Queen St upgrade behind schedule
A new, larger stormwater pipe under Queen St in Richmond may be laid in advance of planned staged work as a multimilliondollar upgrade of the main street slips five weeks behind schedule.
Work is now under way on stage two of the six-stage Queen St upgrade, from the Noel Leeming store to the Cambridge St intersection. Work also continues on stage one of the $11 million project.
Stage one was always touted as the most complicated section of work.
TDC programme delivery manager Russell McGuigan yesterday told councillors that contractors were making ‘‘good progress’’.
‘‘We’re almost out of stage one, which was our most challenging stage with all of the fibre optic cables and power cables and all the Chorus work,’’ McGuigan said.
A new water main, laid the length of the CBD section of Queen St as the first major job of the project, was due to ‘‘go live’’ on Sunday.
‘‘The new water main will go live and the old asbestos one will be turned off completely,’’ he said.
‘‘That’s a major challenge to do that cut over but when it’s done it’s a big de-risk to the project because that asbestos water main will no longer be active.’’
After the meeting, McGuigan said the programme was to lay four lengths of new stormwater pipe a day. ‘‘We’re doing four or better.’’
TDC project manager Jeff Robinson said the council was considering progressing the stormwater work past stage two ‘‘in order to regain time and progress the remaining work faster’’.
McGuigan said there might be a decision next month on whether that work was advanced.
‘‘If we go right up the street, it saves us time but it’s also more dis- ruptive so it’s a balance.’’
The team would be able to give a better forecast of the likely completion date for the project after stage two had been completed because stages three to five would require a similar level of work.
Robinson said the new stormwater pipe could carry about double the flow of the existing 900mm pipe.
The old pipe, believed to have been laid in the 1940s, was encased in a thick layer of concrete. When the former state highway was widened in the 1950s, the pipe was no longer sitting under the footpath and the extra concrete was needed to protect it.
‘‘We’re exploring all our options for keeping the project’s timeframes on track and allowing [main contractor] Downer to carry out the stormwater replacement in advance of a stage would be a faster way to complete that element of the upgrade,’’ Robinson said.
Businesses in each stage would be kept informed if the stormwater work was completed more swiftly than planned.
‘‘It does mean they will be affected by the work earlier than expected but we hope they bear with us in the interests of completing the overall upgrade on time.’’
Along with the water and stormwater pipes, sewer lines are set to be replaced.
Above ground, the road itself is to be lowered to help reduce the flood risk and the footpaths will be widened.
Three zebra crossings are to be installed while the raised crossings along with most of the kerb and channel will be removed.
The upgrade of the main street is part of a wider central Richmond infrastructure project for which TDC has budgeted $26.8m in its 2015-25 Long Term Plan.
It comes after floods devastated the CBD in 2011 and 2013.