[U/C] M2 North-South Motorway

[SouthAussie94]

I can understand and justify the Ayliffes Road intersection and the bottleneck that will likely occur there to some extent; this intersection will be changed majorly when the next section of South Road is upgraded. Essentially its an intersection designed to last 10 years or so.

The thing that still gets me is the SEXY/South Road intersection, this intersection is effectively being completed, never to be upgraded again. Why are traffic lights being installed? Absolute lunacy!!

Not only this but (assuming the PDF is accurate), the section of South Road before this is being reduced from 4 lanes to 3 lanes north bound. This section struggles currently of a morning with 4 lanes. How will it cope when its reduced to 3?

[neoballmon]

The thing that still gets me is the SEXY/South Road intersection, this intersection is effectively being completed, never to be upgraded again. Why are traffic lights being installed? Absolute lunacy!!

As I see it from that PDF, There will only be traffic lights for people travelling on the 'at-grade' South Road (Southbound only); those who enter the lowered road at Ayliffes Road will not encounter traffic lights.

Not only this but (assuming the PDF is accurate), the section of South Road before this is being reduced from 4 lanes to 3 lanes north bound. This section struggles currently of a morning with 4 lanes. How will it cope when its reduced to 3?

Even if it is 3 lanes, Northbound alone will be 3 lanes going into the trench, and what looks like another 2 exiting at Flinders Drive. And there will be an additional 3/4 lanes for people who have come through Darlington without using the Expressway. This should have a much greater capacity and much smoother flow than it currently has.

[SouthAussie94]

The thing that still gets me is the SEXY/South Road intersection, this intersection is effectively being completed, never to be upgraded again. Why are traffic lights being installed? Absolute lunacy!!

As I see it from that PDF, There will only be traffic lights for people travelling on the 'at-grade' South Road (Southbound only); those who enter the lowered road at Ayliffes Road will not encounter traffic lights.

Not only this but (assuming the PDF is accurate), the section of South Road before this is being reduced from 4 lanes to 3 lanes north bound. This section struggles currently of a morning with 4 lanes. How will it cope when its reduced to 3?

Even if it is 3 lanes, Northbound alone will be 3 lanes going into the trench, and what looks like another 2 exiting at Flinders Drive. And there will be an additional 3/4 lanes for people who have come through Darlington without using the Expressway. This should have a much greater capacity and much smoother flow than it currently has.

The issue lies with traffic coming from South Road and Flagstaff Road. Currently this traffic merges at the South/Flagstaff/Marion intersection, a 4 lane section of road, this traffic is then held up at the SEXY traffic lights.
Following the upgrade this same volume of traffic will meet at the same point (Now 3 lanes instead of 4) and stop at the same traffic lights. Followed by Flinders Drive and then Sturt Road, as it does now.

The Darlington Upgrade is of zero benefit to this traffic, approximately half of the total traffic that travels through Darlington on a daily basis. For traffic coming from the SEXY, the upgrade is great, removing 3 sets of traffic lights. Fantastic.

I just do not understand how this much money can be spent when half of the users are not being benefited. For a small amount of extra money (in terms of the whole project budget), the SEXY intersection could be grade separated and South Road traffic could join the trench. All of the users could then receive the benefit of the upgrade. How much will this cost to upgrade in the future?

[neoballmon]

I agree it could be done better, but that traffic will be slightly benefited. In current morning peak, these people are getting to the expressway and stopping for lights, which the expressway usually has priority over and South road traffic has to wait.

With the upgrade, only traffic from Sturt, Flinders and other local areas will be entering the expressway at these lights, so northbound South road will surely become the priority and have green lights at least 3/4 of the time.
They will also encounter a much shorter queue and wait time if they're stopped at the next two stops.

Their only loss is getting to South Road at the Ayliffes Road intersection, where I assume they'll get a short stop.

[drsmith]

What's the cost/benefit of attaching Flagstaff Road directly to the Darlington expressway section ?

[SCF]

I agree it could be done better, but that traffic will be slightly benefited. In current morning peak, these people are getting to the expressway and stopping for lights, which the expressway usually has priority over and South road traffic has to wait.

