19 July 2010

Molonglo roadworks kick off next month

| johnboy
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Chief Minister Stanhope has announced that Kenoss Contractors will be starting work next month building the roads for the new conurbation of Molonglo:

The ACT Government is moving forward with the development of the Molonglo Valley with work starting in August on stage two of John Gorton Drive – the main arterial road connecting the new suburbs of Wright and Coombs…

“The works include the construction of 1.3 kilometres of road, bus lanes in each direction and cycle lanes,” Mr Stanhope said. “It is part of a $55 million investment by the ACT Government for new roads and infrastructure in the Molonglo Valley, which will eventually be home to about 55,000 Canberrans.”

The road will be constructed from the new T-intersection on Cotter Road to an interim connection with Uriarra Road.

Service roads will also be built to provide access to the adjacent residential estates.

Gungahlinistas will be pleased to learn that the GDE duplication is also expected to go out to tender next month, and to be awarded in October.

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RIP Deeks Singltrack…………

The tender for the duplication of the GDE between the duplicated bridges was in the CT last weekend or the weekend before.

Didn’t a lot of people boycott the sales seeing the developer raised the price from the said 310k price to over 400k?

The LDA obviously just wants to make us much kmoney as possible, instead of releasing more land and quicker to decrease land costs. It’s the old high demand high costs because the release is to slow, so bring on more land, more land less demand lower prices, simple LDA

Whats the bet this road will be built as single lane each way, only for them to decide in 3 months after it has been completed that it should have been built as double lanes each way and start the road works all over again.

It’s like the government looked at a map of canberra and said ‘Look there’s one place in the ACT that doesn’t have traffic jams and where, having finally rebuilt post bushfires everyone’s still reasonably happy … the Weston Creek / Stromlo area … so let’s stuff it up by closing their schools, and taking over their recreation spaces and well functioning roads by cramming the area full of densely packed in, treeless suburban sprawl inhabited by the SUV driving, credit addicted hyperconsuming brigade, and builders’ utes’.

‘Yep, sounds like a plan!’ says Andrew Barr. ‘The area could use one or two or three Supabarns too’.

There are some good things about Molonglo — the pond, more bus services and presumably the easter half of Cotter Road (already choked with traffic at peak times) will finally be upgraded to four lanes. But to me it seems like the whole thing is being driven by a desire for more revenue from land sales rather than sensible town planning. Just look at how much the land in Wright and North Weston is being sold for! The govt should have put its money where is and focused on high and medium density, on the centrally located N Weston site anyway. Instead we have inappropriate high rise redevelopment in existing suburbs, angering locals, and hideous lowrise suburban development on centrally located greenfields sites that would have been perfect for apartments or town houses. Talk about mixed messages! Only one thing that explains this contradiction — addiction to the developer dollar, and maximising revenue.

Seriously, how many contractors can their be to do Road works at any one time?
Hopefully one of the criteria is the ability to do the works NOW, not after their done building X extension over there, and Y duplication over here, etc etc etc.

Seems we’ve got projects going on in all parts of the place!

I’ve just realised how much this will suck when heading off for a nice bike ride out brindibella way. From Belco it will add time and reduce fun roads.

And I might have to stop taking Coppins Crossing road on my way to work in Woden.

marcothepolopony10:57 am 19 Jul 10

The ACT Government is……. ‘moving forward’ ……..The hackneyed phrase of the moment.
And will most of this proposed traffic be traversing the already overused Cotter Road?

can the gubment just finish our roads before they start something new?

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