tragic. yet another broken promise. something needs to be done.
Spit Bridge upgrade cancelled
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere yet, but Sydney's Spit Bridge upgrade has been cancelled. From the smh:
Bridge promise fails to survive election
Alexandra Smith
May 2, 2007
Jammed up... traffic congestion is set to remain a probelm on the Spit Bridge.
THE long-awaited widening of the Spit Bridge has been dumped - the first broken election promise since the Iemma Government was re-elected just six weeks ago.
The Minister for Roads, Eric Roozendaal, said last night that the Roads and Traffic Authority had told him tenders for the project had ballooned to $115 million, $56 million more than estimated.
The turnaround comes after the seats of Manly and Pittwater - formerly held by independents - were won by the Liberal Party at the state election. The Liberals now hold all seats on the North Shore and northern beaches.
The Government had previously been keen to prop up independents in traditional Coalition seats with policy measures such as the widening of the traffic-choked bridge. Just six months before the election it called for tenders for the long-delayed project.
"The costs for this project now just don't stack up," Mr Roozendaal said yesterday.
"This project would have been good value for money at $59 million. This is a tough decision but I am not prepared to spend $115 million of taxpayers' money on a project which doesn't stack up.
"It is simply a question of spending priorities and what will deliver the best value for money and the best traffic-flow improvements."
The Opposition spokeswoman on transport, Gladys Berejiklian, said the decision came as no surprise because widening the bridge was always a flawed plan.
"It was not a solution that would have ever worked, and now the minister must improve options for the people of the northern beaches and the lower North Shore," Ms Berejiklian said.
The newly elected member for Manly, Mike Baird, said the Government had clearly axed the project before the election. "We have a significant case of electoral fraud," he said. "For the last two elections the entire northern beaches were promised a piece of infrastructure that was never going to be delivered. The real shame of this Labor Government is seen in all its ugliness in this entire process."
The widening project has been delayed several times since it was first promised in 2002, when the then roads minister, Carl Scully, pledged construction would begin late in 2003.
The project has had its critics.
A study by the University of Sydney's Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering found widening the bridge would simply shift bottlenecks towards Spit Junction and Military Road.
Mr Roozendaal said a working group made up of the RTA, State Transit, the Ministry of Transport and the Premier's Infrastructure Implementation Group would be set up to "investigate initiatives to improve traffic flows in the Spit Road-Military Road corridor".
A spokesman for the RTA said technical and engineering issues meant the project was no longer viable.
"The RTA has conducted a rigorous tender process, and following this process it has become clear that to finish the project successfully it would cost significantly more," the spokesman said.
"One of the main problems was the complex nature of widening an opening bridge."
---
I can't help but say "serves you right" for stopping the previous attempts to build a new bridge over the bottleneck. Maybe in a few years (come next election probably) plans will be resurrected to put in a bridge right over the top, and sort the whole mess out.
Bridge promise fails to survive election
Alexandra Smith
May 2, 2007
Jammed up... traffic congestion is set to remain a probelm on the Spit Bridge.
THE long-awaited widening of the Spit Bridge has been dumped - the first broken election promise since the Iemma Government was re-elected just six weeks ago.
The Minister for Roads, Eric Roozendaal, said last night that the Roads and Traffic Authority had told him tenders for the project had ballooned to $115 million, $56 million more than estimated.
The turnaround comes after the seats of Manly and Pittwater - formerly held by independents - were won by the Liberal Party at the state election. The Liberals now hold all seats on the North Shore and northern beaches.
The Government had previously been keen to prop up independents in traditional Coalition seats with policy measures such as the widening of the traffic-choked bridge. Just six months before the election it called for tenders for the long-delayed project.
"The costs for this project now just don't stack up," Mr Roozendaal said yesterday.
"This project would have been good value for money at $59 million. This is a tough decision but I am not prepared to spend $115 million of taxpayers' money on a project which doesn't stack up.
"It is simply a question of spending priorities and what will deliver the best value for money and the best traffic-flow improvements."
The Opposition spokeswoman on transport, Gladys Berejiklian, said the decision came as no surprise because widening the bridge was always a flawed plan.
"It was not a solution that would have ever worked, and now the minister must improve options for the people of the northern beaches and the lower North Shore," Ms Berejiklian said.
The newly elected member for Manly, Mike Baird, said the Government had clearly axed the project before the election. "We have a significant case of electoral fraud," he said. "For the last two elections the entire northern beaches were promised a piece of infrastructure that was never going to be delivered. The real shame of this Labor Government is seen in all its ugliness in this entire process."
