2 September 2010

Barton highway taking longer than expected

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times has the unsurprising news that the Pollyannas at the Barton Highway bridge collapse site have once again had their sunny optimism disappointed.

Roads ACT had hoped to reopen the highway this weekend after contractors finished demolishing what was left of the bridge and clearing away debris.

But after a meeting with lead contractor Abergeldie and WorkSafe ACT, Roads ACT director Tony Gill said yesterday the job was taking longer than expected.

”Obviously the collapsed bridge on the northern side of the Barton Highway wasn’t too difficult to remove,” Mr Gill said.

”But they’ve encountered more resistance from the concrete on the southern side.’

Who’d have thought?

They’re now aiming to have it open on 11 September. Not the most auspicious of dates.

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Oh. My. God. What a freakin surprise. Next thing they’ll try to shock us with news that morning traffic causes frustration to many motorists.

I don’t claim to know anything about it, but is there any chance that the surface of Barton Hwy will be messed up by (what was) wet concrete binding to it?

I’ve got $50 in it not being reopened before Monday 20 September, unless they just open a messed up bit of road with concrete mounds and massive potholes – but we’re starting to get used to that quality of road surface anyway.

Oh, and just a note for TAMS – opening the bus lane on Flemington Road has done nothing to ease traffic as the roadworks at the Sandford Street intersection are causing a bottleneck about 200m BEFORE the bus lane. By the time you finally get past the workers there’s no benefit to having the additional lane.

Who the hell put Cletus in charge of Roads ACT?

Hells_Bells7412:33 pm 02 Sep 10

“Are they going to dump the twisted metal from the bridge up next to that other lot of twisted metal?”

“Close – they’re actually dumping it at the bottom of that same hill.”

At least this scrap will have some logical meaning to us. I would rather they leave that or just lump the lot together in a big pile as a constant reminder of a very strange era indeed.

Fer cryin’ out loud, the bloody thing had already mostly demolished itself – how much more work was there to do?

”Obviously the collapsed bridge on the northern side of the Barton Highway wasn’t too difficult to remove,”

…I don’t really see how it’s obvious that the collapsed half, where nothing is where you expected it to be and everything’s probably very unsafe is easier to remove than the mostly intact half… Considering how badly everything has gone wrong so far, I think it’s a bit rich of him to claim that anything about it is “obvious” at this point. Personally, I would have considered it “obvious” that you need to brace the damn thing so that it doesn’t fall over when you pour concrete on it, but I guess I was wrong.

Are they going to dump the twisted metal from the bridge up next to that other lot of twisted metal?

Close – they’re actually dumping it at the bottom of that same hill.

Steve_Pedestrian10:38 am 02 Sep 10

Are they going to dump the twisted metal from the bridge up next to that other lot of twisted metal?

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