GDE Duplication

illyria. don’t feel guilty about not using public transport, it is not an option for many people in the community who will always have to rely on personal transport, or at least until their situation changes. Mothers with a brood of kids, people who’s jobs require frequent commuting in the course of a day, self employed tradespeople etc. etc.

gee IemaChet, things were so tough in your day….. did you have to do all that barefoot?

illyria: How are all the ‘working families’ meant to get themselves to work and their numerous offspring to child care, school, sport, music lessons, swimming lessons, birthday parties, or carry groceries for 6 people all utilising the ACTION bus network.

My parents only ever had one car. In fact, to this day, my mother still doesn’t have a license. My dad used to take the car and drive to work in woden. In the rain, I’d catch a bus. In not rainy weather, we’d walk to school, or ride the bike. That’s about 2K each way by the way. And this was with a bunch of family day care kids also.
my older brother used to ride/walk to school. my younger brother used to ride/walk to school.

THe sports practice I had as a young kid, I used to catch the bus to a friends house, with ac ouple of other friends, and walk the 1.5K to training, then be dropped home by another parent. Weekend sporting games, sure, we’d be taken and watched by mum and dad, in the car. it was convenient the way separate games were staggered, but if necessary, he’d take one of us, take theo ther, come back and pick us up.
we’d then all go shopping together.

so don’t give me this bullshit that its NOT POSSIBLE without a car. I recognise that in some instances and circumstances, it’s not possible. But in many, it IS, you jsut need to suck it up a bit.

tap said :

Illyria: Thats cool, a lot of people don’t 😉

I hope blueberry explained it better. In regards to the truck from QBN to canberra is worse than cars from canberra to canberra, sure. If Woolworth QBN is the only woolworths that delivers, that has to be changed. All Woolworths and Coles should deliver. That way a truck from Belco delivering to the belco region will be better for the environment than 5 cars driving from their homes to belco and back.

‘Give me convenience or give me death’ – Dead Kennedys

Queanbeyan Woolies isn’t the only homeshop, it also runs out of Tuggeranong Woolies. The former services north and the latter south. There were also a couple of stores that used to run home delivery for the old dears in the neighbourhood up to about a year ago, and ended because they major problems finding someone to provide the service for the stores.

Anyway if Stanhopeless didn’t cut the budget for the road in the first place we would most likely have a duel lane road running by now, but because he didn’t we’re left with merging bottle necks and also entry points and exits to the glenloch which remain exactly the same as the old road funnily enough with exactly the same problem. The traffic jam is now moving down parkes way because they haven’t dealt with the roundabouts near the pool, anzac parade and in campbell.

Thumper, some IGA supermarkets still do home deliveries

It wont be too long until ‘working families’ simply cant afford to drive everywhere anyway

Have to disagree. Petrol is not the largest expense when owning a car. For those of use who buy cars new (or new-ish), depreciation is. And don’t forget that about a million brand new cars are sold every year in Australia (1 for every 20 or so humans), so it’s not like new cars are rare. When you’re shelling out several tens of thousands of dollars for a car, often with interest costs as it’s bought with borrowed money, a few hundred bucks extra a year for petrol isn’t really that much. Add to that insurance, rego, servicing and tyres and petrol is really a minor component.

Of course, for people who drive unregistered pieces of junk that are 20 years old, it could be more of an issue. Given that Canberra has above average incomes, I’m a bit surprised people fuss so much about petrol prices. I filled both cars last night at a cost of about 170 bucks, but ultimately that cost is the result of personal decision making.

Looking at the GDE recently, I was wondering how much of the cost could have been spared if we didn’t have so much mess just so the GDE had Aranda access.
Would it have killed anyone to have gotten to Aranda via Bindubi Street?
I reckon it would have cost at least $10m for all those extra bits.

P1: your proffered connection between Gungahlin Drive and the Federal Hwy is already on the drafting board. The last budget announcements included construction of an extension of Sandford Street to the east past the Bimberi juvenile detention centre to Federal Hwy north of EPIC. They probably had to do this anyway to upgrade the dirt track currently servicing Bimberi, but the effect will be to give southsiders a smooth bypass of the entire northside and Civic on your way out of town to Sydney.

Similarly, Wells station Drv will also be extended to Horse Park Drv, given a smooth route between Gungahlin Drive and the new suburbs like Forde and Bonner without having to go through the Gungahlin town centre.

Back on topic – is it a shock to anyone that a ‘good news story’ such as actually fixing up the design flaws on GDE was announced, roughly the same time as our beloved Chief Minister and his most senior staff were backpeddling afterbeing caught lying to an estimates committee?