The widening project has been delayed several times since it was first promised in 2002, when the then roads minister, Carl Scully, pledged construction would begin late in 2003.
The project has had its critics.
A study by the University of Sydney's Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering found widening the bridge would simply shift bottlenecks towards Spit Junction and Military Road.
Mr Roozendaal said a working group made up of the RTA, State Transit, the Ministry of Transport and the Premier's Infrastructure Implementation Group would be set up to "investigate initiatives to improve traffic flows in the Spit Road-Military Road corridor".
A spokesman for the RTA said technical and engineering issues meant the project was no longer viable.
"The RTA has conducted a rigorous tender process, and following this process it has become clear that to finish the project successfully it would cost significantly more," the spokesman said.
"One of the main problems was the complex nature of widening an opening bridge."
---
I can't help but say "serves you right" for stopping the previous attempts to build a new bridge over the bottleneck. Maybe in a few years (come next election probably) plans will be resurrected to put in a bridge right over the top, and sort the whole mess out.
1 - 17 of 17 Posts
Did we really expect anything else from this government?
You Sydneysiders voted for these clowns.... but I guess it was damned if you do damned if you don't with current state politics in NSW!
I can't see how a bridge over the bottleneck would help at all, because the bottleneck goes right up to Ourimbah Road at Spit Junction, where most traffic is basically funneled into one lane (transit-left lane, right turning traffic onto Ourimbah-right lane, through traffic-middle lane), and indeed you could argue the bottleneck continues until the turnoff to the Warringah freeway at Falcon Street in Neutral Bay, anyway.
The widening of Spit Bridge would have solved nothing, so I'm glad it is shelved, as should all the liberal voters of the northern beaches who voted liberal because they didn't want it to happen.
There are two solutions. The first is public transport, like, say a train line, but the tosser NIMBY's that populate the Northern Beaches don't want one because they don't want to be another 'Cronulla', and lets face it, neither party would have built one - don't just roll your eyes at Labor there. The second is a road tunnel from Manly Road (or wherever more convenient) to the Warringah Freeway, which at twice the length of the Cross City Tunnel (and thus twice the toll?) and complications of building under waterways and rich people, not to mention the sensitive issue of whether you want to build a smoke stack in Seaforth, Clontarf Castlecrag, Mosman or Northbridge, all populated by people happy to put in a little pro bono work to ensure whichever planning minister decides where it goes never gets work, or oxygen, in this town again.
Suggestions of bridges into Castlecrag are wishful, as are new main harbour crossings, rail or otherwise.
But as long as the mood up there is to reject a train line, if it were ever proposed, the residents of the Northern Beaches can **** off into their self-imposed NIMBY exile from the rest of Sydney. Here's to another 4 years of Labor fucking them over!
The widening of Spit Bridge would have solved nothing, so I'm glad it is shelved, as should all the liberal voters of the northern beaches who voted liberal because they didn't want it to happen.
There are two solutions. The first is public transport, like, say a train line, but the tosser NIMBY's that populate the Northern Beaches don't want one because they don't want to be another 'Cronulla', and lets face it, neither party would have built one - don't just roll your eyes at Labor there. The second is a road tunnel from Manly Road (or wherever more convenient) to the Warringah Freeway, which at twice the length of the Cross City Tunnel (and thus twice the toll?) and complications of building under waterways and rich people, not to mention the sensitive issue of whether you want to build a smoke stack in Seaforth, Clontarf Castlecrag, Mosman or Northbridge, all populated by people happy to put in a little pro bono work to ensure whichever planning minister decides where it goes never gets work, or oxygen, in this town again.
Suggestions of bridges into Castlecrag are wishful, as are new main harbour crossings, rail or otherwise.
But as long as the mood up there is to reject a train line, if it were ever proposed, the residents of the Northern Beaches can **** off into their self-imposed NIMBY exile from the rest of Sydney. Here's to another 4 years of Labor fucking them over!
^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ Yeah it kinda makes me wonder why the NB are so uptight about getting a train line, considering the old prim and proper North Shore has one running bang up the middle which is both well-liked and well-patronized. Given the geography of the area, it really does look pretty bleak.
Although in the paper today there was someone who mentioned a line branching off in the eastern suburbs and going north under the harbour to Manly and points northing. Interesting idea but seems pretty hard to do both physically and politically.
