Submission Cover Sheet Project EES IAC 402

Request to be heard?: No, but please email me th

Full Name: Phil Turner Organisation: Maroondah City Council Affected property: Attachment 1: Maroondah_Coun Attachment 2: Maroondah_Coun Attachment 3: Comments: To the North East Link Inquiry & Advisory Committee (IAC) Maroondah Council provides the following submission to the IAC, in relation to the EES for the North East Link project. While Council formally supports the objectives of the NEL project, I advise that the support of Maroondah Council has been conditional on appropriate traffic considerations being made with regard to the impact of the project on the Eastlink tunnels, the and by extension the Ringwood Metropolitan Activity Centre. Council previously commissioned a review by O’Brien Traffic that considered the project in the context of the tunnels and impacts on Ringwood, and it was determined that without ancillary works to take traffic pressure off the Eastlink tunnels and the Ringwood Bypass, the project would potentially fail and have a major detrimental impact on the viability of the Ringwood Metropolitan Activity Centre. The O’Brien Traffic report attached to this submission details the basis for those concerns. Council’s concerns were previously forwarded to NELA and Council officers have met with NELA officers on these matters, however, to date Council has not received an appropriate response that addresses these concerns, including within the ESS. In support of this submission, the following documents have also been uploaded: o A submission letter signed by Council’s Mayor Rob Steane documenting the history of Council’s dealings regarding NEL, and outlining Council’s concerns current with the project; o Council Report September 2018; o O’Brien Traffic Review dated 12 September 2017; o Council letter to NELA (26 February 2018) and NELA response (14 March 2018); o Correspondence from Council on Bypass concerns (including technical reports); and o Minutes from MCC / NELA meetings 6 April 2018 and 30 April 2018. While Council is not seeking to be heard by the IAC in support of its submission, Council would be pleased to meet with representatives of the North East Link Project team, or Inquiry & Advisory Committee separate to the Committees Public Hearing process to discuss the concerns outlined above. Regards Phil Turner Director Strategy & Community

INDEX OF ATTACHMENTS

1. 2017 September 18 - Ordinary Council Meeting Report - North East Link

2. OBrien Traffic (OBT) Advice on potential Ringwood impacts of North East Link options Sep 2017

3. 2nd Letter to Duncan Elliot North East Link requesting update to Council submission from Sept 2017

4. Response to Submission on the North East Link

5. North Eastlink - Maroondah Council concerns regarding the Ringwood Bypass - email

6. Maroondah Corridor Study Final Report 2009 - VicRoads - Northern Arterial & Route Alignments.pdf

7. 8. OBT report on decision to remove the Eastlink right turn exit ramp from th south onto Maroondah - December 2005.pdf

8. 13803_Ringwood Bypass SIDRA Assessment v6

9. 17967 T&M Priorities DRAFT Report_NEL_EXTRACT

10. 06-04-2018-NELA-Maroondah Minutes.

11. 30.04.18 NELA- MCC Minutes

Contact us Phone 1300 88 22 33 or 9298 4598 Fax 9298 4345 [email protected] | www.maroondah.vic.gov.au | PO Box 156, Ringwood 3134 | DX 38068, Ringwood Visit us City Offices Braeside Avenue, Ringwood Realm 179 , Ringwood Croydon Civic Square, Croydon ABN 98 606 522 719

DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK ITEM 3

PURPOSE

To consider the proposed options for a preferred road corridor for the North East Link as proposed by the State government in August 2017.

STRATEGIC / POLICY ISSUES

The following directions contained in Maroondah 2040: Our Future Together and the Council Plan 2017-2021 (Year 1: 2017-2018) provide the strategic framework that underpins the purpose of this report.

Outcome Area: An accessible and connected community.

Our Vision: In the year 2040, Maroondah will be an accessible community for all ages and abilities with walkable neighbourhoods, effective on and off-road transport networks and access to a range of sustainable transport options.

Key Directions 2017 – 2018:

5.4 Work in partnership to provide a safe and efficient integrated transport network that enhances liveability, encourages a shift in travel modes and promotes Maroondah as a 20- minute city.

5.5 Improve the efficiency of Maroondah’s road network through effective asset management, maintenance and renewal works.

Priority Action 2017-2018:

Advocate for enhanced regional transport services.

BACKGROUND

The North East Link is a proposed roadway planned to run through ’s north eastern suburbs. It was first proposed in the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan (as part of the F7 and/or F18 corridors), and is designed to provide a freeway connection between the Metropolitan Ring Road in Greensborough and the Eastern Freeway or the EastLink junction in Ringwood.