Its Iemma Politics 101 – divert attention away from problems with shiny trinkets (or plans for things that will never go ahead)

Internet Woolies grocery shopping does come from Qbn – I guess this could be ‘greener’ than each family doing their own, if they do several people’s deliveries per trip. Last time I looked it was $12 for the privilege.

Hippo: There are – Meredith Hunter in Ginninderra, Shane Rattenbury in Molonglo and Amanda Bresnan in Brindabella.

Illyria: Thats cool, a lot of people don’t 😉

I hope blueberry explained it better. In regards to the truck from QBN to canberra is worse than cars from canberra to canberra, sure. If Woolworth QBN is the only woolworths that delivers, that has to be changed. All Woolworths and Coles should deliver. That way a truck from Belco delivering to the belco region will be better for the environment than 5 cars driving from their homes to belco and back.

‘Give me convenience or give me death’ – Dead Kennedys

>Tap, how is getting my groceries delivered better for the environment? The truck that >delivers them has a bigger carbon footprint than my car.

It can make a big difference beacuse they deliver all the orders in one go this means they can plot out a round trip to all the deliverys in the area and do them all in one go. For example if they are doing for example 20 orders to the belconnen area that is 20 two way trips to the mall turned in to 1 loop that is probably the equivilent of 3 people making that trip.

Tap, I am sorry but I am not following your logic. The truck still does 5 or 6 trips between houses, same as the 5 or 6 people would do in their single car.

Woolworths in Qbyn delivers in Canberra but 5 trips from Qbyn to Canberra in a truck is far worse for the environment than people driving their car to their local supermarket.

Anyway, this is getting off topic.

I will continue to drive my car, as that is the most convenient thing for my family as it exists today.

I also use my dryer in winter. I am a bad person who clearly should be shot.

Thumper: Im not sure, I know a friend in western sydney (with 2 kids no car blah blah) gets his groceries delivered from Woolworths… Maybe its not in canberra?

GregW: I hope you’re right. What you’re saying is no fact though.

Illyria: I didn’t say it was, I said it was a way of managing your groceries without you using a car. But I spose instead of one delivery per truck, the truck could deliver many lots of groceries, meaning that while it would pollute more than one car, its doing the job of say 5 or 6 cars, so is an environmental gain. The same way busses are good for the environment.

Something is going to have to be an option apart from a car when petrol prices are too high. They aren’t going to go down… So if not busses, then some kind of mix between maxi taxis and busses will have to be implemented.

“It wont be too long until ‘working families’ simply cant afford to drive everywhere anyway.”

Nonsense, the price of petrol will only rise so far before alternatives, in particular renewables, become viable, and since many alternatives are sustainable the price of transportation will never rise beyond the reach of most people (in real terms). Why do you think the Arabs are talking about increasing oil supply? We should be increasing the excise on petrol and using it to pay for public transport, feed-in tarrifs etc..

Tap, how is getting my groceries delivered better for the environment? The truck that delivers them has a bigger carbon footprint than my car.

Wherever I go, I have three children under school age and 2 (often more) of school age that are backwards and forwards to things every day. Buses are not an option for me. Ever.

My husband rides his bike. I cant fit three child seats on mine.

Illyria: It wont be too long until ‘working families’ simply cant afford to drive everywhere anyway. So maybe its time to start looking for other solutions than cars and build more roads. So how about you lessen the naysaying, and start thinking about how good it would be if it were possible to for ‘working families’ to get themselves to work and their numerous offspring to child care, school, sport, music lessons, swimming lessons, birthday parties, or carry groceries for 6 people all utilising the ACTION bus network. Or light rail.

Its not so long ago that the majority of australians didn’t have cars, it is possible to survive without them. (Get your groceries for 6 delivered for instance)

Neanderthalsis – LOL! Ah, if there is a cynic bone, your post hit it! ‘random lump’s [1] of steel together . . . J Stanhope Memorial Drive . . . ‘

[1] genuine Canberran’s apostrophe

@illyria: way to go overboard. Lamenting a useful public transport does not equate to a desire to use public transport as one’s sole mode of getting around. Get over yourself.

I use a bike, a car and public transport. I’d use public transport more if it was more accessible. Yes I have a family.

Geez, when are you greenies ever going to get it that public transport does not work if you are not a single person. How are all the ‘working families’ meant to get themselves to work and their numerous offspring to child care, school, sport, music lessons, swimming lessons, birthday parties, or carry groceries for 6 people all utilising the ACTION bus network.

