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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-11-24 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE: DUKES HIGHWAY UPGRADE

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (11:20): I move:

That the 384th report of the committee, entitled Dukes Highway Upgrade, be noted.

The Adelaide-Melbourne road corridor is a strategic route for South Australia, providing the major connection between Melbourne and Adelaide. Whilst generally of a very good standard, some sections of the pavement exhibit signs of wear and the road surface in some locations is rutted and provides a rough riding surface.

The Australian government has committed $80 million to fund improvements along the Dukes Highway between 2009-10 and 2013-14. It has also agreed to bring forward approximately $5 million of this funding to deliver a number of high-priority, low-value improvements that were largely identified by the Melbourne-Adelaide Road Corridor Study. The program of treatments consists of new and upgraded rest areas, new overtaking lanes and extension of existing lanes, protection from roadside hazards, cross centre-line crash treatments, pavement rehabilitation, township safety improvements and intersection upgrades.

Proposed treatments accept that, unfortunately, human error is likely to occur at times and endeavour to create a road system which reduces the likelihood of driver error resulting in serious injury or death. Treatments are varied, range in size and cover the full length of the 191-kilometre highway. Some are new to South Australia or have never been carried out on a scale envisaged for this program. Planning for the implementation of these treatments is therefore a dynamic process with detailed planning likely to continue for the life of the program itself.

An assessment of crashes on comparable national roads in South Australia reveals that the Dukes Highway has a much higher proportion of casualty crashes that result in fatalities—18 per cent of total casualty crashes compared with 6 per cent on other national roads. Crashes are spread relatively randomly along the length of the highway, with no obvious blackspots. Fatigue appears to be a factor in one-third of casualty crashes and over half of fatal crashes. 'Left road to the left' and cross centre-line crashes each make up 40 per cent of the total number of serious and fatal crashes, with overtaking-related crashes making up 10 per cent of the total.

A specific Dukes Highway rest area strategy has been developed, which aims to improve safety by providing amenities that address fatigue-related crashes and, specifically, heavy vehicle driver fatigue. It will provide rest opportunities at approximately 15-kilometre intervals, with an opportunity for extended rest breaks at no more than 100 kilometres. To achieve this outcome, it is proposed to install seven new and nine upgraded existing rest areas between Tailem Bend and the Victorian border at an estimated cost of $6 million.

Two locations have been identified where overtaking-related crashes are prevalent, and an additional lane will be constructed at each site. Identified safety improvements to these intersections will be undertaken in conjunction with the new overtaking lanes. Four existing short overtaking lanes constructed as part of the Dukes Highway overtaking lane program (between 1993 and 2004) have poor safety records in comparison to the longer lanes. The extension of these lanes was therefore recommended in order to improve their safe operation and undertaken in 2008-09 as part of the low-value 'early start' projects at a cost of $2.3 million.

In addition, the adoption of centre median treatments that prevent overtaking will require new overtaking lanes to offset lost overtaking opportunities. The number and locations of these lanes will be determined following further planning. With run-off road crashes making up to 50 per cent of total crashes, the unforgiving nature of the roadside along significant lengths of the highway is a major contributing factor to the high proportion of casualty crashes that result in a fatality. To reduce both the number and severity of run-off road crashes, there will be targeted removal of fixed hazards closest to the travelling lanes and protection of remaining higher risk hazards with safety barriers.

Identification of locations along the full length of the road where treatments will be undertaken is currently underway as part of the ongoing planning work. At any given location, the work may involve a combination of tree removal, installation of guard rail or wire rope safety barriers and/or replacement of non-frangible signposts with frangible posts.

The committee was concerned about the hazard facing motorcycle riders if wire rope was used as a safety barrier. There is a strong perception among riders that these ropes present significant injury risks. The committee is assured that safety research indicates that these concerns are not founded and that motorcycle riders who hit these barriers are significantly less likely to suffer casualties than if they were to strike alternative safety barriers.

Pavement quality is a concern for a considerable portion of the Dukes Highway, given that 50 per cent of the pavement is greater than 20 years old. With age, pavements can rut, deform and crack, resulting in an increased roughness of ride and, potentially, fatigue and loss of vehicle control crashes. To overcome this issue, pavement replacement is proposed for sections in very poor condition.

Between 2004 and 2008, over 80 per cent of fatal crashes on the Dukes Highway involved vehicles crossing the centre-line and either leaving the road to the right or hitting oncoming vehicles. Interventions being considered include centre-lines with audio-tactile line marking, installation of centre median wire rope and painted centre medians or double centre-lines with audio-tactile line marking. These have been utilised to a limited extent on two-lane, two-way roads interstate and overseas, and their use is growing as road authorities seek to address this significant crash problem.

The Dukes Highway passes through a number of small and medium-size townships. To allow time for rigorous consultation with local community groups and an iterative feedback process, delivery of township safety improvements is not proposed until the later stages of the program. An amount of $2.5 million is assigned for this work.

