30 January 2013

Andrew Wall goes to bat on the Drakeford Drive overpass

| johnboy
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New member for Brindabella is kicking off by asking what the problem is with the peelings pedestrian bridge over Drakeford Drive:

“Large sheets of peeling paint can be seen falling off the bridge onto the road and the bridge itself – this is another example of a poorly finished infrastructure project overseen by ACT Labor,” Mr Wall said.

“Canberra tax payers have paid $6 million for this footbridge, which is quickly turning into an eyesore. For that money it is fair to expect a higher standard of work than can be seen today.

“Time and time again we have seen the ACT Government fail in infrastructure delivery.

“With school students returning over the next couple of weeks, the government has an obligation to ensure this project is complete and safe for users. The paint peelings, some the size of dinner plates, may pose a major traffic hazard if left unattended any longer.

I would say the bridge is becoming less of an eyesore as the garish orange disappears in favour of primer grey.

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Baggy said :

It took you 13 minutes to walk 500m? Also, traffic would have been going at 80kmph on only one side – the southbound lanes would be the turning lane, not traffic continuing at 80kmph.

That sounds about right – rule of thumb for adult walking pace is 4km/h, small kids would be a fair bit slower, and allow about 3 minutes waiting for the lights to change.

Paint peeling or not (which is poor and the responsible government should make the accountable contractor remdy), I’m glad that kids are not put at risk through keeping them away from Drakeford drive. May save some pushing of the buttons (impacting traffic lights possibly impacting traffic flow?).

I hope the kids have the good sense to use the walkway.

This was a sensible move by the government (I am surprised to say) and lets hope it is out to good use.

Baggy said :

puggy said :

Baggy said :

I’ve never understood the reasoning behind that bridge – after all, there is a perfectly good set of traffic lights with pedestrian access only 250m up the road…

As you will no doubt be reminded by others, primary school aged kids and major intersections aren’t a desirable mix.

As a parent myself, I have taught my child the importance of road safety, and at intersections, to hang back from the road while waiting for the little green man.

Should we now expect a similar bridge be built across northbourne, to cross from dickson to lyneham?

I’m afraid I just can’t bring myself to see this being a sensible use of $6m.

I know that it’d be dreadful if a child were to be collected there, but that can happen at any intersection. Call me heartless and a child-hater, I just think that there are better uses for $6m.

If Northbourne was an 80km/hr road with a small median and the same level of children crossing then yes, I would expect them to build something similar.

Baggy said :

puggy said :

Baggy said :

I’ve never understood the reasoning behind that bridge – after all, there is a perfectly good set of traffic lights with pedestrian access only 250m up the road…

As you will no doubt be reminded by others, primary school aged kids and major intersections aren’t a desirable mix.

As a parent myself, I have taught my child the importance of road safety, and at intersections, to hang back from the road while waiting for the little green man.

Should we now expect a similar bridge be built across northbourne, to cross from dickson to lyneham?

I’m afraid I just can’t bring myself to see this being a sensible use of $6m.

I know that it’d be dreadful if a child were to be collected there, but that can happen at any intersection. Call me heartless and a child-hater, I just think that there are better uses for $6m.

I think the biggest difference between the two is that there a huge median strip on Northbourne where a large number of kids just out of school can safely stop at between crossing the east and west lanes of Northbourne. The area for large groups to stop in the middle on Drakeford is tiny in comparison.

Kids will cross in groups and it’s not safe to have boisterous groups of children waiting in the middle of Drakeford drive during peak hour. Even if the lights on both sides are timed to allow kids to walk the entire distance, there’s still going to be some getting caught after the red man has reappeared.

It probably didn’t start out at 6 million

puggy said :

Baggy said :

I’ve never understood the reasoning behind that bridge – after all, there is a perfectly good set of traffic lights with pedestrian access only 250m up the road…

As you will no doubt be reminded by others, primary school aged kids and major intersections aren’t a desirable mix.

As a parent myself, I have taught my child the importance of road safety, and at intersections, to hang back from the road while waiting for the little green man.

Should we now expect a similar bridge be built across northbourne, to cross from dickson to lyneham?

I’m afraid I just can’t bring myself to see this being a sensible use of $6m.

