TORRENS JUNCTION GRADE SEPARATION

Torrens Junction.

The intermidable saga of the Torrens Junction grade separation project continues. Readers may remember, whilst they wait for freight trains to clear level crossings in the electorate, that the local member of parliament, Mr Atkinson told us exactly a year ago:

“The Minister for Transport has told me that the State Government has made a bid to the Commonwealth's Infrastructure Australia Fund for matching money to build a one-kilometre defile that will take the Outer Harbour and grange passenger trains beneath the standard-gauge freight in the west parklands and underneath Park Terrace. This would mean that the locomotives of Melbourne-bound freight trains would no longer be halted by signals just south of North Adelaide Railway Station and therefore their trucks would no longer block the Hawker Street and Torrens Road level crossings while they waited for suburban passenger trains to cross the freight line. The Minister tells me the bid is one of the few that fulfills all the requirements of Infrastructure Australia and stands a good chance of being funded. This project would also eliminate the level crossing at Park Terrace, making traffic flow more easily there. This was a topic that arose out of our last street-corner meetings in Bowden in March.”

Mr Atkinson's intervention with the Commonwealth seems to have had little positive impact, since the local railway grade separation has been put on ice, while the other half of the plan, the Goodwood Juction grade separation, has received the entire Commonwealth money – over $400 million.

The last sighting of the Torrens Junction proposal was here:

Residents may gain consolation by a careful consideration of Mr Atkinson's major traffic initiative, the 25 year campaign to re-open Barton Terrace North Adelaide, which creeps its way through the House of Assembly – much like the traffic piled up in Hawker Street, waiting for the freight trains to move.



"why does the freight train stop at hawker st crossing?"



The freight trains run on their own standard gauge track, while Adelaide metropolitan passenger trains run on broad gauge.
The freight line crosses the passenger lines at Goodwood and Torrens Junctions. Because the freight trains must 'give way' to passenger trains, they have to slow down or stop before the crossover points, if a passenger train needs to pass safely through the junction.
Torrens junction lies immediately north of the railway bridge crossing the Torrens river, adjacent to Bowden. Freight trains can be up to 1.5 Kms long, which means that those freight trains which need to slow down or stop before Torrens junction (traveling south) will cause motorists delays at both Hawker street and Torrens road railway crossings.
The “grade separation” proposal for the two junctions has been planned for many years.
The original plan called for underpasses to be built and level crossing upgrades in the areas. The Howard Government in its dying days promised $200M for the two junctions.
The grade separation funding application was given high priority under the Rudd nation building scheme.
However, with the inauguration of the Bowden Urban Village Transport Orientated Development in 2008, a coterie of local government members, planning officials and property developers pushed for - not just the 'functional' grade separation at Torrens Junction - but an extension of the proposed underpass right through to the existing Bowden Station, to form one of the prominent features of the Urban Village TOD.


This elaboration, while effectively subsidizing the property developers in Bowden, had the unfortunate result of rendering the project less eligible for funding from the Commonwealth, and the the situation as it now stands is that level crossing delays at Hawker street and Torrens road will continue to infuriate us for another decade.

GRIEVANCE DEBATE

Wednesday 17 October 2012 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY Page 3221

GOODWOOD AND TORRENS RAIL PROJECT

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:26): As the shadow minister for transport, I take a great interest in transport and infrastructure projects in this state: when they are good, I support them; when they are bad and wasteful, of course I object to them; and when they do not tell us the whole truth, I expose them. Today, I want to refer to the Goodwood and Torrens rail junctions project, which is a $443 million project, essentially to provide grade separation between domestic and freight rail at two intersections, and other projects.

In May this year, the federal government announced in its budget that South Australia would receive $232 million in 2015-16, which is on a fifty-fifty arrangement between the state and federal governments towards the Goodwood and Torrens junctions project. In this year's state budget, the South Australian government committed $110 million this year for the Goodwood component, that is, the first grade separation.

I should also point out that $110 million is still missing from the total value of the project. The government said straightaway, 'We are going to start developing, repairing, and so forth, the Goodwood part of the project; the rest, obviously is going to have to wait.' There is still $110 million missing. This is very important. We received the Auditor-General's Report yesterday and for the first time in the time I have been here that I can recall (I may be wrong) the transport department actually received a qualified approval from the Auditor-General. The information there relates to how the government has treated its federal money.

We will obviously follow a number of these issues up at the appropriate time, if and when we ever get questions in relation to the Auditor-General's report, but in December 2011 Mr Rod Hook, the CEO, provided the Budget and Finance Committee with the following breakdown of costs in respect of this project: Goodwood Junction, $104.6 million; Leader Street, $51.6 million; Keswick, $45.8 million; Mike Turtur Bikeway overpass, $10.5 million; and Torrens Junction, Bowden and Park Terrace, $230.6 million.

When the Goodwood component went to the Public Works Committee recently, which I attended, Mr Hook attended with his staff to give evidence and, when asked about whether these figures were still applicable, they appeared to be somewhat confused about the budget figures that were presented, and they indicated that they would provide some updated material in relation to that. To date, to the best of my knowledge, that information has not been forthcoming, and I have since had a meeting with one of the senior officers in relation to this project and other matters.

What was very telling at that meeting of the Public Works was, firstly, that the submission that was presented by the Department of Transport no longer includes the $10.5 million bike overpass (on Ride to Work Day, it is rather a disappointing thing to have to be announcing today), and it is of concern that that was missing. The state government had not funded the Leader Street upgrade, which has completely disappeared from the work to be undertaken at this stage. Apparently, that is to be done at some later date with the Torrens interchange. If anyone knows the geography of Adelaide, they will know it is at the other end of the area concerned.

The honourable member for Ashford, in fact, gave evidence. To her credit, she described the traffic conditions in that area as 'a nightmare' in respect of the importance of having the Leader Street upgrade done. Given the increased traffic on the Seaford rail line after the electrification and extension, it is critical that we fix the level crossings that go with it.

It is a concern to me that that has slipped off the net, but here is another thing: we have lost the bike overpass, Leader Street has disappeared and now we have the state government not funding a $45.8 million upgrade for the build of a station for the Keswick site. They are only going to provide approximately $18 million for Keswick, which is not even happening at the same time as the current Goodwood project.

These are all very concerning matters. We have got a $110 million shortfall on a major project which is not in the budget anywhere from any government, we have got queries raised in the Auditor-General's Report and we have got public works material coming through which now highlights multimillion dollar parts of the project which have disappeared—just completely disappeared.

We will be wanting some answers. We will look forward to the answers that are provided by Mr Hook and/or his staff, in due course, to the Public Works Committee and the ultimate report to the parliament on these matters, but it is not acceptable that the government promote and propose major projects or smaller ones, for that matter, and then rip the guts out of them before they are actually out there for public consideration. This is a matter we will be taking further.