Why is the Glenloch Interchange surface falling apart?

bundah said :

slashdot said :

Because this government is incompetent?

Why did they design the road so that it goes 90-80-90? Although they lowered the speed limit of William Hovel to 80 because everyone always sped on William Hovel and that caused accidents.

Who thought that was smart?

Please give the assembly a little bit of credit. If nothing else they’ve been very consistent for the past 25 years..

Well, the ginormous Art has proven reasonably reliable, so that’s obviously a massive win for the ACT Ratepayer.

slashdot said :

Because this government is incompetent?

Why did they design the road so that it goes 90-80-90? Although they lowered the speed limit of William Hovel to 80 because everyone always sped on William Hovel and that caused accidents.

Who thought that was smart?

Please give the assembly a little bit of credit. If nothing else they’ve been very consistent for the past 25 years..

Because this government is incompetent?

Why did they design the road so that it goes 90-80-90? Although they lowered the speed limit of William Hovel to 80 because everyone always sped on William Hovel and that caused accidents.

Who thought that was smart?

As impressive is the reseal job at Gungahlin Drive where it intersects with Well Station Road. All looked positive – the old surface was ground down, and hot mix was laid.

From the signs I saw, its about to be redone again tonight. First go lasted less than a week before breaking up into a million pieces.

Whitepointer said :

Lowest tender = lowest quality of work and lowest safety.

The first contractor for this particular project is a repeat offender in Canberra with piss poor work quality who continues to go unpunished and be awarded tenders by our Government.
The amount of problems/defective works associated with the Glenloch Interchange that were identified prior to acceptance by the Government & still remain unresolved are truly disgraceful if only the general public knew!
It really is a joke. The likes of TAMS & Procurement Solutions need a massive greased up stick inserted you know where, & Chief Ministers (both past & present) don’t help the situations by directing those involved to open now & fix later. The taxpayer ends up paying for all of the dodgy work people!!!!
So keep putting your pennies away Canberra because it’s only going to get worse in if there are no repercussions for shoddy work & serious change applied to the tender award system!

…and now we have subsidence on Caswell Drive, just North of Parkes Way.

I wonder how long it will take them to decide to fix it? And how long will it be closed for to fix it?

BimboGeek said :

I just think it’s wonderful how many people here are experts in road construction, materials and so on. I wouldn’t even begin to know the first thing about chip resealing, I thought roads were just asphalt or cement.

Now that I’m educated in the cheap and nasty reseal I can see how it might be useful sometimes but it explains why some roads have big problems very shortly after they are resealed. I often wondered how this was possible. If it’s a very superficial repair, of course certain types of damage won’t be easily fixed by it.

On another note, what’s with all the patches? William Hovel Drive looks like a quilt.

In the case of Glenloch the problem isn’t chip seal, whilst many don’t like seal as a road surface when done over an asphalt road it doesn’t break up like the roads around Glenloch Interchange. The problem at Glenloch is what is under the chip seal, which is a base that I have never seen produce a road surface that lasts a long time. As mentioned they basically mix cement and gravel, compact it as the road base then spray asphalt on and roll on chip seal. Then a few months later the base starts to break and you get potholes and broken road surface.

As for William Hovel are you talking about the bit between Coulter Drive and Bindubi Street? If so then quite clearly you weren’t around when it was duplicated. The patch work effect is because when they duplicated it they used parts of the old alignment (parts form bits of both east and west bound carriageways), but on the old alignment they didn’t resurface. So you have new road, old road, new road, old road etc.

I curse these mongrels every day.

The entrance ramp as you head on to the GDE from the south has a pothole that is more like a pot-trench. I swear it must be 10m long, and the problem is that it’s hard to avoid because you have to take it at speed as you accelerate to merge with the traffic coming from Woden.

Someone is grinning and raking in the cash from us chumps as they bid for their next cockup.

I just think it’s wonderful how many people here are experts in road construction, materials and so on. I wouldn’t even begin to know the first thing about chip resealing, I thought roads were just asphalt or cement.

