Putting CSELR in George Street Sydney

[Tonymercury]

If you go to the second floor of the Apple store you can look down on the utility relocations happening near the King Street intersection. Most of the work has been happening on that end, and at night to reduce the impact on Christmas shoppers.

Ah! someone else has found my spot!

[jpp42]

My office is now near the section of George St being worked on and I'm surprised at how little evidence of the work there is at surface level. I've noticed a few vacuum excavator trucks going to and from, I guess this is the preferred method as there are never any big piles of dirt. It appears they are continually refilling and paving over the excavations and moving the hoardings around, so that they can keep one lane of traffic open for e.g. taxis coming out of the Hilton. This has got to be a very slow and expensive way to do this work... I'm starting to understand why it's going to take so long.

[mandonov]

2016 - The year of light rail big build

Major construction will ramp up on Sydney’s CBD and South East Light Rail project, with three new CBD construction zones to begin in the next three months, and greater activity in the two construction zones already underway in the city centre following the completion of vital utility investigations.

Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance and CBD Coordinator General Marg Prendergast announced the start dates for those zones today, as well as an update to the project’s construction schedule, keeping businesses and residents informed on when to expect building work near them.

“We have now significantly progressed vital utility investigations along George Street, which has helped refine the detailed design for the project, including determining the exact track location and where the most complex work will need to be done,” Mr Constance said.

“With that greater knowledge, contractor ALTRAC Light Rail has been able to refine the dates for some zones to ensure work is carried out most efficiently and effectively while minimising intrusion.”

Dates to note for the CBD are:

George St between Alfred and Grosvenor St, March 2016-December 2016
George St between Bridge and Margaret St, April 2016-December 2016
George St between Hunter and King St, July 2016-July 2017
George St between Park and Bathurst St, April 2016-January 2017

CBD Coordinator General Marg Prendergast praised crews for the enormous effort in preparing George Street for this major project.

“A massive amount of what we achieved on George Street last year was in identifying and commencing the relocation or modification of underground utilities and we cannot thank Ausgrid enough, for the work it has done to get building on track,” Ms Prendergast said.

“We are working very hard to release areas of George Street back to residents, workers and businesses before Christmas 2016 and we will seek to minimise impacts in any zones that are occupied in the lead up to Christmas.

“Of course George Street between King and Park streets will be a fantastic pedestrian mall with major construction complete before Christmas – giving Sydney its first taste of what we are creating.

“A minor change we have made is that contractors will enter Zone 4 – George Street between Hunter and King Streets – in July rather than April. The work will not take any longer, it will simply run from July 2016 to July 2017 rather than April to April.

“Between Grosvenor and Hunter streets, we are entering about two weeks earlier than we initially advised, while up on Chalmers Street, outside Central, construction has been brought forward several months.

“As each zone’s start date approaches, we will ensure businesses, residents and the broader community have all the information they need to make sure they can still get around the local area.

“Those who were around town over the holidays would have seen we got some work done in the northern part of the Sydney CBD that reduces the future construction needs in those zones 2 and 3, allowing us to now be more flexible,” Ms Prendergast said.

Major construction is due to for completion by mid-2018, followed by system and vehicle commissioning before light rail vehicles begin carrying customers along the new line early in 2019.

“As we move through the next two-and-a-half years of construction, contractors will continue to refine work schedules, with some zones expected to start major construction earlier and some later than first earmarked, depending on construction requirements,” Ms Prendergast said.

Currently there are about 90 separate construction projects – both private and government – taking place in the CBD. Residents and business along the route will continue to be notified well in advance of major construction.

http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/media-r ... -big-build

The press release makes it sound like it's mainly just been utility companies doing relocations rather than any actual construction work.

[simonl]

The press release makes it sound like it's mainly just been utility companies doing relocations rather than any actual construction work.

That is actual and necessary work.

[Swift]

If private companies want to lay their messy cables and pipes, make them pay for any relocation work on public projects.
They have been profiting off of their underground clutter for years as well as pockmarking roads for the sake of their unwanted for profit services.
Everything was so much simpler, cheaper and efficient in the days of the Telecom Australia monopy.
I want it back.

[simonl]

If private companies want to lay their messy cables and pipes, make them pay for any relocation work on public projects.

Where is the dislike button.

[jpp42]

Agreed that gets a down-vote as wholly irrelevant. Anyway the press release implies the bulk of the work has been related to Ausgrid - the electrical network - which is still a monopoly (as it should be, who wants multiple competing power networks). Most likely it is complicated in these older areas of the city as the standards for documenting the cabling, pits, etc, were not always as high as they are now. They couldn't be certain what was there before it was dug up.

[mandonov]

That is actual and necessary work.

I agree. Just pointing out why the work so far may seem to be haphazard and ill-defined.

[matthewg]

That is actual and necessary work.

I agree. Just pointing out why the work so far may seem to be haphazard and ill-defined.

That's mostly because , the electricity, water and telecoms (mostly government or ex government monopolies) each did their own thing with out co-ordination. Even the private communications companies for the most part use Telstra ducts (but Telstra doesn't want them in their pits, so each company builds it's own next to the T ones).

