QUAY ST PAVERS: Council reveals $50k plan to address cracking

The works come more than 12 months after the new pavers began to show signs of breakage.

Photo illustration Quay Street.

THE CRACKED pavers in Quay St are back in the limelight with the council announcing a plan to address the issue.

Rockhampton Regional Council has revealed a trial to rectify six of 58 cracked locations, costing almost $50,000.

Cracking of the granite tiles was first reported in June 2018, less than a year after the work was completed.

Mayor Margaret Strelow said that getting the pavers fixed was much more complicated than it may appear.

The matter was discussed in a confidential session at the council meeting on Tuesday where councillors moved to accept a rectification proposal.

The proposal at this stage is to be trialled in six failed locations at expansion joints on Quay St at a cost of $8,000 each.

QUAY ST TILES: It is proposed to provide a larger area and lay the pavers at the expansion joints longitudinal to the road and vehicular travel zone (see detail 2). It is proposed to remove the existing pavers at the expansion joint back approximately 1200mm and lay one (1) new row of 1195mm x 395mm pavers in the line of travel. The rectification proposal at this stage is to be trialled in six (6) failed locations at expansion joints on Quay Street at a cost of $8000 each. Three (3) locations in stage 1A and three (3) locations in stage 1B. The traffic management proposal will be to close a half side of Quay Street to carry out the works, let this cure for thirty (30) days, reopen road and then carry out the works on the other half of the street. This will maintain traffic flows in the CBD via Quay Street. It would be proposed to monitor the trial for at least eight (8) months to allow seasonal temperature variations/thermal influences and traffic movements to interact with the paver.

The traffic management proposal will be to close one side of Quay St to carry out the works, let this cure for thirty days, re-open the road and then carry out the works on the other half of the street.

This will maintain traffic flow in the CBD via Quay St.

It would be proposed to monitor the trial for at least eight months to allow seasonal temperature variations/thermal influences and traffic movements to interact with the pavers.

“The spectacular multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the Riverside Precinct in Rockhampton has won awards, hosted world class events, and injected a fresh sense of civic pride into our community,” Cr Strelow said.

“However, as we all know, there have been ongoing issues with a significant number of cracked pavers since the project was completed.

“We have been pursuing avenues to try to secure the money to repair the pavers, but given the delays and safety issues we have decided that we can’t wait for the outcome of the legal process and so we are taking action now.

QUAY ST TILES: It is considered that the cause of the delamination may be due the unrestrained paver at the expansion joints. The inertia generated by vehicles passing over the pavers at the unrestrained edged appears to be causing the paver's adhesive to fail, further failure of the pavers is now propagating out from the joints. The granite paver laid in the vehicular zone has a dimension of 1195mm x 395mm x 40mm thick. The paver is laid transverse across the road and across the vehicular travel direction (see below detail 1). At the expansion joints the paver's width dimension is between 150mm to 395mm. *excerpt from council report.

“There will be a number of trial sites and we will manage these to minimise disruption and ensure Quay Street remains open to traffic.

“Council has a number of mechanisms to seek to recover the repair costs and believe we have good prospects.

“We really do appreciate the community’s patience on this issue.

“Hard work is taking place behind the scenes but it’s not always possible to share the detail, especially as there is always a risk it could prejudice future legal action.”

General manager of regional services, Peter Kofod said the trial would be conducted on six sites and each site would use approximately 30 pavers.

“Once full rectification is complete a report on traffic flow options (one way vs. two way) will be presented to council,” he said.