Roads Australia
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has agreed to reforms that will streamline the regulations applying to the nation's $46 billion transport sector.
At its meeting yesterday COAG endorsed:
Infrastructure and Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese, says the reforms have the potential to boost national income by as much as $2.4 billion a year.
It is proposed that all reforms will be fully implemented by 2013. Transitional arrangements will come into effect in 2011 for heavy vehicles, maritime, and rail.
National Transport Commission (NTC) Chief Executive, Nick Dimopoulos, welcomed yesterday’s decision, saying it would improve safety and the international competitiveness of Australia’s freight sector.
“Fragmented regulation has been a handbrake on the efficient end-to-end movement of people and goods since federation,” Mr Dimopoulos said.
“While significant progress has been made to harmonise cross-border transport regulations, this agreement is a significant step toward seamless national laws that are administered in the same way wherever you are in Australia.”
The first major contract has been awarded as part of the $750 million Peninsula Link project in Melbourne, with BMD Constructions appointed to build the Lathams Road overpass in Carrum Downs.
Work on the overpass will begin within weeks, allowing jobs and other local opportunities to be generated ahead of the main works on the project.
The overpass will be constructed adjacent to the existing roadway, allowing Lathams Road to remain open during construction and ensuring minimal impact to the 14,000 motorists that use the road each day.
Early progress on the overpass will also deliver a major community benefit by allowing construction vehicles to travel under Lathams Road at an earlier stage, taking these vehicles off local streets.
Meantime, EastLink celebrated its first year of operation this week.
Motorists have made more than 50 million trips and travelled more than 640 million combined kilometres on EastLink over the past 12 months, and the road has one of the lowest casualty crash rates in Australia.
Mr Pallas said traffic volumes had been steadily increasing on the highway in its first year, with the road’s busiest day to date recorded in March when 191,204 trips were taken.
Early works have commenced on the $175 million busway project along Victoria Road, in the inner west of Sydney.
The project will provide bus lanes on the 3.5km section between Drummoyne and Rozelle.
The scope of works includes:
The project also includes improved cyclist and pedestrian facilities, including a ramp linking the new bridge to the popular Bay Run.
The project was announced as part of the NSW Premier's Urban Transport Statement, released in November 2006, which identified the need to improve the efficiency and reliability of bus services on Victoria Road through Drummoyne and Rozelle.
It is being delivered by the Bridge-to-Bay alliance with Baulderstone, Manidis Roberts, Hyder and the RTA.
The alliance has been considering options and alternatives and then seeking project approval since October 2007. Adrian Pearse from Baulderstone is heading up the project team.
The project has a completion date of April 2011 with an operational target date of early 2011.
The $366 million extension of the Centenary Highway, near Ipswich, opened this week - on time, on budget and well ahead of forecasted traffic demand, according to Premier Anna Bligh.
“This extension will have immediate benefits for motorists in the Springfield and southern Ipswich areas, but it has also been designed to accommodate future growth by providing regional links to a number of major developments in the Western corridor,” the Premier said.
The Centenary Highway Extension is an 18-kilometre extension of the two-lane Centenary Highway from Springfield to join the Cunningham Highway at Yamanto.
Early works on the project commenced in 2005 with construction of the Springfield Interchange.
Meantime Queensland Roads Minister, Craig Wallace, and Federal Senator, Jan McLucas, last week commissioned $170 million of road infrastructure projects in Townsville - the Townsville ring road preject, and the Bruce Highway upgrade between Woodlands Shopping Centre and Veales Road.
And in other Queensland road news, planning has started on the upgrade of the southern approach of the Bruce Highway in Gin Gin. The Federal Government has committed $20 million to this project under the Nation Building Program.
Queensland Transport Minister, Rachel Nolan, and Main Roads Minister, Craig Wallace, have welcomed the recommendations of an audit of the management of urban congestion tabled by the state’s Auditor-General.
The report, Transport network management and urban congestion in South East Queensland, recognised the Government’s commitment to and initiatives for alleviating congestion, but found the framework supporting these initiatives had deficiencies.
The report called for greater coordination and better integration of planning across the various entities with responsibility for transport and congestion.
The Auditor General welcomed the recent merger of the departments of Transport and Main Roads as an opportunity to “...enhance integration, embed genuine collaboration and leverage the synergies that exist in the roles of the former departments.”
Commenting on the release of the report last month, Ministers Nolan and Wallace acknowledged there was more work to be done in coordinating the numerous activities across all agencies with the ability to reduce congestion.
“The Auditor General has rightly said that congestion has an impact on our lifestyle and our environment and needs to be managed as efficiently as possible,” Ms Nolan said.
"We’re tackling that challenge and that's why we're rolling out Australia's biggest infrastructure program - $18.2 billion worth this year alone.
"The whole of south east Queensland is a construction site at the moment and while that means short-term pain, it means long term-gain.”
Both Ministers said their co-ordinated approach would follow the five-point strategy to address congestion which was announced last year. The Government says it will release a comprehensive congestion management plan based on these five planks later this year.
Registrations are still being taken for Australia’s premier road industry events of 2009, the Roads Australia Sixth National Roads Summit and the John Shaw Award Dinner, to be held in Sydney later this month.
The Summit, which will be attended by senior executives from across the Australian road industry, takes place at the Novotel Brighton Beach on July 28 and 29.
The event is sponsored by RA members ARRB, Hyder and SKM.
The John Shaw Award Dinner, with guest speaker former NSW Premier and Chairman of Bilfinger Berger Australia (BBA), Nick Greiner AC, takes place on the evening of July 28. The dinner is sponsored by BBA.
Among the issues on this year’s Summit program are:
For the latest program and registration details, click here.
A series of events and activities are being planned for Freight Week 2009, September 7 to 11 at the Melbourne Tennis Centre.
Each day of Freight Week focuses on a different key theme:
• Freight People Day Monday 7th
• Freight Technology Day Tuesday 8th
• Melbourne Port Day Tuesday 8th
• Freight Environment Day Wednesday 9th
• Freight Safety Day Thursday 10th
• Freight Agenda Day Friday 11th
Freight Week is run by the Victorian Transport Association in conjunction with the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce. For more information and registration details, visit the Freight 2009 website.
Submitted by Mark Bowmer on Friday July 3rd 2009 2:11pm
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