FOI documents reveal the complexities right-hand tram turn could face
A RIGHT-hand turn onto North Tce from King William St for trams would “require a number of compromises to be made” to achieve a functional design, documents released under Freedom of Information reveal.
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A RIGHT-hand tram turn onto North Tce from King William St requires a number of planning compromises to achieve a functional design because of the existing complexity of the intersection, Freedom of Information documents reveal.
The documents, from a request by Labor’s transport spokesman Tom Koutsantonis, outline just how complex the $37 million project — a Liberal pre-election promise — will be through hundreds of pages of DPTI correspondence and even a presentation from lead designer Aurecon.
They also reveal an engineering report into the proposed turn was completed on September 30 — prompting Mr Koutsantonis to call on Transport Minister Stephan Knoll to release the full advice.
The study by Aurecon’s investigated three “configuration options” to install a right-hand turn onto North Tce to serve the East End tram extension, which has missed numerous deadlines and still doesn’t have a start date.
They were, adding a right-hand turn to the existing track and road geometry, lowering the rail relative to the existing road level to achieve the appropriate geometry or elevating the rail.
In a presentation to DPTI, Aurecon says because of the mirroring of the existing left hand turn from North Tce to King William St, just adding another right-turn would encounter numerous challenges.
But the designer says even adding a second track will be difficult.
“The requirement to assess the viability of adding a second track to the North Terrace (East) to King William Street manoeuvre, connecting the southern and eastern legs adds a significant degree of complexity to what is already an extremely complex piece of rail geometry,” the documents say.
“The requirement to have intersecting sections of track be planar (on a flat surface) means that the addition of this second turning track will require a number of compromises to be made in order to achieve a functional design.”
Part of the complexities around the project include a potential retaining wall outside Parliament House.
Mr Knoll said the Government would consider the report.
“We always knew this would be a technically difficult project to deliver,” he said.
“That’s why we’ve commissioned this engineering report and once we’ve considered the report we’ll be in a better position to talk about how we’ll deliver the right hand turn.”
Mr Koutsantonis said Mr Knoll owed it to taxpayers to release the engineering report immediately, especially since it contained how much it would cost to dig up the King William St intersection.
“We now know that Minister Stephan Knoll has received an engineering report into the tram right-hand turn, including how much it will cost to dig up the intersection of King William and North Terrace and how engineers plan to address the significant issues associated with the project,” he said.
“The Minister must immediately release this report in full.
“After continually failing to deliver on the opening of the new tram extension, the least the Minister can do is release this report, tell us exactly how much a right-hand turn will cost taxpayers, and when he plans to deliver this Liberal election promise.”
Emails from DPTI also reveal that the department has told Aurecon that bus operations will not change if a right-hand turn is implemented.
The documents also reveal that the Adelaide City Council has proposed to modify the high entry left turn at the north eastern corner of the intersection.