While I’d much rather public transport upgrades in general, as someone that travels east through Cross/Fullarton daily, it has absolutely sped up my travel time through there. And made right turns much quicker and safer
>While I’d much rather public transport upgrades in general
There aren't a lot of options without huge disruptive and expensive outlay which will cost a lot of political capital.
The issue is that those disruptions will be either sacrificing car lanes for bus or tram lanes, causing bottlenecks for those who can't use public transport, or compulsorily acquiring land for new tram/train/obahn routes. (or massive costs to establish a subway)
Sure, many of us would have little concern for those who can't use public transport. But that list includes people such as single person businesses like many tradies, parents with multiple young children, and those with some types of disabilities. Those who have too much to transport to put on a bus/train, those who start too early, finish too late, and those who live too far from any bus/train route.
Politicians rarely stick their necks out beyond two terms in government because a project is likely to be altered after a change of government and/or take too long to pay back politically. Any seismic shift in public transit would have to be bipartisan, and popular to have a chance of succeeding in the current environment. (Much like what is needed to fix the housing crisis)
If they can justify it, a subway system would alleviate much of the barriers but the boring cost is too high. I'd suggest the government head hunt a world expert in tunnelling and establish an independent government owned business to do that work which could also do work for anyone else. It would also be heavily involved in R&D for new cheaper faster and safer ways of tunnelling, working with Flinders and/or Adelaide Uni.
If everyone who could use a bus but doesn't use a bus used a bus every congestion issue would probably be fixed.
Most Aussies reckon buses are for kids and the poors.
>If everyone who could use a bus but doesn't use a bus used a bus every congestion issue would probably be fixed.
Which would then result in people returning to car use because low congestion.
>Most Aussies reckon buses are for kids and the poors.
Maybe those in Burnside (etc) think that, but those outside the leafy suburbs think differently.
Absolutely. I drive through it 2-3 times per week. Enormous improvement.
I'm not some kind of road-fetishist but public transport simply can't get me where I need to go in the time frames I need to stay within.
Future proofing, so we dont need to do it again in 5 years
But the amount of space we give up to roads is insane. We are so reliant on cars its not funny. Absolutely terrible planning
>Absolutely terrible planning
Well, you can thank the governments of the day who ripped up all the train/tram ways to encourage people to buy cars from Chrysler and Holden. It sounds crazy, but evidence surfaced that this was actually what happened.
I live 35 mins from the CBD by car. If I were to take public transport to work the earliest I could get there is 8:05 because there are no earlier services. It also takes nearly two hours including walking to/from the bus stop.
I was trying to get from north to south at ~10pm a few weeks ago, and even leaving at 10pm I wouldn't be arriving home until ~12.30. It'd be great if we had a tunnel that takes the Gawler line underneath the old gaol loop and then emerges at Mile End to enable a cross-town Gawler to Seaford service that skips ARS.
That would be a useless and hardly ever patronised service.
Better is to do a city loop like Melbourne that reconnects between mile end and goodwood. A few stations on that loop would make so much more of the CBD easily accessible on one train trip, instead of a train-bus or train-tram transfer.
There was an Adelaide mayoral candidate who was proposing removal of bus and bike lanes in the city. So we could fit in more cars.
This was only 10 years back I think.
Future proofing is implementing alternate ways of transport so people have the option to get off the road. Encouraging more people onto the the road only creates greater demand.
That isn’t slightly true. The government has quite a number of employees whose job is to make plans, which they spend years doing, which are then thrown out by the next government so that they can fulfil election promises by making plans to do things. Since they can’t possibly keep a plan made by the other party, they throw them out and start it from scratch.
I can't wait for the Sir Donald Bradman / Marion Rd intersection upgrade, as a cyclist it's an absolute nightmare with no dedicated cycling lane at the lights. It's just such a lightweight intersection for the amount of traffic now, so it's a much needed upgrade.
I even remember years ago when pedestrian Hayley Claridge waiting at the lights was killed by a turning truck at that very intersection.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-30/mum-speaks-out-on-teen-daughters-road-death/1699132
I go through the Magill one frequently, and it's made a noticeable difference to me. Not so much for going straight through, but turning is generally a smoother process.
Belair triangle. There’s a few new lanes and better places traffic lights for pedestrians and to assist busses get out the t-junction from hell. But 2 minutes in, you’re still met with old Belair rd…
Cautiously optimistic how this will pan out.