With the upgrade, only traffic from Sturt, Flinders and other local areas will be entering the expressway at these lights, so northbound South road will surely become the priority and have green lights at least 3/4 of the time.
They will also encounter a much shorter queue and wait time if they're stopped at the next two stops.

I'm not sure that will be the case.

I agree that it should result in being less likely to stop at the currently SEXY intersection as there shouldn't be much traffic attempting to enter the expressway there, especially in the busy mornings. Though the wait that that traffic currently experiences there is just going to be pushed up to Ayliffes road (and possibly then some).

But I do think there is a potential for longer waits at the next two intersections.

Currently north bound South road only has to stop at Flinders Drive to let traffic exiting Flinders onto north bound South Road (and to let the pedestrians cross, which I don't think will change). But with this upgrade that traffic will now also have to wait for traffic exiting the expressway at this point, as well as traffic coming from the new road connecting Sturt Road to Flinders Drive. I imagine that each of those will need their own cycle.

Sturt road can get quite congested at times and and it gets fairly short cycles, so I can see it getting more priority once there is less traffic on South Road.

So I can see the potential for waits at these two intersections being longer and the loss of a lane could keep the queues long. But perhaps without the SEXY traffic it will make it more likely to find a green light at these intersections. Maybe.

But I can't see anything but long waits at Ayliffes road for north bound South rd traffic not on the lowered road. For traffic that is heading up South road (where there is currently no wait), that is going to hurt big time.

[neoballmon]

When I got in the car this morning, I heard the tail end of the news, and all I heard was about the project saving 10 minutes travel time and commencing construction in 2015. I know Darlington's time saving wasn't this great, but was what I heard for Torrens to Torrens or a new project completely? Looked on adelaidenow and indaily and found nothing.

[SCF]

When I got in the car this morning, I heard the tail end of the news, and all I heard was about the project saving 10 minutes travel time and commencing construction in 2015. I know Darlington's time saving wasn't this great, but was what I heard for Torrens to Torrens or a new project completely? Looked on adelaidenow and indaily and found nothing.

I'm pretty sure you'll find they were talking about the O-Bahn tunnel project.

[ReallyBad]

Updated Torrens to Torrens http://www.infrastructure.sa.gov.au/sou ... er_torrens

[drsmith]

Updated Torrens to Torrens http://www.infrastructure.sa.gov.au/sou ... er_torrens

The little fiddle with part of the tune was clearly an afterthought.



Looks infinitely far more sensible to me and there's provision northside for ramps from the trench up to Port Road when the trench itself is extended further north.

[Nathan]

Looks better than the previous proposal, for the most part. I do have a few issues though:

• Despite the revised intersection, no way to cross South Rd from Hawker St to Hurtle Street or vice versa (only left & right turns onto South Rd from either)
• Don't agree with the shortened rail overpass. Would have been great to remove the Elizabeth St/Queen St level crossing, and keep the previous suggestion of an additional row of shops underneath the tracks.
• The pedestrian/cycling path alongside the rail overpass looks ridiculous. Looong ramps with multiple switchbacks. It'll be a big sign to pedestrians and cyclists "don't bother",
• Does the at-grade South Rd really still need to be 2+ lanes each way? Surely with 3 lanes each way through the trench, the at-grade road only needs 1 lane each way to provide local access (splitting to turn lanes just for the Port Rd intersection)

[rockthenation]

A big improvement, however:
1. The Hurtle / Hawker St intersection is a shocker compared to the integrated one in the previous revision.
2. I noticed in the flyover video there's a set of traffic lights for a pedestrian crossing just before the underpass going southbound / coming up northbound, they're not serious are they, I'm hoping not!

[HeapsGood]

Why did the change the plans?

[Nathan]

Also, interesting tidbit. On page 15 of the Project Assessment Report PDF, is a map showing the project in relation to important sites in the metro area and other transport projects. It shows the planned mass transit of the various tram lines (Prospect, Norwood, Airport, Unley, CityLoop) and the underground rail loop (if you look really closely). But also, it shows a planned mass transit route down Glen Osmond Rd...

[Patrick_27]

Somewhat prefer this proposal to it's predecessor, however didn't it originally glide underneath Hurtle Street also? It seems the large median strip on this endof the project is forward thinking to extend the trench underneath Hurtle Street?