New trams, tramlines for Adelaide

South Australia finally has the foundations of a much-needed traffic infrastructure plan. It seeks to guide development until 2015 with an initial investment of $215m.

Released by Transport Minister Patrick Conlon, the centerpiece, to cost $187m, is an underpass and a tunnel on South Rd, a major urban corridor west of the Adelaide CBD. Conlon says this is the first stage of a plan for uninterrupted travel on South Rd from the Southern Expressway at Bedford Park to the Port River Expressway at Wingfield, a distance of 22km.

The underpass will be at the Anzac Hwy intersection and the tunnel (600m long) will be at the intersections with Grange and Port roads. Work is planned to begin in August 2007 and be completed by 2010.

Another $21m will be found for the first new tramline in Adelaide since the 1920s. The Glenelg line, currently being upgraded at a cost of $23.5m, will be extended 1.2km from Victoria Square down the middle of King William St to the Adelaide Railway Station on North Tce.

Conlon says construction will begin in 2006 and be completed by September 2007. Nine new trams (as per the illustration) are being purchased from German manufacturer Bombadier at a cost of $47.4m.

Delivery of the first is expected in December with the remainder in service by July 2006. A competition chose silver grey as the predominant color with the state colors of yellow, blue and red on the front and back. (The winner got 100 free trips on the city's transport system.)

Also on the drawing board are a $7m bus and rail interchange near Marion Shopping Centre in the south – to be completed by the end of 2006 – and investigations into extending the Noarlunga rail line further south to Seaford, with construction possible between 2010 and 2015.