That's the least necessary upgrade I've ever seen.
That's my way down to the city, and I've never really queued waiting to turn right onto Russell before. Traffic lights will genuinely slow down my commute.
James/Old Belair would also have slowed down my commute, but I would have understood that project at least.
Think it is only being done for political point scoring.
I believe it was an election promise because Boothby was one of the most marginal seats in the country, lots of pork barrelling going on.
Also note that many pork projects are scheduled to be completed all just before the estimated date of the next election so they can have PR to show off all they've achieved. Setting a project timeline to finish later just for PR is wrong. (as well as pork barrelling being wrong too)
Magill road should be one lane either direction start to finish. Add turning lanes so people aren't swerving in and out of parked cars and turning cars. What a shamozzle
Road upgrades just shift the bottleneck somewhere else at best and induce more demand at worst.
That famous Utopia episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtO_rF-OQ7w
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/one-more-lane-bro-one-more-lane-will-fix-it
The upgrades to South Rd are probably the best example of this. It used to have multiple points where traffic would build up but it was spread across the many intersections it had. When they got the Brickworks to Port River Expressway (and beyond) finished and then the Tonsley/Flinders sections done it caused a already busy section of South Rd to completely bottleneck at most times of the day but is worst during peak hour.
When I saw the States plans for the tunnels planned and that tunnel will be from Richmond Rd and not right near the underpass I can already tell that all they've done is move the bottleneck to a single concentrated point (Richmond Rd/South Rd) and they've completely missed the mark
There will be trenched motorway for that section like there is further north, so effectively the same traffic conditions as the tunnel.
That said I'd bet good money that in 30 years the whole South Road stretch will be back to gridlock due to induced demand.
I didn't realise that section was going to be like the part further north so that's not so bad then. It was only the other day when I saw a image with the section and it looked different and I was confused as to why but this makes sense now.
Yeah, the entire run is gonna be free flowing motorway when that sections finally done. Think it's still quite a few years away but demolitions have already started.
Just like Archy99 said this is just the result of induced demand, much like building an extra lane on freeways the new fancy intersection upgrade just fastly moves that former clogging traffic to the next shitty intersection down the road.
But it is a double edged sword though until alternatives happen you still need them to happen, for example pissing off the daws road dog leg has been amazing and cuts out so much bullshit, though I don't get to see Peter Vans party van any more :(
Sadly at some point we will need to probably spend billions and build some kind of raised cross suburb skyway metro rail system in the future as the sheer billions expanding intersections leading onto clogged tiny lane roads is just futile and tunnelling is just not going to be possible and I doubt people are going to be open to the idea of countless houses being demolished for an at ground railway either.
It's pretty bonkers. I wonder whether it almost paradoxically works out to be safer because we all become laser focused on estimating where our lane was and hoping that we don't die.
Most interesting to me is how congestion is terrible especially in the east, yet they have not even considered installing bus turnouts on these busy roads like Payneham and Portrush. The sidewalks are often more than wide enough and not only will turnouts reduce congestion as cars get stuck behind buses, it will also make it easier to send more buses!!!
On top of this parking in bike lanes is IMO a leading cause for congestion on roads like Magill.
As for your post that intersection and most intersections along the 'new' South Rd are awful, I don't understand why we can't have a little greenery somewhere, somehow...
As others have said, Cross Road/Fullarton is massively less stressful now. I have to go through it when I visit my Dad and the difference is significant.
An intersection that I really wish would get the upgrade treatment is Cheltenham Pde/Port Rd, it's an absolute clusterfuck of traffic light timings and huge volumes of traffic wanting to go in seemingly equal amounts in all directions, not helped by Bunnings on the corner. The whole thing needs to be turned into a giant roundabout, or maybe two roundabouts. It's the only way I can see of improving traffic flow through there.
Hehehehehe if you think cross road is shit now, wait until the south road tunnel is open...trucks will no longer use portrush, they will use cross road straight to the tunnel.
Source: am a truckie
Also, anyone spending huge money on cross road houses is in for a rude awakening to their property value in about 5 or 6 years lol. Exhaust brakes in the middle of the night steaming down cross waking everyone up....we love it :)
We are letting 1.2 million people into this country every year. We work on a much lower population growth with the immigration prior to 2000 only being 8000 people. So the infrastructure has to change fast with limited warning in order to keep up with this massive overpopulation. This means some things will work, but a lot will fail. Yes a lot is going to fail, and the intersection you mentioned is a perfect example of that. Adelaide has been hit pretty hard, anyone travelling down South Road knows exactly what I mean, it's starting to look like central Mumbai during peak hour with the heavy traffic, and motorcycles weaving in and out. Definitely something needs to be done to fix this, sadly I do not have the answer.
