Bollen Road
Progress
Bollen Road Concept Design 21 February 2024
February 2024
Community engagement on the draft concept design for the upgrade of Bollen Road was held between October and November 2023 with feedback provided through the Your Say website, drop in sessions, and direct email.
Feedback themes included tree preservation, local area traffic management and speed control, road network connections (Flaxley and Hawthorn), pedestrian and cyclist access and property access.
As a result of the feedback received from the community, a number of changes will be made to the draft concept plan to ensure the final design is, where possible and practical, consistent with community expectations.
Some of the key changes being considered for the final concept plan are:
- Review of the divided and single carriageway proposals in relation to tree retention, cost and amenity.
- Greater tree retention.
- The pedestrian crossing on Memorial Drive moved further away from the intersection and at a better alignment to the proposed footbridge across Western Flat Creek
For full details see:
Council Report - 5 February 2024: Bollen Road upgrade - design and consultation summary
Bollen Road concept design - summary of consultation and proposed amendments
Council Member briefing - Bollen Road concept design and cost estimates
May 2023
Council has appointed WGA Consulting Engineers to undertake a detailed concept design for the upgrading of Bollen Road Mount Barker.
The concept design will consider road widths, kerbing in some sections, a footpath on one side and a shared path (pedestrians and cyclists) on the other side, storm water drainage, pedestrian (refuge) crossings, a reduced speed limit in the vicinity of the school and intersection improvements.
Preliminary investigation has already commenced including a detailed survey of all existing features, location of existing services (SA Water, Telstra, etc) and a geotechnical investigation to determine the underlying pavement requirements.
Council will consult with the community at the 50% concept design stage (when a basic layout will be available) seeking comments before proceeding to the final concept design. It is expected that this will occur during August/September 2023.
Background
The new Bollen Road school opened in the 2023 school year with 3 classes only starting from early learning grade levels. These are very small numbers and for that reason the development assessment process did not require the developer to implement interventions for footpaths and trails as the students attending are to be accommodated by internal kiss and drop facilities.
Considered in the planning assessment of the school's Development Application was the guiding document for speed limits from the Department for Infrastructure and Transport (DIT) (inclusive of the usage of School Zones). The DIT guiding document indicates school zones may be used on streets fronting a school where there is expected to be children walking and accessing the school in conflict with traffic. It indicates the appropriateness of a school zone will be informed by wider considerations such as the provisioning of onsite set-down and pickup within the school grounds.
Future Works
Later stages of growth and development at the school may trigger a contribution from the school towards works external to the site such as paths and crossings. In the interim, a school zone has not been considered appropriate given that first few classes of student are early learning and the school development has accommodated internal kiss and drop facilities. Further growth in classes and student ages in later years will trigger review of the school zone needs and implementation to accommodate older students who will walk and cycle to school.
Bollen Road Upgrades
In parallel with the private development of the school, Council has issued a tender call to the consulting sector seeking submissions for the design of upgrades to Bollen Road. That tender call closes in February 2023 and a consultant will be selected thereafter.
An internal draft concept to inform the consultant design can be accessed below. There will be wide community consultation on the consultant designs before advancing to detailed design and implementation, noting that targeted engagement has already commenced with the school, church and developer.
The internal concept drawing shows that it is Council’s intention to facilitate improved paths and trails along Bollen Road together with road and carparking improvements amongst other road safety improvements.
These designs and works are not funded by any of the MDPA Transport Separate rate contributions or DIT Transport Deed transport interventions, hence the funding of the upgrades will be subject to Council budget provisioning and/or gaining of grants for these works into the future.
Lower Speed Limit Proposed
Hand in hand with the Bollen Road upgrade designs, Council will be working with DIT to seek a lowering of the speed limit to 50kph together with the potential further lowering to 40kph where greater activity and interface between cars and pedestrians/cyclists is anticipated such as near the future playing fields and school (subject to meeting the requirements of the Departments speed limit guidelines).
Timing of Improvements
The timeframes are broadly to commence concept design work this financial year following appointment of the consult designer. These designs and consultation processes will continue with detail design to follow ideally in 2023/24 also and commencement of construction in the year after that. Some early road safety works are to run in parallel with the overall design upgrades at the intersection of Bollen and Hawthorn subject to funding.
Council will continue to work with the school to monitor and program these additional infrastructure requirements as they become warranted.