Page 1051 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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private members’ day there is not a Liberal in the house at the moment to deal with this motion that they, indeed, have brought to the house. I am sure that that will get some of them or one of them down here quick smart—or it should.
Mr Assistant Speaker, I will move amendments that are being copied now; they will be circulated shortly. They update the amendment I circulated in the previous sitting to reflect the fact that we did not finish that motion on that sitting day, so they merely change the date.
William Hovell Drive carries some 30,000 vehicles a day on the section west of Bindubi Street and some 44,000 a day in the section east of Bindubi Street. The TAMS directorate is very aware of the busy nature of William Hovell Drive and other roads in the vicinity of the Glenloch interchange and Parkes Way. For this reason, and also to assist in better understanding the road infrastructure requirements over the next 20 years, TAMS undertook a study of the road corridor from Molonglo valley through to the Canberra Airport in 2009.
This study confirmed that traffic flow on William Hovell Drive is heavily influenced by the capacity of the Glenloch interchange and Parkes Way. The capacity of Glenloch has now been upgraded with the completion of GDE in October 2011. The road is very popular and people are using it.
The current capacity of Parkes Way, however, continues to impact on traffic flows on William Hovell Drive, which itself carries a significant traffic volume, particularly east of Bindubi Street. Anyone familiar with this area will know that the traffic flow from William Hovell Drive heading towards the city in the morning can be slowed by traffic merging on to Parkes Way from the GDE from the north and from Tuggeranong Parkway from the south. This is compounded by limited capacity for traffic exiting Parkes Way on to Commonwealth Avenue in the city and from Parkes Way to Coranderrk Street and Constitution Avenue.
The 2009 study identified a number of road improvements that would be necessary over the next five to 10 years to support the growth of the city. These improvements included the widening of Parkes Way and improvements to the capacity of the exit ramp from Parkes Way to Commonwealth Avenue in the city.
The government accepted the need to widen Parkes Way and included a project to update Parkes Way as part of the 2010-11 capital works program with $14.7 million allocated as part of the budget approved by this Assembly.
The construction of this project to widen Parkes Way is out for public tender and construction works will commence in May 2012 with a completion date in September 2013. Like all roadworks, this will have some impact on traffic throughout the upgrade timetable, and this, itself, will create a disruption to traffic and will not necessarily ease some of the pressures that we have seen.
I am advised by TAMS in my discussions with them that traffic disruption will seek to be minimised, and looking at how they stage the project focusing on stage 1 around the exit ramp to Commonwealth Avenue may assist with some of that, but there will
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