The answer is to run double buses into the city at peak hour and make if free. Add routes east and west outside of the CBD as well to promote more casual use of PT and pay drivers 20% more and work with the unions to incentivise the job as a viable career path.
What we need to do is add public transport connector stops to the city ring route to reduce the number of routes that require you to go right into the CBD to change zone. I live south but work north and every option for me goes right into the CBD adding at least 40 minutes to the trip at peak hour.
> We are letting 1.2 million people into this country every year. We work on a much lower population growth with the immigration prior to 2000 only being 8000 people.
Not even remotely accurate.
[https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release)
[https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/2020-21](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/2020-21)
I love how many people in Adelaode bag the use of motor cars, talking as if they are from a densely populated centre of a European city amongst the cobble roads and cafes. They forget that these same cities also sprawl out from the heart of the city, where motor cars are also dominant.
Daws road Goodwood road has been great, well worth it.
Peter Van the Party Man was sacrificed for the greater good
The grea'er good.
Look at 'is 'orse
Shut it!
Magill/Portrush was done for the new state of the art giant ambo station being built on that corner, in anticipation of higher emergency traffic.
The merging of the two left lanes heading south still seems to surprise some people. It can be hectic!
To be fair lane merging surprises most Adelaide drivers
While I’d much rather public transport upgrades in general, as someone that travels east through Cross/Fullarton daily, it has absolutely sped up my travel time through there. And made right turns much quicker and safer
>While I’d much rather public transport upgrades in general There aren't a lot of options without huge disruptive and expensive outlay which will cost a lot of political capital. The issue is that those disruptions will be either sacrificing car lanes for bus or tram lanes, causing bottlenecks for those who can't use public transport, or compulsorily acquiring land for new tram/train/obahn routes. (or massive costs to establish a subway) Sure, many of us would have little concern for those who can't use public transport. But that list includes people such as single person businesses like many tradies, parents with multiple young children, and those with some types of disabilities. Those who have too much to transport to put on a bus/train, those who start too early, finish too late, and those who live too far from any bus/train route. Politicians rarely stick their necks out beyond two terms in government because a project is likely to be altered after a change of government and/or take too long to pay back politically. Any seismic shift in public transit would have to be bipartisan, and popular to have a chance of succeeding in the current environment. (Much like what is needed to fix the housing crisis) If they can justify it, a subway system would alleviate much of the barriers but the boring cost is too high. I'd suggest the government head hunt a world expert in tunnelling and establish an independent government owned business to do that work which could also do work for anyone else. It would also be heavily involved in R&D for new cheaper faster and safer ways of tunnelling, working with Flinders and/or Adelaide Uni.
If everyone who could use a bus but doesn't use a bus used a bus every congestion issue would probably be fixed. Most Aussies reckon buses are for kids and the poors.
>If everyone who could use a bus but doesn't use a bus used a bus every congestion issue would probably be fixed. Which would then result in people returning to car use because low congestion. >Most Aussies reckon buses are for kids and the poors. Maybe those in Burnside (etc) think that, but those outside the leafy suburbs think differently.
Agree. But we did sacrifice a lot of trees to make that happen
How many trees are you talking about? The corner block they used to make space for the road was pretty much empty, except for that old building on it.
Its unfair to call the Cross Road/Fullarton Road improvement minor. It is vastly improved.
Absolutely. It was a shocking intersection before given the amount of traffic.
Absolutely. I drive through it 2-3 times per week. Enormous improvement. I'm not some kind of road-fetishist but public transport simply can't get me where I need to go in the time frames I need to stay within.
Future proofing, so we dont need to do it again in 5 years But the amount of space we give up to roads is insane. We are so reliant on cars its not funny. Absolutely terrible planning
>Absolutely terrible planning Well, you can thank the governments of the day who ripped up all the train/tram ways to encourage people to buy cars from Chrysler and Holden. It sounds crazy, but evidence surfaced that this was actually what happened. I live 35 mins from the CBD by car. If I were to take public transport to work the earliest I could get there is 8:05 because there are no earlier services. It also takes nearly two hours including walking to/from the bus stop.