Duplication of the highway has obvious safety benefits in terms of reducing or eliminating head-on and other cross centre-line crashes, but it is essentially a capacity-related treatment, and other more cost-effective options are available to address these crash types. For duplication to be economically viable, traffic volumes are required to be in the order of 10,000 vehicles per day. Traffic volumes are currently in a range of 2,400 to 4,600 vehicles per day, with only a 1.3 per cent per annum growth expected in the long term.

This upgrading program will provide infrastructure treatments to improve the safety of passenger and freight movements along the corridor and enable the road to deliver a level of service to meet its current and anticipated future needs for the next 20 to 25 years.

In summary, the major objectives of the investment in the Dukes Highway are to improve road safety, asset management, traffic management, town amenity and economic development. This project will also improve the state's competitiveness through efficient freight transport networks and minimise the impact of freight vehicle movement on the community and the environment.

Based upon the evidence presented to it, pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public work.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (11:29): I rise to support the motion and to make a couple of points. First of all, while this work is welcomed, I think it signals that the government needs to look far more strategically at the Dukes Highway and, indeed, at more of our major country arterial roads. Sooner or later, we will have to duplicate the Dukes Highway and upgrade it more significantly for the long-term benefit of South Australians.

I note that it was built originally to a 120 km/h horizontal and vertical standard and that further improvements have been made over time, and this work we are approving today is another step forward, but I think the government should talk to the commonwealth about a broad and longer term vision for the Dukes Highway. It should be duplicated. It is the major route between Victoria (particularly Melbourne) and Adelaide. In any other major country in the world, it would be a very significant highway and it is in a shocking state, given that it is the major link between two of Australia's most important capital cities.

I would urge the government to come up with something bigger and grander than this proposal. Yes, it is an AusLink road; yes, it does need to be funded by the commonwealth but, to a degree, the state has a role in setting the priorities in what we bid for when we go to Canberra and I think the Dukes Highway should be an important part of that future vision.

The RAA has made this point in its landmark research 'Backwater to Benchmark'. Others like SARTA and the Adelaide road traffic association—so many stakeholders—have made the point that the Dukes Highway needs further work and enhancement.

That leads me to my next point, which has to do with speed limits, and I raised this during the committee's deliberations. It is completely unacceptable that so much of this route is 100 km/h. One of the best bits of road in South Australia at the moment is the Dukes Highway from Bordertown to the Victorian border, upgraded at considerable expense. The speed limit was knocked down now from 110 km/h to 100. I asked about this, and the committee confirmed that it is going to stay that way.

It is ridiculous. It is an endless frustration to country people that they are on large expansive roads moving from A to B and they have to potter along at 100 km/h, and in some cases 80 km/h, because the government, having not maintained the roads, runs along afterwards and signposts them down from 110 to 100 or from 100 to 80. It is a novel way of covering over the fact that the roads are in poor condition: dropping the speed limit and saying to people, 'Potter around at 80 km/h and you will not have a crash.'

It would be better to maintain the roads properly, build good roads, build solid roads upon which country people can travel faster and more safely. It will not only reduce the death toll but it will also reduce the frustration level that is evident around large parts of country South Australia with speed limits on roads.

This is a point that equally applies to the Eyre Highway. I know it applies to the main highway from Port Augusta through to Coober Pedy, and the Stuart Highway. There are so many roads where we really should be travelling at least 110 km/h, and I would argue that we should be thinking very seriously about engineering our roads and designing our roads so that they can travel in those areas in excess of 110 km/h, perhaps 120, maybe even 130.

I know this was a point continually hammered by the previous member for Stuart, and I am sure the current member for Stuart has some sympathy as well. If in countries like Germany and elsewhere in the world we can design roads where you can safely travel at speeds in excess of 110 km/h, why can't we do it here?

We have an opportunity when we make a major investment in the Dukes Highway to upgrade as it should be, to duplicate it and to build a road that you can travel safely along in excess of 110 km/h. I would urge people to do it, because that frustration level also costs lives when people try to overtake, get frustrated travelling at low speeds, get stuck behind other vehicles, and it does create problems. I think the speed limit issue needs to be looked at not only on the Dukes but more broadly.

My third point is to do with barriers. The chair of the committee has mentioned wire barriers. I asked that the committee be provided with further research about the effect of these wire barriers. I can say, having read some of that research, I am not convinced that, as a motorcyclist, I would rather hit a wire barrier than a solid barrier. To be perfectly frank, I would rather hit no barrier at all. A lot of the research—and I think some of it is a bit questionable, I have to say—tries to assess the relative damage to the body of hitting the hard barrier as distinct from a wire barrier.

I travelled along the Northern Expressway recently on a motorbike. It is awash with wire barriers and hard barriers. I would not want to come off the Northern Expressway and hit one of those barriers; it would rip you limb from limb. My feeling, which I put strongly to the house, is that, unless it is absolutely essential, I would urge the transport department and those designing and building these roads to have no barrier at all.