I know that it’d be dreadful if a child were to be collected there, but that can happen at any intersection. Call me heartless and a child-hater, I just think that there are better uses for $6m.

Baggy said :

I’ve never understood the reasoning behind that bridge – after all, there is a perfectly good set of traffic lights with pedestrian access only 250m up the road…

As you will no doubt be reminded by others, primary school aged kids and major intersections aren’t a desirable mix.

Baggy said :

It took you 13 minutes to walk 500m?

Yes, that’s why the bridge is so great. Without kids I’m sure I can do it in 7 minutes but I have the feeling that kids were in mind when building this bridge. Also, lawnmowers were part of the design spec. I suspect its actually benefiting you by speeding up the morning commute for northbound commuters since the light cycle isn’t having to include pedestrians into the cycle as often.

neanderthalsis1:40 pm 30 Jan 13

dungfungus said :

JC said :

Who knows what has caused it, but I ask Mr Wall how he and his Liberal team would have prevented this? I mean to say it isn’t like members of the government are on the building site or in the factory overseeing every little bit of constructions. Maybe there is a public servant giving oversight but clearly regardless of who is in government they would be the same people so why would they be any different if their masters were Labor or Liberal?

The true test will be if the Minister responsible through his/her department will hold the contractor responsible to account to fix it up at zero cost to the territory. If they don’t then yes, by all means have a winge Mr Wall.

It is pettyness like this that prevented me from voting for Liberals. You whinge whinge whinge but never say how you would do something differently.

PS Wonder why the Libs haven’t jumped on bandwagon and blamed the Government for the stalled bridge construction on the Parkes Way widening project due to the company doing it (under contract to the prime contractor) going under. Would have thought that would have been perfect fodder for them, again despite there being nothing the Government could have done any differently without a crystal ball.

Re: the Parkes Way “stalled” construction. You should refer your query to the CFMEU as they control all constructions in the ACT one way or another. The exception is the job at the Chinese Embassy precinct.

And don’t the Come F*^k Me Union hate the fact that they don’t control that one.

Ya can’t win when your a pollie can you?

Put out a press release on something and your a pathetic whinger, don’t put out a press release on something and your asleep at the wheel.

What’s that saying? Oh yeah, haters gonna hate.

pink little birdie1:03 pm 30 Jan 13

Baggy said :

obediah said :

We live opposite this bridge. Its awesome! Used to take 13 minutes to walk from my house to the Namadgi school when taking the kids across at the lights. It now takes just 3 minutes! Standing with your little ones on that traffic island in the middle with cars going 80kmph on either side of you felt quite unsafe. People are using that bridge in droves and an entire side of our neighbourhood has become infinitely more accessible.

It took you 13 minutes to walk 500m? Also, traffic would have been going at 80kmph on only one side – the southbound lanes would be the turning lane, not traffic continuing at 80kmph.

Southbound the cars are going 80 it’s just before they slow down for the intersection. Students don’t cross there during the southbound peak hours. Northbound is slightly slower but harder to cross because of right hand turns of parents dropping the children off at the school and turning north onto Drakeford and Northbound peak traffic in the morning.

JC said :

Who knows what has caused it, but I ask Mr Wall how he and his Liberal team would have prevented this? I mean to say it isn’t like members of the government are on the building site or in the factory overseeing every little bit of constructions. Maybe there is a public servant giving oversight but clearly regardless of who is in government they would be the same people so why would they be any different if their masters were Labor or Liberal?

The true test will be if the Minister responsible through his/her department will hold the contractor responsible to account to fix it up at zero cost to the territory. If they don’t then yes, by all means have a winge Mr Wall.

It is pettyness like this that prevented me from voting for Liberals. You whinge whinge whinge but never say how you would do something differently.

PS Wonder why the Libs haven’t jumped on bandwagon and blamed the Government for the stalled bridge construction on the Parkes Way widening project due to the company doing it (under contract to the prime contractor) going under. Would have thought that would have been perfect fodder for them, again despite there being nothing the Government could have done any differently without a crystal ball.

