Matthew Abraham: True to form, Transport Minister Corey Wingard has cheerfully backed his department’s latest brainwave

Instead of nagging Adelaide to learn new labels, fix the city’s addiction to multiple names and speed limits for the same stretch of road, writes Matthew Abraham.

In the city where no road has the same name or speed zone for more than a few hundred metres, the transport boffins have come up with yet another cunning plan to confound motorists.

They want to get rid of road names. Maybe not quite junk them completely, just keep them in the same teensy font they use for the allergy advice on a box of Tic Tacs. Instead of using road names, we must all start learning “alphanumerical” codenames. This promises to be great fun.

If you’re towing the tinny to the North Haven boat ramp, don’t say you’re taking Port Road. No, no, no. Tell your deckies you’ll be on the A7 and then the A16 – that’s Victoria Road apparently – and before you know it you’ll be cranking up the Yammy 2-stroke.

Fancy lunch in Lobethal? Don’t say you’re fanging up Magill Rd because that will just confuse family and friends. Instead, you’ll be on the B27, although it might be faster to choof up the M1, turn left at the B34 and left again onto the B27.

In last weekend’s Sunday Mail, Miles Kemp reported on a push by the Transport Department and the RAA to get motorists to learn alphanumeric route names, arguing it will make it easier and safer to navigate around Adelaide and all roads beyond.

We learned that motorways are “M”, arterial roads are “A” and secondary arterial roads are “B”. I’ve always wondered what the letters meant. Oh, and all ring routes have “R” names, which in my experience means “Roadworks”.

The department has launched a website called “A simpler way to navigate” with an interactive map for motorists to play with when it’s too wet to mow the lawns. I’ve spent some time stooging around with it and if this is a “simpler way to navigate” then we’re all in real strife.

This is the same outfit that’s blown millions on scoping studies but is yet to shift a single shovel of dirt on the Marshall government’s alleged South Rd tunnels.

If the department is serious about making our roads safer and simpler to navigate, it should start by trying to bring some order to the chaos of roadworks that cripples travel times.

Transport minister Corey Wingard. Picture: David Mariuz

True to form, Transport Minister Corey Wingard has cheerfully backed his department’s latest brainwave, saying the alphanumeric system makes travelling to an unknown destination easier.

“While people are aware of this system our research shows only 43 per cent of road users actually use it to find their way around our state,” he said. Maybe that’s because the other 57 per cent of road users navigate using GPS gizmos in their cars or mobiles.

But here’s the zinger. Minister Wingard says almost half of the SA road network includes an alphanumeric route designation so “the system is designed to guide you around the city without having to remember multiple road names”.

Memo Corey. You’re the Minister. You really don’t need to endorse every lame plan your department bowls up. How about asking your highly-paid transport department boffins to go back to first principles and work out why Adelaide’s road network is so confusing? They could start with simplifying this city’s unhealthy addiction to multiple names for the same stretch of road.

Payneham Road’s identity takes many turns. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Let’s take a classic example. Why does Duthy St in Unley suddenly become Maud St for 20m then George St before emerging as Hutt Rd through the parklands then changing to Hutt St at South Terrace then becoming East Tce past Bartels Rd for the short stretch to North Tce? Speaking of North Tce, it becomes Botanic Rd at that point until it crosses Hackney Rd, or the Princes Highway to be precise, when it reverts back to North Tce running past St Peter’s College before morphing into Payneham Rd? And why do all of these roads switch speed limits with such gay abandon with no obvious explanation?

Does every single street running east-west inside the city square mile need to change its name at King William St, apparently to honour some odd custom about commoners not crossing royalty?

Little wonder most Adelaide travellers navigate by folklore, instead of road names or alphanumeric codes.

If you take the tin lids to the Bonython Park playground, you’ll use a narrow track called Mock Roadway, the most aptly-named strip of tar in our whole city.

Bonython Park? That’s the park off the bit of road opposite the old Coke factory. You know the one, it runs into the A7.