Thread: M1 chockes this morning....again...

Its one big **** show,that traffic.

When it’s flowing they all seem to drive like they are on a race track,no wonder there are accidents.

One of the boys had to go to a job late morning at Burleigh,sat for almost two hours in the traffic….

No wonder our hourly rate keeps creeping up.

When I used to live on the GC back in the early 80,s,the highway was mostly a goat track.
After being overseas for a few years then back in Sydney(home town), I travelled up to see family on the GC.
Wanting to go up to brisvegas for a bit of shopping,my brother said to go via Smith st.Bro lived in Southport at the time (near the river and the old Southlands shops).
I was amazed that it only took me 1/2 hr to go from Southport up to centre of Brisvegas.
How times have changed..... Looks like the M1 is just as bad as Parramatta Rd here in Sydney. eg wow depot @ Minchinbury.
Roughly 40 minutes to get to Leichhardt. Leaving the store at approx 1530-1600, it would take anywhere form 1 3/4 hrs to 3 hrs to get back to yard for a 34k trip.
Off peak its not too bad,but as soon as it gets close to peak hour,it just clogs up real quick.
Thankfully I dont have to put up with that crap anymore.


cheers
DG

Back in the day,when Russ Hinze and co built the GC highway,others said why would you need so many lanes?

In those days some of the Pollies thought ahead.

Seems these days they dont give two hoots,and are about 10yrs behind.

Not that they seem to care,the deterioration of the traffic situation around Brisbane and the GC in the last 10yrs has been huge.

Try going down the coast on the weekend around 11.00am,its a disaster.Worse than peak hour during the week.

Centenery HWY around the Jindalee bridge going north is no better.SWMBO sat in the traffic the other day there for 2.5 hours after there was a smash.
Continual accidents at the same place,rear enders where the speed limit drops from 100 to 80Km/hr.
Drivers stupidly slam the brakes on at the 80 sign,drop right back to around 65Km/hr,and get rear ended.

you are not 0n your own. the same things are occurring in regional Victoria where development is rampant and nothing is being done for infrastructure and services. As our Dan spends all our money in Melbourne, where the votes are.

Originally Posted by scarry

Back in the day,when Russ Hinze and co built the GC highway,others said why would you need so many lanes?

In those days some of the Pollies thought ahead.

..................

Didn't Russ organise an off ramp that led straight to the drive through bottlshop at a pub he owned?

AFAIR that was just one snippet from 'The Moonlight State'.

DL

Originally Posted by 350RRC

Didn't Russ organise an off ramp that led straight to the drive through bottlshop at a pub he owned?

AFAIR that was just one snippet from 'The Moonlight State'.

DL

Probably.

I seem to remember Joh got a strip of bitumen on a dirt road for a few K’s in front of a property he owned out in the scrub somewhere.

But they did get things done and thought ahead.
The mob that has been in a while here are so far behind in most things particularly road infrastructure,its rediculous.
They continually beat their chests about everyone wanting to come to Qld,but do nothing about the roads,etc.

Apparently last night some spent the night in their cars on the Logan Motorway as the road was closed due to an incident.

The Gabba is another mess,they have just spent $42M on a complete upgrade,which has only just been finished,they now want to pull it down and start again at a cost of $1Bill for the Olympics.FFS.
The building contractors must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Apparently they want to pull down the heritage listed school next door for more room,it’s been there for over 100yrs.

when the M1 was mooted and public forums were being held the proposal was for the road to carry 118,000 vehicles per day.

by the time it opened it was immediately carrying 145,000 vehicles and every developer within a bulls roar along the Brissy/Gold Coast section made application for housing developments and every honest real estate agent started flogging packages off the plan. You can see the effect.

the latest vehicle census on that section is now over 190,000 vehicles/day

the road is already 15yrs behind in its carrying capacity and transport authorities are adding big interchanges now to point more traffic onto the M1.

2 proposals at least to my knowledge to build parallel express roads have been defeated with major protests being koala corridor and animal habitat....since the defeat of the express road proposals , the developers and real estate agents moved in again and the usable corridor has become housing and the animal habitat has gone and the families adding to M1 vehicle access.....btw next time you go up/down the highway, look for the trees....what trees? grey/dark rooftops and no room on 400sq.m blocks to plant trees.

Different sections were upgraded at different times,and have different traffic volumes.

When the main section,Springwood to Nerang,was upgraded 90’s,it was designed for 120,000 vehicles a day.
That section was fine until it started to clog in 2016 with around 144,000 vehicles a day.

Today there are over 210,000 vehicles a day at times on that section.

Getting off at many of the exists is also very difficult at times,causing traffic to back up for Kim’s onto the main highway which is dangerous.

Yes the proposed new routes and upgrades have had numerous issues due to funding,and habitat and wetland destruction caused by the proposed routes.

I do know one thing if something is not done the road will be gridlocked all day in the near future,it’s not far off happening on some days now,even without an incident.
And on weekends it’s no better.