Regular columns in local newspapers are a great way for police members to keep readers informed about their many activities within the community. The Police Beat column in a recent edition of the Rushworth-based Waranga News community paper contained one paragraph that I found particularly interesting.
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“The one-way bridge along the Rushworth-Tatura Rd will be getting extra attention this month. We have been tasked to sit at the bridge to enforce the 30kph speed zone.”
I suspect that regional police may find themselves in a difficult position when tasked to enforce a 30km/h speed limit over such a long stretch of the Rushworth-Tatura Rd, especially one that encompasses the single-lane water crossing structure (its design precludes it from being called a bridge) over the Waranga Western Channel outlet.
Speaking to ABC Radio Melbourne earlier this year, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton stated that 30km/h speed limits “are not the answer” to Victoria’s rising road toll and described the imposition of such limits as “ridiculous”.
Mr Patton also noted that “these incidents are occurring in the country, a lot up there — 30 kilometres (sic) is not the answer.”
Is 30km/h itself dangerous?
In fact, it can be argued that the 30km/h speed limit on both the northern and southern approaches to the crossing contributes to motorist frustration and increases the likelihood that some motorists may overtake a slow-moving vehicle approaching the bridge and plough headlong into a vehicle that is crossing — or has just crossed — the basin outlet from the other direction.
Nevertheless, a response to a ministerial question submitted on my behalf by our state MP Annabelle Cleeland received on March 1 last year claimed that the 30km/h speed limits approaching the crossing were sufficient to guarantee safety at the site.
Just 16 days later, a motorcycle rider died when his bike was struck head-on by a vehicle allegedly overtaking a preceding vehicle that was obeying the 30km/h speed limit. Frustration with the 30km/h “crawl” is believed to have triggered the overtaking manoeuvre of the offending vehicle and directly led to the death of the motorcyclist.
This was not the first fatality at the Waranga Basin Western Outlet Channel crossing.
Sadly, if things continue as they are, it is unlikely to be the last.
A brief history
Waranga Basin was the first major dam constructed in Australia. Work began at the site in the early 1900s using only picks, shovels and horse-drawn scoops.
By 1906, a timber trestle regulator and track crossing were in operation over the Waranga Basin Western Channel outlet.
A photograph taken in 1906 shows a horse-drawn cart crossing the outlet structure.
Later work increased the dam’s capacity, and a larger, more robust concrete outlet, regulator, and road crossing replaced the earlier wooden structure. The raised carriageway was ideal for the horse-drawn and slow automotive vehicles of the 1920s.
A century later, it is widely acknowledged by local government, emergency services agencies and members of the general public that the crossing no longer meets operational needs. Instead, it presents recognised threats to community safety and should be replaced at the earliest opportunity. It’s not known as the “killer crossing” for nothing!
Multiple risks
The single carriageway over the Waranga main outlet is inherently risky, forcing bidirectional traffic into a single, conflicting path within an environment of poor visibility and multiple environmental hazards.
Visibility constraints imposed by the surrounding terrain and placement of the dam’s regulator control building can be exacerbated by heavy rain, fog and smoke at various times of the year. Indeed, school bus drivers note the presence of thick fog during colder months, reducing visibility to mere metres.
The mix of traffic at the crossing also presents major accident risks. Despite the narrow, single-carriageway, everything from pushbikes to B-double trucks uses the crossing, whose pavement is often uneven or even broken. Flimsy side-rails are unlikely to contain an out-of-control vehicle on the structure, with nowhere to go but into the outlet channel itself.
Another nightmare scenario for emergency services workers is a collision blocking the crossing during a running grassfire on its northern approaches. This could happen on any stormy summer day after a dry lightning strike. The only practical diversion is via Stanhope and Zegelin Rds, adding critical minutes to EMS on-scene times and placing Waranga Shores and nearby areas at immediate risk.
Solution a long time coming
It is obvious to anyone who regularly uses the single-lane crossing over the Waranga main outlet that a new bridge is urgently required.
Past efforts to address the issue have come to nothing, largely due to impediments relating to ownership of the current crossing structure, disclaimers from state roads construction authorities and the allegedly high costs of replacing the crossing with something more befitting the 21st century.
I respectfully submit that such excuses (pardon the pun) no longer hold water.
The relationship between Goulburn-Murray Water (the current crossing owner) and VicRoads/RRV (the responsible road authority) should be immaterial to the construction of a new bridge that is independent of the basin outlet control facilities and its associated single-carriageway.
Using precedent
Several years ago, milk transport and other heavy vehicle owners faced a major problem— the 1977 bridge over the Waranga Western Channel outlet on Rushworth-Girgarre Rd had subsided, triggering speed reductions to 40km/h over the structure.
A new project to replace that bridge was commissioned by the Department of Transport and Planning with a budget of $4.9 million. Work commenced in February last year and was completed within the contract period, reopening to motorists eight months later in October.
The community had to endure some disruptions during the construction, including a full road closure and detour, but these inconveniences were generally tolerated well.
The new bridge eliminates previous speed and load restrictions, allowing heavy vehicles over 42.5 tonnes to use Girgarre-Rushworth Rd, derestricting milk transport and positively impacting regional communities.
It meets current standards for width and strength, using a combination of a massive reinforced concrete deck that is supported by giant I-beam girders that extend between channel banks.
It features abutments (support structures at the ends of the bridge) on both sides of the channel safety barriers to protect vehicles from veering off the road on the approach to the bridge and safety rails on the bridge itself.
Where to from here
Clearly, a new, unobstructed two-lane bridge is required over the Waranga Western Channel outlet, linking the northern and southern sections of the Rushworth-Tatura Rd without any significant deviation.
That bridge should be commissioned by the Victorian Government through Vicroads/RRV and be independent of — and separated from — the existing Goulburn-Murray Water dam control structures.
I understand that I-beam manufacturing technology has now matured to the point where it is feasible to construct a concrete deck roadway supported by multiple I-beams across the Waranga Channel outlet.
Abutments may be required at both ends of the bridge to stabilise the span, similar to the techniques used on the Rushworth-Girgarre Rd channel crossing.
The planning and construction cost of such a bridge should be between $6 million and 10 million, not cheap but significantly lower than possible government payouts to victims of any foreseeable bridge-related losses during a major emergency.
As a community, it is time we mobilised our resources, engaged our politicians and worked together to achieve something that has previously been deemed “too difficult” or “too costly” to achieve. No longer.
Next stop: a public meeting, coordinated series of activities to identify and elucidate current risks inherent in the crossing, detail our requirements as crossing users and encapsulate them in an evidence-based submission to the government.
— Cass Alexander, Rushworth
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