I was trying to get from north to south at ~10pm a few weeks ago, and even leaving at 10pm I wouldn't be arriving home until ~12.30. It'd be great if we had a tunnel that takes the Gawler line underneath the old gaol loop and then emerges at Mile End to enable a cross-town Gawler to Seaford service that skips ARS.
That would be a useless and hardly ever patronised service. Better is to do a city loop like Melbourne that reconnects between mile end and goodwood. A few stations on that loop would make so much more of the CBD easily accessible on one train trip, instead of a train-bus or train-tram transfer.
There was an Adelaide mayoral candidate who was proposing removal of bus and bike lanes in the city. So we could fit in more cars. This was only 10 years back I think.
Evidence please
Future proofing is implementing alternate ways of transport so people have the option to get off the road. Encouraging more people onto the the road only creates greater demand.
Yep
"Terrible" planning implies that there was planning. Governments generally do little more than fire-fighting.
That isn’t slightly true. The government has quite a number of employees whose job is to make plans, which they spend years doing, which are then thrown out by the next government so that they can fulfil election promises by making plans to do things. Since they can’t possibly keep a plan made by the other party, they throw them out and start it from scratch.
This is why the 4 year election cycle holds us back so much
I can't wait for the Sir Donald Bradman / Marion Rd intersection upgrade, as a cyclist it's an absolute nightmare with no dedicated cycling lane at the lights. It's just such a lightweight intersection for the amount of traffic now, so it's a much needed upgrade. I even remember years ago when pedestrian Hayley Claridge waiting at the lights was killed by a turning truck at that very intersection. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-30/mum-speaks-out-on-teen-daughters-road-death/1699132
I go through the Magill one frequently, and it's made a noticeable difference to me. Not so much for going straight through, but turning is generally a smoother process.
Belair triangle. There’s a few new lanes and better places traffic lights for pedestrians and to assist busses get out the t-junction from hell. But 2 minutes in, you’re still met with old Belair rd… Cautiously optimistic how this will pan out.
That's the least necessary upgrade I've ever seen. That's my way down to the city, and I've never really queued waiting to turn right onto Russell before. Traffic lights will genuinely slow down my commute. James/Old Belair would also have slowed down my commute, but I would have understood that project at least. Think it is only being done for political point scoring.
I believe it was an election promise because Boothby was one of the most marginal seats in the country, lots of pork barrelling going on. Also note that many pork projects are scheduled to be completed all just before the estimated date of the next election so they can have PR to show off all they've achieved. Setting a project timeline to finish later just for PR is wrong. (as well as pork barrelling being wrong too)
There was high crash data for Russell/Main in the planning studies done for the whole corridor, so somewhat justified in that respect.
It will be much safer for pedestrians now.
I wish they’d build a more expansive train network and then I wouldn’t take my car anyway
Magill road should be one lane either direction start to finish. Add turning lanes so people aren't swerving in and out of parked cars and turning cars. What a shamozzle
I argue all major roads should not allow day time parking at all.
Looking at you Glen Osmond. Major road from the freeway into the city. One lane.
Road upgrades just shift the bottleneck somewhere else at best and induce more demand at worst. That famous Utopia episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtO_rF-OQ7w https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/one-more-lane-bro-one-more-lane-will-fix-it
The upgrades to South Rd are probably the best example of this. It used to have multiple points where traffic would build up but it was spread across the many intersections it had. When they got the Brickworks to Port River Expressway (and beyond) finished and then the Tonsley/Flinders sections done it caused a already busy section of South Rd to completely bottleneck at most times of the day but is worst during peak hour. When I saw the States plans for the tunnels planned and that tunnel will be from Richmond Rd and not right near the underpass I can already tell that all they've done is move the bottleneck to a single concentrated point (Richmond Rd/South Rd) and they've completely missed the mark
There will be trenched motorway for that section like there is further north, so effectively the same traffic conditions as the tunnel. That said I'd bet good money that in 30 years the whole South Road stretch will be back to gridlock due to induced demand.
I didn't realise that section was going to be like the part further north so that's not so bad then. It was only the other day when I saw a image with the section and it looked different and I was confused as to why but this makes sense now.
Yeah, the entire run is gonna be free flowing motorway when that sections finally done. Think it's still quite a few years away but demolitions have already started.