Although in the paper today there was someone who mentioned a line branching off in the eastern suburbs and going north under the harbour to Manly and points northing. Interesting idea but seems pretty hard to do both physically and politically.
The Libs did commission, prior to the 2003 election, one of the planning firms (Connell-Wagner I think) to do some preliminary work on a Spit Tunnel. The plan was for a twin two-lane tunnel from the Warringah Freeway at (well, in) Cammeray Golf Club to mid way along the Burnt Bridge Creek deviation.The second is a road tunnel from Manly Road (or wherever more convenient) to the Warringah Freeway, which at twice the length of the Cross City Tunnel (and thus twice the toll?) and complications of building under waterways and rich people, not to mention the sensitive issue of whether you want to build a smoke stack in Seaforth, Clontarf Castlecrag, Mosman or Northbridge, all populated by people happy to put in a little pro bono work to ensure whichever planning minister decides where it goes never gets work, or oxygen, in this town again.
If you add a suitable connection to the Wakehurst Pkwy at Seaforth you'd have a workable project (depending on costs, of course)
You'd also have a modern implementation of the original F1 Warringah Expressway that would have run, on the surface, to the Wakehurst Pkwy, Seaforth. You could even call the new tunnel the 'Warringah Motorway'...
:cheers:But as long as the mood up there is to reject a train line, if it were ever proposed, the residents of the Northern Beaches can **** off into their self-imposed NIMBY exile from the rest of Sydney. Here's to another 4 years of Labor fucking them over!
But something's got to give eventually, surely?
If the price of building a new bridge is prohibitive and pointless given surrounding traffic issues, maybe the NIMBY's will get desperate and agree to the train line eventually.
Don't you just love it.... Ohhh, it's too hard... I don't want to do it.
They sound like a six year old.
I like the idea of a spit tunnel. I would like to see any prelim design which may have been done.
They sound like a six year old.
I like the idea of a spit tunnel. I would like to see any prelim design which may have been done.
Labor doesn't get it at all.
I heard on John Laws yesterday an extract from an interview during the election campgain with Iemma telling Laws that it had already gone to tender.
And now they owe the tenders money, out of our taxes!!!! They do nothing and lose a fortune.
And if they cannot find $110 million, then explain how they found $2 billion for a desalination plant. Incompent use of revenue.
I heard on John Laws yesterday an extract from an interview during the election campgain with Iemma telling Laws that it had already gone to tender.
And now they owe the tenders money, out of our taxes!!!! They do nothing and lose a fortune.
And if they cannot find $110 million, then explain how they found $2 billion for a desalination plant. Incompent use of revenue.
What do you expect? Nothing. They don't care about NSW at all.Did we really expect anything else from this government?
I didnt vote for the clowns at all because I knew they would do nothing, and this confirms it even more. I still don't understand why they would be elected if they were doing nothing.You Sydneysiders voted for these clowns.... but I guess it was damned if you do damned if you don't with current state politics in NSW!
My prediction for the next project canceled or delayed indefinitely:
* All proposed train lines: northwest, southwest and Chatswood to Redfern
* All proposed train lines: northwest, southwest and Chatswood to Redfern
The 'give-up' result this week was laughable, but sadly expected. Infrastructure cop-outs are typical of under-spending governments these days.
We all know governments of any persuasion lack commonsense, but the commonsense option is a tunnel with 2 entry options in the north ie. 1 near the Burnt Bridge Ck Deviation and the other further north past the bottleneck of Manly which seems to be spreading further north each year.
The rise in the tunnel from beneath The Spit to North Sydney would be interesting…
We all know governments of any persuasion lack commonsense, but the commonsense option is a tunnel with 2 entry options in the north ie. 1 near the Burnt Bridge Ck Deviation and the other further north past the bottleneck of Manly which seems to be spreading further north each year.
The rise in the tunnel from beneath The Spit to North Sydney would be interesting…
Yes, agree totally. Talk of another Harbour crossing, despite it being desperately needed sounds like pie in the sky to me the way all Aust Govts are underspending on infrastructure.My prediction for the next project canceled or delayed indefinitely:
* All proposed train lines: northwest, southwest and Chatswood to Redfern
^^ I don't know about that. Maybe it's my naive beleif, but I don't think anyone can not build the North-West rail link anymore.
And eventually the extra Harbour crossing will be needed too. Wouldn't the whole railway clearways project be of alot less benefit without it? Not even Iemma is that dumb, surely.
