PRO: Marion Road Level Crossing Removal Project | $200m

[[Shuz]]

Federal budget to include $200m for nightmare Marion Road bottleneck fix.

It was first flagged six years ago, but Tuesday night’s federal budget will include $200m for a long-awaited upgrade to one of Adelaide’s worst road bottlenecks.

Funding announced in today's Federal Budget. From the Advertiser.

Sounds like they want to grade seperate Marion Road from Anzac Highway, the tram line, and Cross Road, get rid of 3 bottlenecks in 1 project. The cost seems very low though?

[crawf]

Would more than likely include funding from the State Government.

Project Description
The project is to undertake planning for the upgrade of Marion Road. The planning work will look at the grade separation of Marion Road from the intersection of Anzac Highway to Cross Road, grade separation of Marion Road from the tramline to Cross Road and a tramline overpass of Marion Road and Cross Road.

https://investment.infrastructure.gov.a ... 28-16SA-NP
https://dit.sa.gov.au/infrastructure/co ... ning_study

Would rather see those funds directed to the notorious Grand Junction / Main North Road intersection first. That is a key freight route and long been neglected, not to mention also a death trap.

[SRW]

This is is long overdue, and will help with congestion on other major roads. Given the disruption this will cause to tram running, it would be great if they could consider grade separation at Morphett Road at the same time. Though I'm not sure how best to achieve given the tram depot.

[[Shuz]]

Morphett Road isn't a priority.

It would have made more sense to include removal of the Tram / Cross Road level crossing as well - kill four birds with one stone.

[ChillyPhilly]

Pork barreling in a marginal seat.

Agree that while this stretch is awful for all users, there are greater priorities that have been increasingly overlooked for decades.

[mattwinter]

The Advertiser is reporting that it will include grade seperating the tram line at both level crossings, but not grade seperating the road intersections. The Anzac Highway / Marion Road and Cross Road / Marion Road intersections will both get upgrades and extra lanes. My guess is the tram line will be raised for this stretch.

To me this seems like enough to make a big difference to the area without breaking the bank?

[SouthAussie94]

Morphett Road isn't a priority.

It would have made more sense to include removal of the Tram / Cross Road level crossing as well - kill four birds with one stone.

If you're going to grade separate the tram from Cross and Marion, you're going to have to close the tram for a period of time. If you're closing the tram, surely it would make sense to do everything thing you can during the closure. While Morphett Rd isn't a priority, it's still a bottleneck.

[mattwinter]

Morphett Road isn't a priority.

It would have made more sense to include removal of the Tram / Cross Road level crossing as well - kill four birds with one stone.

If you're going to grade separate the tram from Cross and Marion, you're going to have to close the tram for a period of time. If you're closing the tram, surely it would make sense to do everything thing you can during the closure. While Morphett Rd isn't a priority, it's still a bottleneck.

They'd build the bridges next to the existing line right and therefore would probably only need to close the tram for a christmas period or a few weekends or something for the changeover and testing. Doubt that will worry them too much

[[Shuz]]

Similar to the South Road overpass, they probably will just run the tracks either side on-street running along Glengyle Terrace and remove the bikeway temporarily while the bridge gets built in between.

The thing is to grade seperate Marion Road from Anzac Highway and Cross Road will require a serious amount of property acquisition, which would easily absorb the $200m cost alone. Something isn't right with the figure.

[whatstheirnamesmom]

Waste of money, and obvious pork-barrelling by the Fed Gov at the expense, once again, of the legitimate needs of our state. Would rather see $200m put into projects that would actually help ease congestion, like public transport and cycling. This project won't really benefit tram users in the short or long-term.

[mattwinter]

Similar to the South Road overpass, they probably will just run the tracks either side on-street running along Glengyle Terrace and remove the bikeway temporarily while the bridge gets built in between.

The thing is to grade seperate Marion Road from Anzac Highway and Cross Road will require a serious amount of property acquisition, which would easily absorb the $200m cost alone. Something isn't right with the figure.

Have another look - there's no road grade seperation. It's just the tramway being grade seperated

EDIT - the photo posted above is old and from the original planning study. That's not the plan as it stands and as it was reported today

[SBD]

Waste of money, and obvious pork-barrelling by the Fed Gov at the expense, once again, of the legitimate needs of our state. Would rather see $200m put into projects that would actually help ease congestion, like public transport and cycling. This project won't really benefit tram users in the short or long-term.

I wonder if this project should not be seen as a stand-alone project and judged for value for money in isolation. I'm wondering if this is a support project for the north-south motorway work, as this might become either an alternate route or detour, particularly a heavy vehicle detour around works for the northern portal of the southern tunnel, and perhaps for the southern portal of the northern tunnel.

[gnrc_louis]

Waste of money, and obvious pork-barrelling by the Fed Gov at the expense, once again, of the legitimate needs of our state. Would rather see $200m put into projects that would actually help ease congestion, like public transport and cycling. This project won't really benefit tram users in the short or long-term.

I wonder if this project should not be seen as a stand-alone project and judged for value for money in isolation. I'm wondering if this is a support project for the north-south motorway work, as this might become either an alternate route or detour, particularly a heavy vehicle detour around works for the northern portal of the southern tunnel, and perhaps for the southern portal of the northern tunnel.

Lol you can “wonder” all you like about it being part of some grand vision, but the timing means it’s much more likely just an attempt to hold onto S.A’s most marginal seat.

[A-Town]

Waste of money, and obvious pork-barrelling by the Fed Gov at the expense, once again, of the legitimate needs of our state. Would rather see $200m put into projects that would actually help ease congestion, like public transport and cycling. This project won't really benefit tram users in the short or long-term.

There's already excellent public transport and cycling routes to the city in this area, and a tram overpass will only improve the cycling route as a cycling path will run alongside the tram overpass like it does over South Rd. Trams run every 5 minutes to and from the city in peak hour, and these intersections become extremely congested. It remains to be seen how bad things will get when the South Rd upgrade gets underway and more people opt for alternative routes such as Marion Rd.

Removing these level crossings should have been done a decade ago. Calling it 'pork barrelling' is just dumb.

[ChillyPhilly]

Waste of money, and obvious pork-barrelling by the Fed Gov at the expense, once again, of the legitimate needs of our state. Would rather see $200m put into projects that would actually help ease congestion, like public transport and cycling. This project won't really benefit tram users in the short or long-term.

There's already excellent public transport and cycling routes to the city in this area, and a tram overpass will only improve the cycling route as a cycling path will run alongside the tram overpass like it does over South Rd. Trams run every 5 minutes to and from the city in peak hour, and these intersections become extremely congested. It remains to be seen how bad things will get when the South Rd upgrade gets underway and more people opt for alternative routes such as Marion Rd.

Removing these level crossings should have been done a decade ago. Calling it 'pork barrelling' is just dumb.

By definition, it is pork barreling.