Success cutting through Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) red tape will allow motorists to use a temporary rail crossing at Lee Street while work forges ahead on the $85 million upgrade of the Sydney Road at Kelso.
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Construction of the short cut which will allow motorists access to Bathurst from the O’Connell Road side of town is well underway.
The diversion is expected to be open from Monday, July 27 to keep traffic flowing until the upgrade is completed in about 18 months.
According to an RMS update on the project to upgrade a 2.4km stretch of the Great Western Highway, the Lee Street diversion is unique in NSW as a temporary solution to divert traffic from the highway across a rail corridor.
The RMS has worked with Transport NSW and John Holland to devise this solution in order to move traffic away from the Littlebourne Street intersection during the highway upgrade, especially in peak hour.
“The diversion will operate between 7am and 6pm Monday to Friday and 7am to 1pm Saturdays for the duration of the highway upgrade work and will be manually operated for safety reasons,” the RMS update states.
“There will be additional signs on the highway to let motorists know of train movements so they can decide on the best route to take.
“They can either wait for the train to pass and use the construction diversion or stay on the Great Western Highway and drive through the roadworks.
“The temporary diversion is expected to reduce the likelihood of peak hour traffic queues along the highway and allow traffic that turns right from the highway into Littlebourne Street or left out of Littlebourne Street onto the highway to avoid the work site altogether.”
The RMS says the Great Western Highway and Littlebourne Street will remain open at all times.
The temporary diversion will be removed once the highway upgrade is completed, towards the end of 2016.
Member for Bathurst Paul Toole said he believes there are about four train movements each day at that location.
He said the Littlebourne Street intersection carries 25 to 30 per cent of daily traffic heading through the industrial part of Kelso and is the main source of peak hour delays along the Sydney Road project site.
“I must stress this will only be a temporary diversion while the Sydney Road upgrade work continues and will be decommissioned when the job is done,” he said.
Mr Toole said there will be three people manning the temporary crossing while it is operational.
- Identifying and relocating utilities such as electricity, sewer, water and gas
- Installing new utilities
- Building retaining walls fronting residences and businesses
- Switching traffic to new section of the Boyd Creek bridge
- Building sections of the new road surface
- Adjusting the front sections of some properties to suit the new road level.