In a practical sense, buses and light rail will never suit the majority of the population.

Face it, people need cars, the road needs fixing.

Gee – road issues, not enough lanes, too many cars, people who cant merge…. Maybe if we had a bus system that worked (or heaven forbid, a light rail system) we could overcome some of these problems.. not to mention be better for the environment.. Are there any Greens standing in October now Deb’s pulled the pin???

GregW, Never put in this year’s budget what you can get away with putting in next year’s.

From what I’ve heard, the road priorities within the ACT are determined primarily on what they can get Federal co-funding for. So the airport’s gunna get worked on before GDE.

As swissbignose stated the road was to be developed in two stages due to financial constraints. I don’t have a source but I have been told that the additional cost would have been $90 million at the time of construction, or nearly $300 million in a decades time.

I would have thought it would have been cheaper to borrow the money and build it in one go, given the inevitable capacity problems and overhead of building in two stages. And it should have always been planned as a three lane road given Gungahlin’s eventual population will be something like 70,000? people..

My personal problem with the GDE, (apart from the fact it is single lane each way), is that it doesn’t go anywhere. Living in Belconnen as I do, I find that it is useful for heading out of the city to the north, but once you get to the Barton Highway, you still have to join Northbourne Ave and push through several sets of lights before hitting the open road. I propose this addition which would make the currently useless GDE (unless you wanted to go to Gungahlin (but that’s pretty unlikely) of benifit to the majority of Canberrans.

Instead of making the road 2 lanes, we should be looking longer term and making it 3 lanes each way. This road is a major arterial road, and its use will continue to grow as Canberra grows. Sucking it up and paying for a proper upgrade now means we could use future monies to upgrade other major roads to a similar level.

I use the GDE daily – Gungahlin to City. The only parts that are congested in the mornings are the merge lanes coming onto the GDE.

People drive too close to the car infront, and this doesn’t allow for a smooth merge (ie cars come to a halt trying to squeeze into the small spaces). If cars already on the GDE left space between them and the car infront, then the cars that are merging, have a space to slip into. This inability to merge and bumper-to-bumper problem then creates a back-up of traffic for miles.

But noooo, Canberra drivers have to sit on your ar@e and not allow other cars to merge quickly and successfully.

If everyone left a decent gap to allow for other merging vehicles, and stayed at a decent speed, the merging would go smoothly and traffic would not be as congested for miles while the d!ckheads ahead try to maneouvre their pathetic merging skills.
Common sense.

They do need to duplicate the section where traffic from Belconnen Way merges onto Gungahlin Drive but will Canberran’s let you change lanes if you end in the wrong lane……as one will head south and one lane will head to civic……

The real questions should be more like “If the southbound GDE is two lanes all the way, will the three eastbound lanes of Parkes Way be sufficient to cope with six lanes worth of traffic from Belconnen, Gungahlin and Tuggeranong?”

The ‘art’ along that road really is ridiculous isn’t it. lol.

Why not a big mural of martin Luther King saying ‘I have a dream’ (saw one in sydney years ago, awesome) or something equally awesome instead of random leftovers from a building site glued together?

PS Not really a fan/undestander of modern sculptures (if thats what it is called).

They also need to duplicate the section from where traffic from Belconnen Way merges onto Gungahlin Drive (southbound) up to the exit to Parks Way. It’s only a short distance and would make a big difference in peak hour. That is a major bottleneck and often causes traffic to slow to a crawl all the way back to Ginninderra Drive and beyond!

The WIN story did say duplication (inferring the whole road), but it wasn’t borne out by the comments from the TAMS official in the story. What they’ll be doing, in a matter of months apparently, is duplicating that atrocious section of GDE (southbound) where the traffic from William Hovell merges into one lane for about 200 metres before joining onto the Parkway.

The mystery is why they didn’t see that as an issue i the original design concept stages.

Time to break out the tools and start welding random lumps of steel together, they will no doubt be looking for new art work to install along the J Stanhope Memorial Drive.

Didn’t the costs of fighting all the legal challenges eat into the project budget?

Meanwhile, what I heard on the news is that they were going to duplicate part of the new road. Which doesn’t make much sense to me – if there’s still a choke point, it will still cause chaos.

From what I remember, the plan was always that the the GDE was going to be developed in two stages. The reason for this was that the ACT Government didn’t have the financial resources at the time the decision was made to do two lanes each way in one hit.

It’s been designed so that it can be expanded to two lanes in both directions.