12 years after it was first floated, government says Athllon Drive duplication 'remains on track'

It all began in 2012 AD, when then opposition leader Zed Seselja popped a sweetener into the mix ahead of the ACT election. He would champion the duplication of Athllon Drive, and ease the weekday choke point between Woden and Tuggeranong.

He ended up losing to ACT Labor’s Katy Gallagher, but four years later her party also judged it a good idea and came to the 2016 election with a $141 million promise to duplicate Athllon Drive between Sulwood and Drakeford drives (and upgrade Gundaroo Drive in Gungahlin).

Another four years came and went, until mere months out from the 2020 election the ACT Government released the first “concept designs” and an estimated price tag of $75 million for the project.

This covered the three kilometres of single carriageway between Shea Street and Melrose Drive in Phillip and the section between Sulwood Drive and Drakeford Drive in Kambah.

Then Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS) minister Chris Steel said it would cut “at least two minutes off travel times for morning commuters on the R4 and R5, making our public transport system more efficient and reliable”.

He added that more than 14,000 vehicles travel on Athllon Drive per day, including nearly 2000 per hour in the peak periods.

The NRMA agreed it was a worthy project.

To make it all official, signs were installed along the road in March 2020 that read: “We are duplicating this road”.

In the 2022-2023 budget, the Federal Government tipped in $46.7 million. By then, a TCCS spokesperson said the concept designs had been “finalised” and “we will be commencing a detailed design for the project later this year”, expected to take around 18 months.

In November, it reached the next stage with the release of a tender.

Mr Steel added: “We remain committed to delivering the duplication of Athllon Drive. The project supports Canberra’s integrated transport network in meeting the needs of future population growth and supporting a sustainable ACT for all Canberrans”.

The upgrade included additional bus lanes and bus stops and “active travel and intersection improvements” to support the new Woden bus depot. Then there’s the fact light rail is also destined to come down this route at some point.

But Mr Selselja, an ACT senator by then, was less than impressed.

“The ACT Labor-Greens consistently delay and fail to deliver on promises to the people of Tuggeranong in favour of Barr’s pet projects and, quite frankly, Tuggeranong residents are tired of these false promises,” he said.

Now, well into 2024 and with an ACT election looming, we have another update – the government has revealed “preliminary designs“.

The community has the opportunity to “view and discuss” these designs during two information sessions on 20 May at the Tuggeranong Library and 25 May at Wanniassa Shops, ahead of planning and environmental approval.

By now, it’s more than a road widening.

There’ll be a new shared path running under a new bridge on Sulwood Drive (along with other “improvements” to the C4 cycle path), upgrades to other bridges along the way, part-time traffic lights on the Sulwood Drive roundabout, new traffic lights at the Langdon Avenue, Atkins Street, Vosper Street and Fincham Crescent intersections, and “water-quality measures” to reduce pollution from water run-off into Lake Tuggeranong.

In a statement to Region, TCCS minister Tara Cheyne said the project “remains on track”.

“Construction timing will be confirmed with the successful construction tenderer following the completion of detailed design.”

An ACT Government spokesperson added there were a “number of steps before major construction can commence, including feasibility studies, concept, preliminary and final design, and various stages of procurement”.

“We have been moving through these steps as quickly as possible.”

Time will tell.

Visit the ACT Government website for more information.