Cotter Road Upgrade?

p1 said :

dpm said :

…probably because of the Cottor Road upgrade they’re doing right now near the RSPCA?

What he said.

Nope, sorry – thats not the problem at all. Original post was refering to gridlock on cotter rd between the parkway and adelaide ave, neither of which are at all impacted by the roadworks near the RSPCA. It’s been a peak hour problem for many many years, one that has progressively worsened due to extra traffic from Gungahlin and Belco using GDE, Parkway and then Cotter Rd to access the Parliamentary Triangle, Deakin, and Woden (via Curtin rat rruns).

That the Govt and the dullards at Roads ACT haven’t adressed this problem earlier, given that everyone knew Molonglo was coming and that the rapidly growing Gungahlin pop would be using the rd to access southside, beggars belief. Even two years ago Roads ACT was telling the communiity that based on their current projections the road would not need duplicating until 2032 (!!!!!). Even though anayone who actually had a look at the rd during the morning or evening peak knew its basically unusable while northside commtuters pass through the area. The same problems can be observed on Hindmarsh, which is gridlocked by a combination of northside commuteers using it to access Woden, and very poor traffic light sequencing (which could be inexpensively fixed – but unfortunately roads ACT people are so clueless it’s probably beyond their limited capabilities).

What’s really needed is for Belconnen and Tuggeranong town centres to be moved to civic. Then there’d be much less cross traffic driving past each other going to the other far flung centre.

Keijidosha said :

Sydney (with a population 10 times larger) manages to cope with only two crossings of a 19km long harbour.

Yep – Sydney’s a model we should emulate. On a good day you can get from one kilometre to the next in, oh, only a couple of hours or so.

dpm said :

G-Fresh said :

It’s the first stage of the Brindabella Rd upgrade to a superhighway over to Tumut so that we can get to Melbourne quicker.

That would be awesome!! 🙂

+1

but then if Brindabella Road was upgraded, it would be one less road for TAMS to close when a bit of water falls from the sky.

longshanks said :

What we really need is another bridge across the lake to connect Parkes Way to State Circle. That would relieve a huge amount of traffic pressure generated by Belco folk who want to get to the inner south. But that’s not going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, a succession of band-aid solutions make life difficult for everyone, without actually achieving anything in the long term.

The problem getting to places like this is not the crossings over the lake but the roads when you get there. So no bridge will help.

What will help however is getting rid of the two roundabouts on Parkes way, and hopefully what ever it is they are doing with the ramp from Parkes Way onto Commonwealth Ave Bridge.

patrick_keogh said :

You couldn’t make this up.

Nah. That would NEVER happen.

patrick_keogh said :

Yes, an update to the Cotter Road is planned. This is how it will go…

1. The ACT opposition will demand that multiple routes be assessed even though the best is bleeding obvious.
2. This wrangling will tide us over until after the next federal election when the federal libs will weigh in on some “national capital” pretext. This will result in a sub-optimal route being forced on the ACT govt, significantly increasing the cost.
3. Two or more NIMBY local groups will spring up, declaring that the new and wider road will detract from their urban amenity and destroy the pristine environment of a former rubbish dump. They will argue and argue in this court and that for years, with the result that most of the money which was to be spent on the road will go to various legal firms instead.
4. With the budget in tatters, work will commence on a road of half capacity, and it will be a further five years before the originally designed capacity is implemented. To top it all off, the need for doing it on the cheap will result in at least one industrial accident which will even further delay completion.

You couldn’t make this up.

You forgot No. 5:

A cycling lobby group will ask for safer cycle infrastructure other than cycle lanes at a cost that the non cycling community will think is exorbitant and protest that no one will use it once built.

Yes, an update to the Cotter Road is planned. This is how it will go…

1. The ACT opposition will demand that multiple routes be assessed even though the best is bleeding obvious.
2. This wrangling will tide us over until after the next federal election when the federal libs will weigh in on some “national capital” pretext. This will result in a sub-optimal route being forced on the ACT govt, significantly increasing the cost.
3. Two or more NIMBY local groups will spring up, declaring that the new and wider road will detract from their urban amenity and destroy the pristine environment of a former rubbish dump. They will argue and argue in this court and that for years, with the result that most of the money which was to be spent on the road will go to various legal firms instead.
4. With the budget in tatters, work will commence on a road of half capacity, and it will be a further five years before the originally designed capacity is implemented. To top it all off, the need for doing it on the cheap will result in at least one industrial accident which will even further delay completion.

You couldn’t make this up.

Keijidosha said :

Possibly the last thing Canberra needs is another bridge across the mud puddle that is LBG. Sydney (with a population 10 times larger) manages to cope with only two crossings of a 19km long harbour.

But Sydney has ferries, so we should too ?

G-Fresh said :

It’s the first stage of the Brindabella Rd upgrade to a superhighway over to Tumut so that we can get to Melbourne quicker.

That would be awesome!! 🙂