Adelaide Gaol rail/bus hub

[stumpjumper]

Transport planning used to look forward half a century. Now it seems to have become the changeable product of the effects of election year preferences, NIMBY pressure groups and battles between local candidates, when instead the needs of the whole polis should prevail.

In an imaginary South Australian world (governed by statesmen instead of opportunist politicians who act in response to today's survey results, and with a responsible media of record rather than the present mixture of partisan press releases barely edited by opinionated cadets hoping for a job in the media big time - the government's vast propaganda arm) the following could happen, over say 25 years...

Adelaide Gaol is perfectly situated to become Adelaide's passenger transport interchange. The standard gauge interstate line could pass one side, and the broad gauge local lines the other. No heavy lines would go to the city from the interchange. Instead, a light rail shuttle double line would leave the gaol and travel along the edge of the scarp in front of UNISA on North Tce. The shuttle line would continue underground along North Tce (a cut and cover excavation) and would emerge at Hackney to continue south along Hackney Road and along the path of the old O-Bahn. The O-Bahn, while funcrtionally successful, has serious limitations on its expansion. The O-Bahn is probably an evolutionary dead end, and presently occupies its route as something of a dog in a manger, denying other forms of transport use of the corridor.

The shuttle route would also connect with the Glenelg tram and any proposed northern extension.

Next to the old Gaol is the Thebarton Police Barracks. This facility is seriously underused by SAPOL, who I understand would leave if it were not for the requirements of the mounted police. The solution there would be to relocate the mounted police at Vicotira PArk, where tehy could co-exist with the relatively infrequent meetings of the SAJC and invited country clubs. Apart from a few heritage-listed buildings which could be adaptively re-used, most of the buildings at the barracks could be demolished.

The Police Barracks would then become SA's major bus interchange. A bus terminal is basically open space, so the recently developed Franklin Street bus terminal would simply be redeveloped. No big loss there.

A multi-level parking station would have to be built at the former police barracks.

Considering the present sitation where the interstate rail terminal is at the SW corner of the city, with the bus terminal on expensive land near the CBD and the passenger terminal a long trot away on North Terrace, to physically connect all three at some point, together with easy access to the airport transport route, is logical and desirable. The present set-up is inherently inefficient and no-one in their right mind would put it foraward on a greenfield site as the best solution.

Consider also, the need to plan 50 years ahead. What will the patterns of transport look like then? Will private road transport still be paramount? Will aviation still be the normal interstate transport of the masses? After all, we've gone back to trams.

Look back to when air travel was financially out of reach of most, and perhaps farther back to when owning a private car was also too expensive for most. The same effects could be created by financial or other restrictions on the use of fossil fuels, and then the gaol interchange proposal would be even more useful.

The possible rise in the price of fuel without a cheaper alternative is only one scenario among many. However, I contend that to link local and interstate rail with bus transport is a good solution for almost any scenario, and that there is no better place to do it than at the former Adelaide Gaol site.

[Norman]

Add in a stadium next to the interchange and I'm sold.

[stumpjumper]

I wish I were selling it Norman. I agree about the stadium.

The city's best stadium site may have come and gone (for the time being anyway). I'm talking about the Perry Engineering and assocaitesd sites at Mile End, which ahve recently been cleared and redeveloped basically as bulky goods outlets.

That land ticks almost every box for a stadium: there's enough land; limited residential neighbours so lighting and noise isn't so much of a poblem; close to the city (and the Adelaide Gaol transport node if it were built); there's already a sportsfield and a stadium (ETSA) nearby.

So what did we do? We went for the short term cash (ie give up the land for bulky goods.

We could start again. At least those buildings are only tilt-up. The leases might be the most expensive part to demolish.