Re: the Parkes Way “stalled” construction. You should refer your query to the CFMEU as they control all constructions in the ACT one way or another. The exception is the job at the Chinese Embassy precinct.

futto said :

No pictures? You would think there would be some evidence in the press release. This makes me think the problem isn’t that bad.

Don’t you read The Chronicle? It’s free you know. The photographic evidence of the paint peeling off is on the front page.

Or we were talking about it last year.

pink little birdie12:57 pm 30 Jan 13

Basically anyone in the Taylor PS and North Village creek catchment area crosses there. Drakeford drive used to be crossed there by students walking to Kambah high from the area off Marconi and and North end of Summerland. The path from Maniheim street ends up at around that area. Walking all that extra distance was annoying and added 10 minutes to walking (cycle of the lights included).

Because the school has 2 primary schools (Namadgi and Taylor ) there at the moment and it’s safer for all students and drivers than crossing 6 lanes of traffic. the high school students were probably going to cross there anyway. Lots of students did for the 12 years my family went to Kambah High.

Baggy said :

I’ve never understood the reasoning behind that bridge – after all, there is a perfectly good set of traffic lights with pedestrian access only 250m up the road…

Danger to kids crossing the intersection was the reason. I think it’s necessary, the last thing you want is kids crossing an 80km/hr road in that location.

obediah said :

We live opposite this bridge. Its awesome! Used to take 13 minutes to walk from my house to the Namadgi school when taking the kids across at the lights. It now takes just 3 minutes! Standing with your little ones on that traffic island in the middle with cars going 80kmph on either side of you felt quite unsafe. People are using that bridge in droves and an entire side of our neighbourhood has become infinitely more accessible.

It took you 13 minutes to walk 500m? Also, traffic would have been going at 80kmph on only one side – the southbound lanes would be the turning lane, not traffic continuing at 80kmph.

We live opposite this bridge. Its awesome! Used to take 13 minutes to walk from my house to the Namadgi school when taking the kids across at the lights. It now takes just 3 minutes! Standing with your little ones on that traffic island in the middle with cars going 80kmph on either side of you felt quite unsafe. People are using that bridge in droves and an entire side of our neighbourhood has become infinitely more accessible.

Clearly something has gone wrong with the paint on the main support. Apparently this was trucked in from the manufacturer in Adelaide (with the paint on). I can only think that it was some new painting method they were experimenting with that hasn’t worked out how they hoped. I’m sure the Territory will get it fixed at no cost since it would be hard for the manufacturer to defend the work. In fact I’m guessing it will be Woden Contractors that will do the negotiation to ‘finish’ their job by redoing the paint work. If Andrew would like to ‘go in to bat for us’ I suggest he holds the government to maintaining this bridge in good graffiti-free condition in the coming years rather than picking on a minor teething problem.

Who knows what has caused it, but I ask Mr Wall how he and his Liberal team would have prevented this? I mean to say it isn’t like members of the government are on the building site or in the factory overseeing every little bit of constructions. Maybe there is a public servant giving oversight but clearly regardless of who is in government they would be the same people so why would they be any different if their masters were Labor or Liberal?

The true test will be if the Minister responsible through his/her department will hold the contractor responsible to account to fix it up at zero cost to the territory. If they don’t then yes, by all means have a winge Mr Wall.

It is pettyness like this that prevented me from voting for Liberals. You whinge whinge whinge but never say how you would do something differently.

PS Wonder why the Libs haven’t jumped on bandwagon and blamed the Government for the stalled bridge construction on the Parkes Way widening project due to the company doing it (under contract to the prime contractor) going under. Would have thought that would have been perfect fodder for them, again despite there being nothing the Government could have done any differently without a crystal ball.

The grey/black looks so much better, I think they should just peel all that stupid paint off

I had to write to my local member in regards to the play equipment at Chapman Oval – paint was peeling off that too, no primer underneath. The problem being that little kiddies could easily peel off the paint and eat it. Was actioned within a week after my letter. Win.

No pictures? You would think there would be some evidence in the press release. This makes me think the problem isn’t that bad.

I’ve never understood the reasoning behind that bridge – after all, there is a perfectly good set of traffic lights with pedestrian access only 250m up the road…

paint was peeling off within weeks of opening – not primed perhaps?

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