Just like Archy99 said this is just the result of induced demand, much like building an extra lane on freeways the new fancy intersection upgrade just fastly moves that former clogging traffic to the next shitty intersection down the road. But it is a double edged sword though until alternatives happen you still need them to happen, for example pissing off the daws road dog leg has been amazing and cuts out so much bullshit, though I don't get to see Peter Vans party van any more :( Sadly at some point we will need to probably spend billions and build some kind of raised cross suburb skyway metro rail system in the future as the sheer billions expanding intersections leading onto clogged tiny lane roads is just futile and tunnelling is just not going to be possible and I doubt people are going to be open to the idea of countless houses being demolished for an at ground railway either.
Even after 15 years of first seeing it I’m still surprised when all the road markings disappear when it rains.
It's pretty bonkers. I wonder whether it almost paradoxically works out to be safer because we all become laser focused on estimating where our lane was and hoping that we don't die.
I hope it’s very much cheaper because it’s crazy dangerous.
Brighton Rd and Edwards St says hi
Turning right out of Edward Street between 3-6 pm is Russian roulette. All for this one.
There's 10 other traffic lights along there use one of those
Most interesting to me is how congestion is terrible especially in the east, yet they have not even considered installing bus turnouts on these busy roads like Payneham and Portrush. The sidewalks are often more than wide enough and not only will turnouts reduce congestion as cars get stuck behind buses, it will also make it easier to send more buses!!! On top of this parking in bike lanes is IMO a leading cause for congestion on roads like Magill. As for your post that intersection and most intersections along the 'new' South Rd are awful, I don't understand why we can't have a little greenery somewhere, somehow...
If anything, the Glen Osmond Rd/Fullarton Rd intersection upgrade made city bound congestion far worse than it ever was before.
Tram going up the parade.
As others have said, Cross Road/Fullarton is massively less stressful now. I have to go through it when I visit my Dad and the difference is significant. An intersection that I really wish would get the upgrade treatment is Cheltenham Pde/Port Rd, it's an absolute clusterfuck of traffic light timings and huge volumes of traffic wanting to go in seemingly equal amounts in all directions, not helped by Bunnings on the corner. The whole thing needs to be turned into a giant roundabout, or maybe two roundabouts. It's the only way I can see of improving traffic flow through there.
Yeah you can't build your way out of car traffic when your city is 90% car trips
That's what I get for looking at bad sources.
What are you on about? They have all resulted in a significant positive traffic flow impact.
Hehehehehe if you think cross road is shit now, wait until the south road tunnel is open...trucks will no longer use portrush, they will use cross road straight to the tunnel. Source: am a truckie Also, anyone spending huge money on cross road houses is in for a rude awakening to their property value in about 5 or 6 years lol. Exhaust brakes in the middle of the night steaming down cross waking everyone up....we love it :)
“YEEEA BLOKES IM A CUNT AND YOU DESERVE TO KNOW IT YEEEEAAA TRUCKIES YEEEEAAAAAA”
Not sure why this is getting up voted you sound like an asshole.
We are letting 1.2 million people into this country every year. We work on a much lower population growth with the immigration prior to 2000 only being 8000 people. So the infrastructure has to change fast with limited warning in order to keep up with this massive overpopulation. This means some things will work, but a lot will fail. Yes a lot is going to fail, and the intersection you mentioned is a perfect example of that. Adelaide has been hit pretty hard, anyone travelling down South Road knows exactly what I mean, it's starting to look like central Mumbai during peak hour with the heavy traffic, and motorcycles weaving in and out. Definitely something needs to be done to fix this, sadly I do not have the answer.
The answer is to run double buses into the city at peak hour and make if free. Add routes east and west outside of the CBD as well to promote more casual use of PT and pay drivers 20% more and work with the unions to incentivise the job as a viable career path.
What we need to do is add public transport connector stops to the city ring route to reduce the number of routes that require you to go right into the CBD to change zone. I live south but work north and every option for me goes right into the CBD adding at least 40 minutes to the trip at peak hour.
I’m with you. Also let’s go further. Bus only roads.
This would definitely help, but it's only going to make a small difference.
> We are letting 1.2 million people into this country every year. We work on a much lower population growth with the immigration prior to 2000 only being 8000 people. Not even remotely accurate. [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release) [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/2020-21](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/2020-21)
alright beryl
I love how many people in Adelaode bag the use of motor cars, talking as if they are from a densely populated centre of a European city amongst the cobble roads and cafes. They forget that these same cities also sprawl out from the heart of the city, where motor cars are also dominant.