And for 55 years the entire width of the road was an open canvas to be exploited. Now a chunk down the middle of the road is a no go-zone for utilities, and with 55 years of just sticking your new service where there was a gap....

Also each of the 3 big utilities have gone through more than one major re-structure of the years, and information, like the drawings of where you put your pipes are top items to get lost in each restructure.

In another field I've come across both the RMS and local councils loosing complete knowledge of assets that are only 30-20 years old. In the RMS case it appears the RTA decided to move all their records to a country town (probably one of those decentralisation dives). It would appear no one checked that every thing arrived.
A common trick that was used was getting a contractor to 'digitize all drawings and create an on-line archive', where no one actually checks that the digitized drawing are in fact readable or that all paper drawings were in fact processed in the first place. (Well the drawing office was downsized / outsourced, so who was left to quality check the contractors ?)

The knowedge just disappears.
End result is no one has any idea where any thing is - even things above ground in plain view!

[gld59]

Just to add to the fun, there's at least one entire, obsolete utility under there. Sydney's hydraulic power system was only shut down in about the 1970s. How many people would know which pipes were theirs (and are therefore safe to break)?

gld

[Daniel]

The southbound lanes of George Street between Alfred and Grosvenor Street are due to close from 11 March.

[matthewg]

Just to add to the fun, there's at least one entire, obsolete utility under there. Sydney's hydraulic power system was only shut down in about the 1970s. How many people would know which pipes were theirs (and are therefore safe to break)?

Their pipes were bought by an up-and-coming carrier. Many of the old hydraulic power pipes will have optical fibre cables in them now. Breaking those old Sydney's hydraulic power pipes will result in a fibre optic repair bill to who ever cut the pipe. (And may be even a claim for loss of business due to the outage).

[lunchbox]

There's a poster for a proposed upgrade of roads around the Quay, outside the Customs House. It shows the "up" LRT feeding directly into the northernmost terminal platform WITH NO CROSSOVER ANYWHERE to access directly the centre or southern platform. Can this be accurate ?!?!?!

[boronia]

Quite possibly. This mob simply refuse to use any configurations that have been successfully used previously here or elsewhere.

[Swift]

I think a metro to Kingsford and Randwick would be less of a headache, not to mention way faster.
That would get people out of their cars.
Why would you want to build a new transport mode to mix with today's surface traffic? Just bury it.

[tonyp]

I think a metro to Kingsford and Randwick would be less of a headache, not to mention way faster.
That would get people out of their cars.
Why would you want to build a new transport mode to mix with today's surface traffic? Just bury it.

You actually have the wrong outlook on it. Public transport needs to be on the surface where it is most convenient and attractive to its users and potential users. It's cars that need to be buried (preferably at Simsmetal). You're playing into the hand of the road lobby there

[Swift]

Plenty of pedestrians will be buried ( or melted down) once the light rail goes through the shared zones!

[matthewg]

I think a metro to Kingsford and Randwick would be less of a headache, not to mention way faster.
That would get people out of their cars.
Why would you want to build a new transport mode to mix with today's surface traffic? Just bury it.

NSW is building a metro where they should be building a full sized mainline suburban rail route and building a tram route where they should be building a metro.

[tonyp]

I don't agree that there should be a metro along a fairly closely settled corridor like this. Metro stations nowadays are at least 2 km apart which means you still need buses along the surface to feed between the stations and when you factor in the long transfer times for underground stations you might as well stay on the bus for the journey to the city.

I would like to see the ESR extended to Kingsford via Randwick (which would have saved them building the Randwaick branch of CSELR) and then looping back on itself via Sydenham to form a self-contained loop. CSELR would then intersect this at Kingsford and continue down to Little Bay. So they would both perform complementary functions.

[lunchbox]

^^^^^^^^^I don't usualy resort to flippancy, but tonyp's middle name must be "Bradfield" !

[tonyp]

^^^^^^^^^I don't usualy resort to flippancy, but tonyp's middle name must be "Bradfield" !

Fraid not, and I didn't have the resources at age 10 for my plan for a putsch to overthrow Joe Cahill, otherwise we'd still have the trams, the full ESR etc etc.

[Simes]

I don't agree that there should be a metro along a fairly closely settled corridor like this. Metro stations nowadays are at least 2 km apart which means you still need buses along the surface to feed between the stations and when you factor in the long transfer times for underground stations you might as well stay on the bus for the journey to the city.

I would like to see the ESR extended to Kingsford via Randwick (which would have saved them building the Randwaick branch of CSELR) and then looping back on itself via Sydenham to form a self-contained loop. CSELR would then intersect this at Kingsford and continue down to Little Bay. So they would both perform complementary functions.

It's a first - I'm agreeing with you

[tonyp]

It's a first - I'm agreeing with you

That's strange, I thought we'd agreed with each other many times before!

[Glen]

Plenty of pedestrians will be buried ( or melted down) once the light rail goes through the shared zones!

That isn't the experience in other cities.

[Tonymercury]

Fraid not, and I didn't have the resources at age 10 for my plan for a putsch to overthrow Joe Cahill, otherwise we'd still have the trams, the full ESR etc etc.

So it was Petrov who you were talking to in the playground at lunchtime?