And eventually the extra Harbour crossing will be needed too. Wouldn't the whole railway clearways project be of alot less benefit without it? Not even Iemma is that dumb, surely.
Something a bit more reflective
From The Sydney Morning Herald
Tranquillity, history and a lot of idling engines
May 5, 2007
The crossing at The Spit has long been a source of frustration, writes Damien Murphy.
Other related coverage
Roads to nowhere: congested city choking
Advertisement
AdvertisementJUST after dawn kayakers drop their craft into pellucid water at Clontarf and paddle off past the pelicans towards the Spit Bridge.
Multimillion-dollar properties hang on the hillsides, millions of dollars worth of cruisers and yachts ride on marina moorings and the roar of commuter traffic is still 30 minutes away.
Gliding beneath the shadows of the span, the silence, bush, birds and occasional flash of fish can take kayakers back to another time, almost oblivious that above them is Sydney's bridge of sighs.
In the latest episode of a long saga, the Iemma Government this week backed away from an election promise to widen the Spit Bridge, Roads Minister Eric Roozendaal suddenly discovering that at $115 million, the costs "just don't stack up".
Labor governments had hinted at widening the bridge ever since an independent, David Barr, won the swinging seat of Manly in 1999. Many locals believe the broken electoral promise was attributable to the Liberal renaissance on the northern beaches rather than economics. Meanwhile, the traffic keeps coming, and plans for another 10,000 residents in developments at Dee Why mean the gridlock can only worsen.
Peak-hour mutations change the bridge roadway into three-lanes-south-one-lane-north chaos that is reversed at night. During the day traffic is halted while the span rises to allow yachts through.
The bridge has been a choke point, actual and emotional, for northern beaches and Mosman residents since 1924 when the original replaced a punt service.
Manly wanted a bridge so badly that the municipality raised £60,000 for the work. A toll of sixpence paid it off in six years but the shape of the future was soon evident.
"Long queues of cars formed," wrote Pauline Curby in her history of Manly published in 2000, Seven Miles from Sydney. "Further delays, especially at holiday time and weekends, occurred when the span was lifted for yachts."
In 1958 a four-lane bascule, or lift bridge, replaced the old wooden structure.
"A day after the opening, traffic banked up for a mile in peak hour on the north side when the bridge had to be opened," Curby noted.
The bridge has made The Spit a drive-by experience for most of Sydney. Boat shops may attract daydreamers and the restaurants seem busy throughout the year, but the traffic and noise cannot blunt the area's beauty.
As kayakers know, The Spit retains a sort of solitude that must have greeted the first Australians and the first colonists. And over the years, the area has witnessed a host of important events.
On the northern shore, the Irish-Australian Henry James O'Farrell attempted to assassinate Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria's firstborn son, one autumn day in 1868 in the Clontarf Reserve. The royal survived; the suspected Fenian swung.
Henry Lawson penned a short verse, The Spit, after being confined up Middle Harbour at the Echo Farm Home for Male Inebriates in 1898.
On the southern shore, the Lucinda Memorial honours the National Australasian Convention of 1891, when fathers of the nation, including Edmund Barton and Samuel Griffith, chugged past aboard the paddle-steamer yacht Lucinda.
Nearby, there are bricks from a 17th-century English farmhouse where Sydney's first governor, Arthur Phillip, lived and a plaque honouring the Maitland boxer Les Darcy, who trained on The Spit, and another that marks Mosman's links with Norfolk Island.
In May 1960 tsunamis from an undersea earthquake off Chile marched into Middle Harbour just before dawn, and for three hours 1.2-metre waves, amplified by the narrows of The Spit, unloaded along the sandy southern shore. The bridge stood firm, yet over the years there have been proposals to widen it, drill beneath it, blow it up or build another one up the harbour.
The mayor of Mosman, Denise Wilton, said this week that two-thirds of people using Spit Road wanted to go to western Sydney, not to the CBD, and transport planners should factor that into their strategies.
A former Mosman mayor, Jim Reid, said a bigger bridge at The Spit was out: "The current one sits on soft sand and keeps moving around."
The then Opposition leader John Brogden advocated a tunnel in 2003, but Mr Reid said that was fantasy.
"Middle Harbour is a 300-foot [about 100 metres] deep trench of wet mud. It's too costly to tunnel under it for 250,000 people to drive through
From The Sydney Morning Herald
Tranquillity, history and a lot of idling engines
May 5, 2007
The crossing at The Spit has long been a source of frustration, writes Damien Murphy.
