Public Works Committee: O-Bahn City Access Project

Ms DIGANCE (Elder) (11:38): I move:

That the 533^rd report of the committee, entitled O-Bahn City Access Project, be noted.

The project proposed by the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) will provide a dedicated bus lane in each direction along Hackney Road from the O-Bahn guided busway to just before the North Terrace intersection. From here, the bus lane will descend into a tunnel that passes under the Parklands and re-emerges near the Grenfell Street/East Terrace intersection. Buses will then be able to join the existing bus lane on Grenfell Street.

The key aim of this project is to reduce the travel time for passengers commuting on the O-Bahn, the most highly patronised metropolitan public transport corridor in Adelaide. The travel time along Hackney Road and into the CBD during peak hour can substantially add to the journey, taking almost twice as long to travel the 1.5 kilometres from Gilberton to Grenfell Street as it does to travel the 12 kilometres along the guided busway from Tea Tree Plaza. In addition to improved travel times, these works will also address a number of other issues, including improving traffic flow and movement along Hackney Road (a key part of the city ring route), reducing travel times for other commuters and freight, and improving safety on this section of the road.

Crash statistics over the last decade show there is a significant problem with the right-hand turn manoeuvres onto or from Hackney Road, with these accounting for over 60 per cent of crashes on this section. This safety issue needs to be addressed irrespective of the O-Bahn project. U-turns will be established along Hackney Road, as they provide a safer option for traversing the traffic than right-hand turns and have been successfully implemented already along Greenhill Road. They also reinforce the primary function of Hackney Road of moving traffic around the city as a key part of the inner ring route.

As well as the bus lanes on Hackney Road and the tunnel under the Parklands, there will be some other works associated with the project. A separate cycle and pedestrian path will run along Botanic Park, with a separate bridge over the River Torrens. There will also be modifications to the layout of the East Terrace/Grenfell Street intersection and to Rundle Road to allow for 50 additional on-street car parks.

The cost of this project, exclusive of GST, is $160 million. It will be fully funded by the South Australian government. The main construction is due to commence later this year with completion by the end of 2017. The committee had a number of concerns regarding the project, including the ability of pedestrians to cross Hackney Road. The department has reassured the committee that the three existing median refuge pedestrian/cycling crossings on Hackney Road are to be retained in close proximity to their current positions.

Substantial consultation and community engagement has occurred with input being sought from the general community, both at Hackney and College Park and users of the O-Bahn, businesses affected by the project, local councils, members of parliament and many others. Their input has led to amendments occurring to the original design released in February 2015, and this current refined concept design, considered by the committee, released in June 2015.

Negotiations continue with key stakeholders such as local councils, and working groups have been established that include the relevant councils to identify, discuss and resolve issues as they arise. DPTI has committed to continue to liaise with key stakeholders and the community over the life of the project and consult on specific issues as necessary. They will keep the community and stakeholders informed about the project's progress as the specific detailed planning and design continues and throughout the construction phase.

Given this, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public works.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:42): I too rise to support the 533^rd report relating to the O-Bahn City Access Project. It has been, I think, a relatively controversial project. To spend that sort of money in the election cycle has been questionable, but it will benefit those people who have been using the O-Bahn and will continue the O-Bahn—a project that was built by a good Liberal government in the mid-1980s.

It is patronised by about 30,000 people a day. The 12-kilometre O-Bahn is probably one of the most highly-patronised metropolitan public transport corridors in Adelaide, and I think that is testament that it is something that, potentially, in Adelaide, should have been utilised much more than it is currently.

The project, obviously between Hackney Road and Grenfell Street, is going to have an impact, and it is going to have an impact on the people who live in the vicinity of Hackney Road. There will be fewer car parks. In some instances, residents in Hackney are going to be landlocked, if you like. They are going to have to make significant effort to get themselves onto the main or arterial roads so that they can go about their daily work, their daily business. That was probably one of the biggest concerns that the committee had during the hearing.

The Dequetteville Terrace/Rundle Road intersection on the inner ring route is currently at or approaching capacity with about 79,000 vehicle movements on an average weekday, and during the hearing we were told that greater than 60 per cent of crashes recorded along Hackney Road involved vehicles attempting to turn right.

That was probably another one of the major concerns, that when people are travelling west on North Terrace they are now going to have to turn left down Hackney Road and take a U-turn. I have experienced using that road in the morning and in the evening, and to navigate turning left onto Hackney Road and doing a U-turn is going to be one mighty feat because that traffic has significant build-up and I think it is really going to disadvantage the people who use the right turn at Hackney Road. It is going to disadvantage some 400 local residents who will be impacted on.

