9 August 2011

Hindmarsh and Melrose. Upgrades to the intersection.

| johnboy
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Territory And Municipal Services have announced the start of Stage Two of the Hindmarsh Drive / Melrose Drive intersection:

“A $432,884 contract has been awarded to local company Simeonov Civil Engineering for the second stage of works to commence this week.

“Stage two works will concentrate on the south eastern corner of the intersection and will include various improvements for pedestrians and cyclists as well as the realignment of the left turn slip lane to make it safer. The slip lane will be closed to all traffic and only vehicles less than 12.5 metres long will be able to turn left. Longer vehicles will be detoured via Botany Street.

“During this 16 week project, alternative route signage for westbound vehicles on Hindmarsh Drive will be in place as well as pedestrians and cyclists where required.

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Theres a street in Kambah that has a foot long and almost as high protrusion thats been marked with a spray can but been left there for weeks.

When they fixed the water main leak they didnt do anything for the road and its now risen up.
I gather its mainly the busses that rip up parts of the suburban roads. Similarly this happened with the bus interchange in civic.

It will be interesting if they fix this or just patch it and end up with a hole later on!

mareva said :

dpm said :

They have ‘resurfaced’ (i.e. put down some sticky stuff then spread loose rock over the top!) my suburb a couple of times in the last 10 years, when they really could have put our taxpayers money into more worthwhile projects as there wasn’t a major prob with it either time.

I’m pleased to learn we have a civil engineer in our midst.

Spoken by someone who works at, or is somehow involved in, TAMS I imagine! Hahahah! Sorry, didin’t mean to rattle your cage.
I notice you only commented on one bit of my post. Does that mean you agree with the rest?
Anyway, I stand by that comment. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have taken a civil engineer to determine that my quiet surburban loop street didn’t really need ‘resurfacing’. As I said, I would have preferred they employed the extra workers that did it onto other projects – like finishing the GDE earlier! Or any one of the other roadworks that were more urgent. There’s still a few ‘blackspot’ road in Canberra…..

dpm said :

They have ‘resurfaced’ (i.e. put down some sticky stuff then spread loose rock over the top!) my suburb a couple of times in the last 10 years, when they really could have put our taxpayers money into more worthwhile projects as there wasn’t a major prob with it either time.

I’m pleased to learn we have a civil engineer in our midst.

Now that the intersection is upgraded has anyone noticed the additional traffic? As someone who regularly travels home via this way, with the new lights comes new timing. Travelling from east to west of an evening it is clear that the timing is holding up hundreds of cars. On Wednesday I crawled from the CIT building and could see on several occasions green lights all the way to Melrose Drive …

Something needs to be done … it is atrocious

P.S. went home a different way since …

Having to drive through that intersection every day, I can say that these guys aren’t working hard at all.I am not an expert road upgrades, but judging by the work they have done so far-it was possible to have it done in 2 weeks, not drag it for 6 weeks.And they still have a while to go yet.WTF, Simeonov?? Get your act together!!

Thoroughly Smashed said :

How dare the government upgrade the roads!

I’m all for them doing improvements/upgrades to roads, but I just wish they’d focus on fewer projects at a time, and put more resources into them to get each done quicker. At the moment, it seems they are spread too thin and each upgrade seems to take an eternity.

Also, some of the works over the years seem a bit confusing as to their merit. e.g. They have ‘resurfaced’ (i.e. put down some sticky stuff then spread loose rock over the top!) my suburb a couple of times in the last 10 years, when they really could have put our taxpayers money into more worthwhile projects as there wasn’t a major prob with it either time. Sometimes I think they originally increased the ‘road’ workforce quite a lot to do some project years ago, and then have had to invent work for them to do to keep them all employed….?

Thoroughly Smashed9:07 am 10 Aug 11

How dare the government upgrade the roads!

BicycleCanberra said :

You read more about this intersection upgrade here

http://bicyclecanberra.blogspot.com/2010/11/cycle-safety-at-intersections.html

This intersection will be a nightmare for pedestrians and cyclist trying to cross to the town centre, and increasing the lengths of the slip lanes will do nothing to relieve congestion. Having less traffic relieves congestion.

I’d suggest that it’s highly likely that it will relieve congestion if the left northbound lane is getting backed up by a large number of cars waiting to turn. A longer slip lane will allow more cars to get through the intersection while the lights are green, and also give more cars the opportunity to turn left when there’s a break in westbound traffic. I also don’t see how this will be a nightmare for pedestrians – it looks pretty much the same for them, except for the phased pedestrian crossing lights.

That said, I can see some merit your point regarding safety for cyclists. I’ve never been a fan of on-road cycle lanes that cut through slip lanes, but at least there should be fewer cars cutting into the bike lane while waiting to turn left.

BicycleCanberra said :

increasing the lengths of the slip lanes will do nothing to relieve congestion.

I’d disagree – I can’t comment on this intersection specifically, but I’ve seen plenty of instances where congestion at an intersection would be alleviated by longer slip lanes (though usually for right hand turns). A combination of too many cars in the slip lane spilling out onto the main lanes preventing reasonable flow of through traffic, and likewise a length of cars waiting at the red to travel through preventing access to the slip lane for vehicles that would otherwise have been able to turn during that cycle of the lights. Each of these compounds the other.

Simple efficiencies like this have the potential to immensely reduce congestion.

BicycleCanberra4:46 pm 09 Aug 11

You read more about this intersection upgrade here

http://bicyclecanberra.blogspot.com/2010/11/cycle-safety-at-intersections.html

This intersection will be a nightmare for pedestrians and cyclist trying to cross to the town centre, and increasing the lengths of the slip lanes will do nothing to relieve congestion. Having less traffic relieves congestion.

smiling politely4:26 pm 09 Aug 11

It has been a bit weird there with not a lot seeming to be going on, but this particular bit of roadwork is needed – at peak times that left hand lane on Melrose Dr going north gets backed up way down past the intersection with Eggleston Cr. So putting in the slip lane will ease that bit of congestion and make it loads easier for people heading west along Hindmarsh Dr and north through the intersection itself.

What a blatant waste of money and a terrible inconvenience for motorists at one of the busiest intersections in Canberra. This type of wasteful spending happens close to budget time when the shinybums discover they haven’t spent all their money and they have to do something – anything – to spend it out of fear their allocation for the next year will be cut. This project started in April, just over a month before the budget.

These roadworks seem to have been going on for months, and they seem to have done exactly nothing for the bit theyve worked on.

Maybe the path concrete looks newer, and some of the linemarking is new, but it looks more like a 1 week job for a single contractor than a 4 month project worth nearly half a million dollars.

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