Now that I’m educated in the cheap and nasty reseal I can see how it might be useful sometimes but it explains why some roads have big problems very shortly after they are resealed. I often wondered how this was possible. If it’s a very superficial repair, of course certain types of damage won’t be easily fixed by it.

On another note, what’s with all the patches? William Hovel Drive looks like a quilt.

Whitepointer said :

Lowest tender = lowest quality of work and lowest safety.

The likes of TAMS & Procurement Solutions need a massive greased up stick inserted you know where, & Chief Ministers (both past & present) don’t help the situations by directing those involved to open now & fix later. The taxpayer ends up paying for all of the dodgy work people!!!!
So keep putting your pennies away Canberra because it’s only going to get worse in if there are no repercussions for shoddy work & serious change applied to the tender award system!

The stick shouldn’t be greased.

JC said :

Related I noticed this afternoon that the new west bound lanes on Parkes way is now in use (with the outside closed to remark the lines), and it appears as if the older lanes on this road won’t be resurfaced, which is another pet hate of mine. I can handle different road surfaces, but not across the road like this. What surprised me though is where the new lane meets the deviation to Belconnen they have made no attempt to straighten out the little kink (bearning in mind Parkes Way used to go towards the south will Belconnen as an exit) and at this point the road surface is shocking. Would have liked to have seen the whole of Parkes way upto and under Glenloch resurfaced. But not to be.

Couldn’t agree more. That little kink is terrible, not least because even now, the old line markings are still visible. At certain times if it’s wet, or if the sun is shining at the right angle, it can be really hard to see which are the right lane markings. Not so bad if you drive the road often, but if you’re not familiar with it it’d come as a rude shock.

There’s an absolutely horrendous pothole on right of the left lane heading north toward Gungahlin. It’s been there for quite a while – could probably do a fair bit of damage if you hit it with a bit of bad luck.

Lowest tender = lowest quality of work and lowest safety.

The first contractor for this particular project is a repeat offender in Canberra with piss poor work quality who continues to go unpunished and be awarded tenders by our Government.
The amount of problems/defective works associated with the Glenloch Interchange that were identified prior to acceptance by the Government & still remain unresolved are truly disgraceful if only the general public knew!
It really is a joke. The likes of TAMS & Procurement Solutions need a massive greased up stick inserted you know where, & Chief Ministers (both past & present) don’t help the situations by directing those involved to open now & fix later. The taxpayer ends up paying for all of the dodgy work people!!!!
So keep putting your pennies away Canberra because it’s only going to get worse in if there are no repercussions for shoddy work & serious change applied to the tender award system!

It’s obviously due to the excessive number of bicycles that use the road.

People who blame sub-standard work are just anti-car alarmists!

thatsnotme said :

The biggest issue is that half the interchange wasn’t resurfaced once construction was complete. Roads that had been patched together were just left that way – so I’m sure there’s a heap of road surface through there that’s way more than two or three years old.

Basically, they decided to never actually finish the job.

Not quite. The way it is, is the way it was planned, so not like they ran out of money or just decided not to finish the job.

The main problem here is the type of road surface the GOVERNMENT asked for. Now those that know me know that I have no issue with chip seal, but these roads were chip seal over what can best be described as road base with cement mixed in and that’s where the problem lies. They have just used this on the Federal Highway Canberra bound on the older part between Goulburn and Collector, though there thankfully they put it over the exiting road, so might have some hope of lasting.

Normally they use this on temporary roads, like Horse Park Drive, or years by on the connection between Gungahlin Drive and Flemington Road (before Gungahlin Drive got extended to the Barton highway). The reason they are good for temporary alignments is they are cheap and fast, but for a permanent road surface on a busy road it is a bloody joke. I have never seen one road done like this that has lasted. Indeed many may remember the first use in this part of the world which was the road into Jerra. Lasted about 2 years before it was replaced with hotmix.

