Ok here is something that the people in Brisbane are doing to solve their transit infrastructure woes
http://www.rivercitymotorway.com.au/
A multi-billion dollar project overseen ironically by the City of Brisbane (with little help from the State or Commonwealth (the Aussie Federal Parliament)) and is being funded through a Private Public Partnership or PPP for short. This PPP is obvious though the tunnel being fitted with E-Tolling for its usage by commuters.
Having lived in and north of Brisbane and going there yearly from NZ on visits I know how bad the Core transit system is with incomplete highways connecting the Ipswich Road, Gympie Road, the Inner City Bypass and the Pacific Highway in the south. This new north south bypass should in stage one allow commuters to bypass most of the core system until you hit Route 3 and Gympie Road, a 4 lane road that runs 30 mins north til it reconnects with the Bruce Highway and Gateway Motorway.
Blahdy take a look at the project and tell me what you think
Quoteconstruction features
# The total length of the project is 6.8km
# This includes 4.8km of dual twin lane tunnels
So it's only 4 lanes; why even bother. 10 years time, they'll need to widen it. Just like they're having to widen gateway & dipswitch highway.
Still, nice project though. They really need a western corridor built, connecting ipswich highway from southwest to gympie highway on north. Just cut through the enoggera army barracks, I'm sure they won't mind :D.
QuoteJust cut through the enoggera army barracks, I'm sure they won't mind Cheesy.
By the way Queenslanders drive, it'd make good training for the soldiers. :D
That's so a knockoff of the Cross City Tunnel [which was a failure... the toll was too high and it kind of went nowhere.]
Oh well. Their problem if it turns out to be a colossal failure because of the toll. ;)
To be honest, this is a pointless project if it's supposed to bypass the city centre... there's already a freeway-grade road running parallel to the proposed project... I suppose it'd be along the lines of Sydney's Harbour Tunnel... acting as a second crossing of the river at that point.
The question is, is the Story Bridge congested enough to justify the purpose of such a project? It seems to me that the only purpose of this project is to duplicate the Story Bridge, [which has the same bloody road name as the road that goes over the Sydney Harbour Bridge!] just like Sydney did back in '92.
Oh trust me the Story Bridge is very congested durring peak hour when it takes all the Ipswich Road Traffic to and from the city centre.
Looking at the plan I see it as a second crossing for the main part as it is so close to the Pacific Highway. However this tunnel will be a flop unless they expand the Gateway Motorway to 6 lanes and get some kind of damn motorway from the Bruce Highway/Gateway Motorway, Gympie Road interchange in the north to the inner city bypass, the River City North South Tunnel Bypass and that crap Ipswich Road they call a motorway...
Ah well lets see how much money gets flushed down the toilet on this one. %bur2$
sounds interesting enough :) Though I don't know the area and traffic situation down in your neck of woods to comment on its effectiveness.
Either way though I'm an avid supporter of using tunnels as one of key tools to solve urban traffic problems (in addition to mass transit system). The only drawback is the cost..
Tunnel systems, especially modern ones, are good alternative to carry highway traffic through a city core and is environmentally friendly way to maintain cost-effective vehicle traffic. The obvious argument against most road-based/highway transportation projects from environmental standpoint is the added traffic adding more pollution. In case of Boston's Big Dig, the completion of tunnel system actually reduced overall city-wide CO2 levels by 12% even despite having increased vehicular traffic than previous days, because most of the pollution is now carried through controlled ventilation system (since vehicles are now underground), instead of going straight to the atmosphere.
Apparently this tunnel is called the Clem7.
Yes Clem Jones was a good mayor, but my god that name is just cringeworthy.
I hardly see this tunnel making any difference, it costs like $5 a trip when it opens in 2010!!! ??? and I go past the construction site for it on Shaftson Ave and I feel sad. Even worse when you look at the ICB junction, big sloppy mess!!!