'm unsure whether this is linked with the Expressway project, or if the City of Onkaparinga have waited until traffic had been decreased to do the work.

I was discussing the Flaxmill Road bridge closure with a Colleague the other day and they made the point that they couldn't understand why it was being closed at all. They thought that Flaxmill Road bridge should have been duplicated, allowing the existing bridge to be in operation during the construction of a new bridge and then moving traffic across, much like has been done at beach road. This would allow for the removal of the only section of Flaxmill Road that is not 2 lanes in each direction.

It makes sense to me, I can only assume it wasn't done now due to cost? Obviously not doing it now doesn't prevent it from being done in the future but was it ever considered as a part of the Expressway duplication?

[85trainfan]

I was discussing the Flaxmill Road bridge closure with a Colleague the other day and they made the point that they couldn't understand why it was being closed at all. They thought that Flaxmill Road bridge should have been duplicated, allowing the existing bridge to be in operation during the construction of a new bridge and then moving traffic across, much like has been done at beach road. This would allow for the removal of the only section of Flaxmill Road that is not 2 lanes in each direction.

It makes sense to me, I can only assume it wasn't done now due to cost? Obviously not doing it now doesn't prevent it from being done in the future but was it ever considered as a part of the Expressway duplication?

Was budgeted for in the original plans (As per Request from the Emergency services who get held up in this section a lot of the time). But when the budget time came it was cut to save some money.
It would make sense to duplicate this short section now, Plus the Bridge. But we can't have common sense occurring now, could we
The works at the Brodie Rd/ Flaxmil Rd roundabout are part of the expressway work. SEM contracting is the company chosen for this work. Onkaparinga Council usually do most of their own work.

[neoballmon]

I was discussing the Flaxmill Road bridge closure with a Colleague the other day and they made the point that they couldn't understand why it was being closed at all. They thought that Flaxmill Road bridge should have been duplicated, allowing the existing bridge to be in operation during the construction of a new bridge and then moving traffic across, much like has been done at beach road. This would allow for the removal of the only section of Flaxmill Road that is not 2 lanes in each direction.

It makes sense to me, I can only assume it wasn't done now due to cost? Obviously not doing it now doesn't prevent it from being done in the future but was it ever considered as a part of the Expressway duplication?

Look at the mess Beach Road is in. That has to be left open as it's an access point to the expressway. I'd imagine even if they were widening the bridge, they would close Flaxmill Road. Its a much cheaper way to do it, and the response to other closing bridges hasn't been completely horrible, so they'd rather just close it anyway.
But unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case and we'll have to live with the single Lane.

Was it 2 lanes, right to the roundabout before the expressway was built?

[Aidan]

I was discussing the Flaxmill Road bridge closure with a Colleague the other day and they made the point that they couldn't understand why it was being closed at all. They thought that Flaxmill Road bridge should have been duplicated, allowing the existing bridge to be in operation during the construction of a new bridge and then moving traffic across, much like has been done at beach road. This would allow for the removal of the only section of Flaxmill Road that is not 2 lanes in each direction.

It makes sense to me, I can only assume it wasn't done now due to cost? Obviously not doing it now doesn't prevent it from being done in the future but was it ever considered as a part of the Expressway duplication?

Look at the mess Beach Road is in. That has to be left open as it's an access point to the expressway. I'd imagine even if they were widening the bridge, they would close Flaxmill Road. Its a much cheaper way to do it, and the response to other closing bridges hasn't been completely horrible, so they'd rather just close it anyway.
But unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case and we'll have to live with the single Lane.

Beach Road is a mess because it's an access point for the Expressway. But if Flaxmill Road were to be duplicated, there wouldn't be any great saving from closing it.

Was it 2 lanes, right to the roundabout before the expressway was built?

I think that section has always been one lane each way, but I'll check.

[Archer]

I was discussing the Flaxmill Road bridge closure with a Colleague the other day and they made the point that they couldn't understand why it was being closed at all. They thought that Flaxmill Road bridge should have been duplicated, allowing the existing bridge to be in operation during the construction of a new bridge and then moving traffic across, much like has been done at beach road. This would allow for the removal of the only section of Flaxmill Road that is not 2 lanes in each direction.

It makes sense to me, I can only assume it wasn't done now due to cost? Obviously not doing it now doesn't prevent it from being done in the future but was it ever considered as a part of the Expressway duplication?

Look at the mess Beach Road is in. That has to be left open as it's an access point to the expressway. I'd imagine even if they were widening the bridge, they would close Flaxmill Road. Its a much cheaper way to do it, and the response to other closing bridges hasn't been completely horrible, so they'd rather just close it anyway.
But unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case and we'll have to live with the single Lane.

Beach Road is a mess because it's an access point for the Expressway. But if Flaxmill Road were to be duplicated, there wouldn't be any great saving from closing it.

Was it 2 lanes, right to the roundabout before the expressway was built?

I think that section has always been one lane each way, but I'll check.

From South Road to the roundabout is 2 lanes each way, from the roundabout to just the East of the Expressway (including the bridge over the Expressway) is single lane each way. From just after the Expressway bridge right out to Dyson Road is 2 lanes each way. To my memory, it's always been this way.

[wilkiebarkid]

I think that section has always been one lane each way, but I'll check.

From South Road to the roundabout is 2 lanes each way, from the roundabout to just the East of the Expressway (including the bridge over the Expressway) is single lane each way. From just after the Expressway bridge right out to Dyson Road is 2 lanes each way. To my memory, it's always been this way.

That's correct. I grew up in Christie Downs and it was always a talking point as 'another' unfinished road project. 4 lanes from Dyson road then narrowed to 2 lanes for a few hundred metres before the Brodie road roundabout and then 4 lanes to Main South Road. They had already cut away from the hill to provide for the continuation of the other lanes, however they never finished the job. 30 years+