Related I noticed this afternoon that the new west bound lanes on Parkes way is now in use (with the outside closed to remark the lines), and it appears as if the older lanes on this road won’t be resurfaced, which is another pet hate of mine. I can handle different road surfaces, but not across the road like this. What surprised me though is where the new lane meets the deviation to Belconnen they have made no attempt to straighten out the little kink (bearning in mind Parkes Way used to go towards the south will Belconnen as an exit) and at this point the road surface is shocking. Would have liked to have seen the whole of Parkes way upto and under Glenloch resurfaced. But not to be.

Well this is the post I just put up to Canberra Connect Fix My Street regarding Wentworth Av Kingston:

It might not be Glenloch but it is a neat segway to poor roadworks and lack of thought in priorities. If ACT Govt is truly concerned about the safety of ACT citizens then they need to start doing something about it.

Anyone who drives along Wentworth Av will know exactly what I mean.

”
What is going on with Wentworth Av Kingston?

I previously put in a Fix My Street to comment on the pavement issues along Wentworth Av. I am pleased that work has started on replacing the pavement; and I received one of your flyers to residents saying you are spending $1million but all I have seen since April is one lane citybound closed for about 400m along a stretch of road that to be perfectly honest was probably the best pavement along the road and *didn’t* need repairing as much as other parts! From my observation, including what I mentioned in my previous Fix My Street, the worst stretch of pavement is inbound between Gosse St and Telopea Pk with numerous potholes (some have been patched up poorly). Desptie this, work last week commenced to remove the third lane and simply re-mark the lanes. So from the looks of it, there appears to be no intention to replace the pavement in this area!

Seriously, the traffic volumes on Wentworth Av warrant a more pragmatic and thought-through approach to roadworks, including a full pavement replacement program along its entire route, but prioritise at areas that actually require it more (Gosse St and Telopea Pk) as they contain potholes and a rough surface, presenting a hazard to all road users.

As a side issue with Wentworth Av roadworks, I previously put in a Fix My Street for the poor reseal, poor permanent safety signage, and the general dangerous road conditions of the off-ramp from Kings Av to Wentworth Av outbound. It looks like the contractor has attempted to fix some of the poor reseal work but has still left areas without blue-metal aggregate (the right lane at the bridge approaches) and there has been no change in the permanent speed limit (my suggestion: to reduce limit to 60km/h permanently) and there has been no installing of road safety signage (my suggestion: yellow 45km/h corner speed signs and yellow slippery when wet signs) and there has been no change to remove the second lane over the bridge (after all two lanes isn’t required for such a short distance — it is less than 200m).

Can you please investigate?
“

Rawhide Kid Part3 said :

Why cant we bring all this infrastructure work back to the ACT government doing it them selves instead of contracting to some interstate fly-by-nighters for the cheapest tender? More jobs for locals and the money stays and is spent within our own community.

Or am I just dreaming?

Oooor, just bring it back in-house which would make the government ultimately accountable, rather than a private company that couldn’t care less.

Why cant we bring all this infrastructure work back to the ACT government doing it them selves instead of contracting to some interstate fly-by-nighters for the cheapest tender? More jobs for locals and the money stays and is spent within our own community. Or am I just dreaming?

Terra said :

Doesnt road building come with a warranty?

It comes with a guarantee, guaranteed to keep road maintenance crews working well after the job is complete.

Doesnt road building come with a warranty?

The Government awards tenders based on price point and price point alone. You get what you pay for and it is being seen only weeks after the construction is finished. The extension of Clarrie Hermes Drive between Ngunnawal and the Barton Highway is a perfect example. Potholes two weeks after it was opened. It was fully resealed after about a month. The companies submitting for tenders are cutting cost using shit materials and cutting processes. Maybe there should be a review into the way tenders are assessed. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys……

The biggest issue is that half the interchange wasn’t resurfaced once construction was complete. Roads that had been patched together were just left that way – so I’m sure there’s a heap of road surface through there that’s way more than two or three years old.

Basically, they decided to never actually finish the job.