Other related coverage
Roads to nowhere: congested city choking
Advertisement
AdvertisementJUST after dawn kayakers drop their craft into pellucid water at Clontarf and paddle off past the pelicans towards the Spit Bridge.
Multimillion-dollar properties hang on the hillsides, millions of dollars worth of cruisers and yachts ride on marina moorings and the roar of commuter traffic is still 30 minutes away.
Gliding beneath the shadows of the span, the silence, bush, birds and occasional flash of fish can take kayakers back to another time, almost oblivious that above them is Sydney's bridge of sighs.
In the latest episode of a long saga, the Iemma Government this week backed away from an election promise to widen the Spit Bridge, Roads Minister Eric Roozendaal suddenly discovering that at $115 million, the costs "just don't stack up".
Labor governments had hinted at widening the bridge ever since an independent, David Barr, won the swinging seat of Manly in 1999. Many locals believe the broken electoral promise was attributable to the Liberal renaissance on the northern beaches rather than economics. Meanwhile, the traffic keeps coming, and plans for another 10,000 residents in developments at Dee Why mean the gridlock can only worsen.
Peak-hour mutations change the bridge roadway into three-lanes-south-one-lane-north chaos that is reversed at night. During the day traffic is halted while the span rises to allow yachts through.
The bridge has been a choke point, actual and emotional, for northern beaches and Mosman residents since 1924 when the original replaced a punt service.
Manly wanted a bridge so badly that the municipality raised £60,000 for the work. A toll of sixpence paid it off in six years but the shape of the future was soon evident.
"Long queues of cars formed," wrote Pauline Curby in her history of Manly published in 2000, Seven Miles from Sydney. "Further delays, especially at holiday time and weekends, occurred when the span was lifted for yachts."
In 1958 a four-lane bascule, or lift bridge, replaced the old wooden structure.
"A day after the opening, traffic banked up for a mile in peak hour on the north side when the bridge had to be opened," Curby noted.
The bridge has made The Spit a drive-by experience for most of Sydney. Boat shops may attract daydreamers and the restaurants seem busy throughout the year, but the traffic and noise cannot blunt the area's beauty.
As kayakers know, The Spit retains a sort of solitude that must have greeted the first Australians and the first colonists. And over the years, the area has witnessed a host of important events.
On the northern shore, the Irish-Australian Henry James O'Farrell attempted to assassinate Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria's firstborn son, one autumn day in 1868 in the Clontarf Reserve. The royal survived; the suspected Fenian swung.
Henry Lawson penned a short verse, The Spit, after being confined up Middle Harbour at the Echo Farm Home for Male Inebriates in 1898.
On the southern shore, the Lucinda Memorial honours the National Australasian Convention of 1891, when fathers of the nation, including Edmund Barton and Samuel Griffith, chugged past aboard the paddle-steamer yacht Lucinda.
Nearby, there are bricks from a 17th-century English farmhouse where Sydney's first governor, Arthur Phillip, lived and a plaque honouring the Maitland boxer Les Darcy, who trained on The Spit, and another that marks Mosman's links with Norfolk Island.
In May 1960 tsunamis from an undersea earthquake off Chile marched into Middle Harbour just before dawn, and for three hours 1.2-metre waves, amplified by the narrows of The Spit, unloaded along the sandy southern shore. The bridge stood firm, yet over the years there have been proposals to widen it, drill beneath it, blow it up or build another one up the harbour.
The mayor of Mosman, Denise Wilton, said this week that two-thirds of people using Spit Road wanted to go to western Sydney, not to the CBD, and transport planners should factor that into their strategies.
A former Mosman mayor, Jim Reid, said a bigger bridge at The Spit was out: "The current one sits on soft sand and keeps moving around."
The then Opposition leader John Brogden advocated a tunnel in 2003, but Mr Reid said that was fantasy.
"Middle Harbour is a 300-foot [about 100 metres] deep trench of wet mud. It's too costly to tunnel under it for 250,000 people to drive through
Personally there really needs to be a road and rail tunnel that satisfies the Spit and Military road corridor, **** the cost, it's needed now before things get even more expensive. If it's not built soon th cost with spiral out of control.
I agree with you completely Avatar, but I can't see it being done in this political climate. The word "infrastructure" means nothing to this government.Personally there really needs to be a road and rail tunnel that satisfies the Spit and Military road corridor, **** the cost, it's needed now before things get even more expensive. If it's not built soon th cost with spiral out of control.
1 - 17 of 17 Posts
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