In most cases, in a car or on a motorcycle, if you are coming off the road I personally would rather take my chances in the bush or on the road edge, or enter the grass or the paddock where you would have some chance of recovering the vehicle. If you do get into a roll, and hopefully do not hit a tree, you probably have a better chance of surviving. If you are a motorcyclist, if you hit any barrier at all, you are off the bike, your body is then on the barrier, and you are dead, basically. At least if you get into a paddock or the scrub you have some chance, if you are thrown off the bike, of rolling safely to a halt.

Believe me, as a motorcyclist you think about these things every second you are on the road. I would urge the department not to put up barriers at all, whether they are wire or solid, unless it is absolutely essential and if it is going to improve safety. Obviously, there are bends, turns, declines and falls, and there are occasions when you need to have barriers, but we should not get carried away. It keeps down the cost of refurbishing the road and, not only that, it gives a motorist or motorcyclist a better chance of survival. With those few words I support the motion. We need to fix this road. This does not go far enough, but it is a step in the right direction. Let's do more.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:36): I also rise to support the motion. This was a project of much interest to the Public Works Committee and, in particular, the member for Hammond, who is absent on parliamentary business at the moment, but he did make some points to myself and others regarding this project.

I think the member for Waite has picked up on some of the critically important issues, particularly in relation to speed. I have spoken about this before in here. It is absolutely and totally ludicrous that the department, probably under instructions from the minister or the cabinet, runs around reducing speed limits on roads, making it much slower and tedious to get from one place to another in rural South Australia.

This ridiculous situation, where much of the Dukes Highway is 100 km/h, defies common sense and logic. They do it in many places without, I might add, consulting local members about their views on the matter. Let me just point to one section of road: the Victor Harbor turnoff on Main South Road down to the McLaren Vale turnoff, where it disappeared. It went from 60 to 80, and then you had a stretch of 100, and now the whole thing has been put back to 80.

Quite seriously, this is due to the incapacity and failure of the Department of Transport under minister Conlon to get on and do what needs to be done and make these roads far better than they are. They will happily spend $535 million on the Adelaide Oval, they will happily spend $5 million on office upgrades (as indicated the other day), and they will happily run around and spend money on wasted projects, while major infrastructure gets the speed limit wound back. It is just plain damn foolishness in my view.

The Dukes Highway is an important conduit between this state and the Eastern States, but, more importantly, between this state and Western Australia as well, because so much traffic flows along it. In terms of heavy transport vehicles, from memory—and I will stand corrected, if necessary—something like 1,200 trucks at night go along the Dukes Highway on their way to Nhill, where they swap over.

So, yes, ma'am, we did support this project, but you just wonder where it is all going to end on speed limits. As mentioned, the former member for Stuart was quite adamant about this and I know the current member will approach it in the same vein, and I know for sure that the member for Flinders wants to get from one place to another more quickly than he is at the moment. Be that as it may, there are a number of us who live in the bush who want to get around the place, get from A to B, quickly. The Speaker herself probably has the same problem when she is going to her far-flung electorate in the North. So, reducing expenditure on these roads and using speed limits as an excuse for a failure by the Rann government to deliver on road projects is not an arguable case.

However, what is going in there with the wire barriers and the passing lanes is an improvement on what it was, but I wonder when, in this state, we are going to get serious. It is an embarrassment to go to other states and see the standard of the roads. A good example is when you leave South Australia and cross the border into Western Australia and the road surface improves about 300 per cent straightaway. If you go to the Northern Territory and drive out to far-flung Kakadu, or other such places, the roads are excellent—while we exist on billy goat roads in South Australia in many cases.

Also, I only need to point to the state of the Anzac Highway. The centre lane is an outrage. It has a great big crack in it for several kilometres and, if you drop into that on one side of your motor vehicle, generally speaking, on the driver's side you disappear out of sight. So everyone tries to get in the right hand lane or the left hand lane to avoid that major crack. The member for Morphett might want to pick that up, because he comes in here pretty regularly.

Seriously, our road system is a disgrace in South Australia. I only have to look as far as my electorate to know what happens on some of the billy goat tracks that exist out on the Fleurieu Peninsula, and worse than billy goat tracks that exist on Kangaroo Island. They have been screaming out for funding for some of their district roads for a long time without success.

I think it is simply stupid that we have parliamentary secretaries running around the district and countryside promoting the 30-year plan and promising nothing, except spin, when we need to get serious about this road situation in South Australia.

It is probably worth putting on the record also that the Liberal Party, in 2002, 2006 and again in 2010, promised that it would do the doubling up of the Southern Expressway. It was only through being embarrassed and trying to save the neck of the member for Mawson that the government was shamed into announcing it in the lead-up to the election this year.

It also needs putting on the record that the Liberal Party, in government under premier Dean Brown when the Southern Expressway was put in, secured the land for the duplication of that road. That piece of dirt to duplicate the Southern Expressway is probably about the only thing the Rann government has not sold. Members may remember that former premier Bannon sold off the South Road land that was kept for duplication of Main South Road. In winding up my remarks, I indicate that we support the motion, but there is a lot more that needs to be done.

Motion carried.

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