I guess there will be fewer car parks on Hackney Road, so the function centre at the National Wine Centre will be impacted on. It is a national centre and to have significantly fewer car parks will impact. With those 400 homes, we had to look at it on balance, and really what we are looking at on balance is that the 400 local residents are going to be disadvantaged and the people using the O-Bahn will be advantaged. So it really is quite a sad state that the government would be prepared to benefit some people and disadvantage others. I guess this has been long touted, and whether it is a marginal seat's campaign tool remains to be seen, but I think it will be of great benefit to the people who use the corridor from the north of Adelaide.

To August 2015, almost $7 million of the $160 million budget had been spent on planning, investigations, approvals and reports. It is quite interesting to note that they have already spent $11,000 on flyers and letters advertising the project. It is a pity that they did not spend a little bit more money on providing a solution to those 400 local homes that are going to be impacted on.

I think it was a recommendation of the Public Works Committee that we will have the department back in. The concern was that there was no alternative route even proposed, and there were no alternative costings proposed with any alternatives with this project. I think, again, we need to alleviate some of the concerns that those local residents in the Hackney Road vicinity will face. I note the project has been passed by the Public Works Committee. We will have the department back to answer more questions, and I commend the report to the house.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (11:48): I rise to speak today regarding the Public Works Committee's report into the O-Bahn. As the local member for the seat of Adelaide this is extremely important, as is the disruption to the people in the City of Adelaide. They are very concerned about the misuse of the Parklands and the effect this will have throughout Adelaide.

Just giving you some background on this project, there were over 160 written submissions against the O-Bahn Access Project presented to the Legislative Council select committee prior to 31 July, including those from major groups such as the Adelaide Parklands Preservation Association, the City of Norwood, Payneham and St Peters, Hackney Residents' Association and the Walkerville Residents' Association, South-East City Residents' Association, and many, many others.

Also, from the final report of the Public Works Committee, they received 324 community submissions. So you can see this is a very important issue that a lot of our community is very concerned about, and not only about the project and the effects on the surrounding areas but also about the money that is being spent and whether there are better outcomes and better ways to achieve the same or better outcomes.

I note that the member for Dunstan also made a submission to both the Public Works Committee and the select committee on this same topic, as his constituents are also very concerned about the outcomes of this project. In addition, there are many people outside of the Adelaide electorate who are very angry about what is planned for the Adelaide Parklands, and even many using the O-Bahn have a preference for better parking and other ways to actually improve the timeliness and reliability of the O-Bahn. The public of South Australia should be very clear that the O-Bahn access project is a politically motivated project of the state government.

The cancellation of the Gawler electrification project meant the loss of $76 million of commonwealth government funding, an approximate cost penalty of $70 million if the government should restart the project, and a write-down of over $40 million by the Auditor-General as underutilised infrastructure. This is a total loss of over $186 million, yet the reason for abandoning the project was supposedly a lack of funds. In the lead up to the 2014 election a figure of $160 million was found for the O-Bahn project and was announced by transport minister Stephen Mullighan in February 2015, only weeks or days prior to the election, just to save a few minutes for the users of the O-Bahn. Those few minutes will be at the expense of more state debt, the destruction of Rymill Park, and the loss of over 200 trees. There are no extra buses proposed and no extra passengers, so it really beggars belief that this will be going ahead.

Whilst I absolutely support ways to improve the speed and reliability of all public transport I believe there are better ways that are more cost effective and can achieve better outcomes. It was actually at the Public Works Committee that I heard Rod Hook, the previous chief executive officer of DPTI, put forward some very good options that would not require tunnels in the Parklands. These included gated stations on Grenfell Street to reduce long queues and speed up validation of tickets to allow entry by both doors, and apparently a lot of work has already been done on that project so there should be costings and workings already available.

Rod Hook also mentioned modifying the buses to travel at 100 km/h on the O-Bahn track. Between 1980 and 2012 the buses all travelled at 100 km/h on that track; this has now been limited to 85 kilometres per hour, the reason given being to try to stop them from catching up with the next bus. Surely fitting GPS systems or early warning systems, or scheduling the buses better, or even the drivers looking out for a bus ahead, like they would be on a normal road, would fix that problem? I find it strange that the government could propose driverless cars yet we cannot even have driven vehicles not hitting each other at high speed.

Other recommendations include the Bundeys Road intersection, where the bus-priority light sequencing could stay on longer so that buses could get through more quickly. We also know, from other testimonials to both the select committee and the Public Works Committee, that peak hour is really only one hour in the morning from eight until nine and 1½ hours in the afternoon. That is a maximum of 12½ hours a week when there is actually an issue that we are spending $160 million to fix. Why would you not have people employed to monitor the intersections, sequencing the controls and the lights so that buses can get through?

The main issue is the Hackney Road/North Terrace intersection, so the right-hand turn bus lane could just have the right-hand arrow kept on until all buses were cleared through. In the evenings a left-hand arrow could be kept on to clear buses through. This, along with the other ideas I have already mentioned, could actually save more time for the people of the north-eastern suburbs who use the O-Bahn.

You could also have a multilevel car park at the Paradise Interchange, it was previously promised. I hear that people actually spend up to 20 minutes looking for car parks in the area, which is quite unsafe when going back to your car at night. I am sure that by expanding the car park you are saving 20 minutes, and that is more than the seven minutes that will be saved for $160 million. You could increase the frequency of services during peak hour by sequencing the lights and intersections better.

There are also considerations on the impacts on road users and on residents of Grenfell Street between East Terrace and Frome Street. There are expected to be 30 extra buses per hour, and there are 10 residential driveways accessing hundreds of homes in the area. The impacts to them have not been considered.

It will also severely compromise car and pedestrian use of Hackney Road. As we heard earlier, many residents believe that there are much more pressing priorities for the government, for example the Gawler electrification and, from a recent visit to Port Augusta, Yorkeys Crossing. We have also seen that 18 country councils have united to call on the state government to abandon the project and spend money on rural roads which are in desperate need of improvement.

From the report on O-Bahn access from the Public Works Committee, the crash statistics state that 60 per cent of accidents along Hackney Road were from vehicles attempting right-hand turn manoeuvres. Firstly, I would ask, how would adding two extra bus lanes improve that? As we know, they are adding in the U-turns instead, which, I hope, will improve that. The question would be, why have they not done that already?

I also question the economic analysis and the actual value that has been attributed to the travel time of 2½ minutes in the morning and 3½ in the afternoon to get the 1:6 cost-benefit ratio, and I ask whether the two minutes 30 seconds in the morning and the two minutes 20 seconds in the afternoon increased time that is expected by the U-turns for people in Hackney have been costed in when they have calculated the overall cost, and whether the two years of maintenance and works on Hackney Road and the loss of travel time and amenity to the 79,000 cars, I believe, that use that road every day, were actually costed in when you calculated the 1:6 cost-benefit ratio.

The project mentions 450 full-time equivalent jobs. I would like the government to make sure that these are South Australian jobs. The breakdown: I would like the government to actually break down the $160 million as well as the time costing, to see what percentage cost is for the tunnel and what percentage of the time savings is due to the tunnel, because many people believe that with the addition of the pedestrian and cycle bridge at Hackney Road and through sequencing and the extension of the bus lanes you could actually improve the time dramatically at far less cost.

Again, while there are many issues, there is a loss of a lot of car parks along Hackney Road, which I am concerned will affect all the businesses along Hackney Road, including the Botanic Gardens and the Zoo. While I support the project, because we have no real choice, I think there are better ways to achieve better outcomes for less money.

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (11:57): We only have two minutes left, so I will not be able to conclude any remarks this morning. A couple of things I would like to say relate to the fact that my electorate, of course, is at the Tea Tree Plaza end of the O-Bahn track and our area has long recognised the benefits of public transport through this very special system, which has just recently celebrated its 30^th anniversary.

We are really narrowing down on one aspect of the project all the time by saying it is only about saving three minutes, or seven minutes, or whatever figure people want to use. It is about a whole of transport system project. I think the O-Bahn improvements have been spoken about through several elections, and in an effort to keep an election promise I think this is a really good way of delivering not only a benefit for the people of the north-east—as you know, it is the busiest public transport corridor—but also working at growing the number of people who use public transport.

I do not profess to be a public transport expert, but I truly believe that we have had public transport experts looking at this problem, and I cannot believe that the whole plan that we have here is such a bad plan that it is just not worth doing at all. I think the actual benefits will be seen when the plan is in action, and we will have to wait until it is finished for that to be the case. I will seek leave to continue my remarks—next week, of course.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.