It was included in the Brumby government’s 2008 , with an estimated cost of over $6 billion. On December 11, 2016, Victorian Premier announced that a re-elected Labor government would build the North East Link at a cost of $10 billion and construction would commence in 2019.

The project is expected to slash travel time on congested roads in Melbourne’s north, south, and east, take thousands of trucks off local streets in the north-eastern suburbs, and connect the southern and eastern suburbs to Tullamarine Airport.

The project is expected to take around ten years to complete, create more than 5,000 direct jobs, and cost up to $10 billion, funded by a mixture of government contributions and tolls, with final funding arrangements determined as part of the detailed planning process.

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 1 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

Infrastructure have identified the North East Link as Victoria’s next priority transport infrastructure project in their historic 30-year Infrastructure Strategy.

The project has been started with $35 million for business case development, consultation and route selection complete by 2018, and planning approval and tender processes beginning that year.

The Labor government will not sign contracts before the election.

The North East Link Authority (NELA) was created early 2017 to oversee the project.

The North East Link Project Objectives and Guiding Principles are as follows:

Objective 1

Improve business access and growth in Melbourne’s north, east and south-east.

Objective 2

Improve household access and growth in Melbourne’s north, east and south-east.

Objective 3

Improve freight and supply chain efficiency and industrial growth across the north, east and south-east.

Objective 4

Improve access, amenity and safety for communities in Melbourne’s north-east.

Guiding Principle 1

Minimise impacts on communities.

Guiding Principle 2

Minimise impacts on environmental and cultural assets.

Guiding Principle 3

Minimise impacts during the construction phase.

Guiding Principle 4

Optimise the efficient use of resources.

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 2 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

In developing the Project Objectives and Guiding Principles, the NELA has had regard to:

• The objectives and decision-making principles in the Transport Integration Act 2010

• Identification of key problems in Melbourne’s north-east and consultation undertaken to date

• Key policy objectives of Government, including Plan Melbourne.

In August 2017, the State government released four different options for community feedback. The four options are shown in detail as attached in the North East Link Community Update - Issue 2. This update also provides some comments on what the North East Link Authority consider to be the pros and cons of each corridor.

Corridor A

Corridor A which is the western most option follows the south using the existing freeway reserve, and connects with the Eastern Freeway near . This is by far the shortest route (11 km) and is likely to be the cheapest option by a significant margin. This route does however rely on widening the Eastern Freeway back to the EastLink tunnels. No improvements are proposed to the Ringwood Bypass, the EastLink tunnels or EastLink.

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 3 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

Corridor B

Corridor B is 24 km long and would commence near Canterbury Road (adjacent to EastLink) and move north through Donvale and Mitcham with an interchange at Reynolds Avenue, then travel west through Montmorency, Watsonia, and Bundoora. Extensive tunnelling is proposed to protect sensitive environmental areas. Long uphill areas on the route are likely to slow down trucks and reduce the roads efficiency.

This route also includes the construction of the northern arterial (extension of Reynolds Avenue) and an extension to Springvale Road. No details are yet provided on how the route would be designed to connect into EastLink and its impact on the area in and around Ringwood.

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 4 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

Corridor C

Corridor C is similar to corridor B but more direct. The road corridor would be 26 km. It has a more direct route through Warrandyte and Eltham prior to heading west to connect to the Western Ring Road.

This route would also contain the northern arterial (extension of Reynolds Avenue) and the extension to Springvale Road. Again, no details have been provided to gauge its impact on properties in Maroondah.

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 5 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

Corridor D

Corridor D is the longest (40 km) and most indirect route connecting to EastLink along the Healesville Freeway reservation and travelling east into Yarra Ranges.

The length of the road could actually increase travel times and distance for freight movement so this option is considered to be the least likely.

ISSUE / DISCUSSION

North East Link provides the opportunity to finally link EastLink with the Western Ring Road to provide a complete ring road around Melbourne. It has been often described as the missing link.

Whilst the process of defining a preferred route is supported, the lack of detail which will not be available until they complete the design and the environmental impact statement means that the full implications of any of the four routes is not known at this stage.

Based on their recent extensive background in traffic considerations for Ringwood and experience in freeway network / transport planning Council’s Engineers engaged O’Brien Traffic to review the options for NEL.

The advice received from O’Brien Traffic indicates that Option A seems the most likely option, and this is a view shared by Council’s Traffic Engineers and other experts within the relevant industries and across municipalities impacted by the project.

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 6 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

O’Brien Traffic’s advice outlines potential issues with Option A, in the event that due consideration is not given in relation to the future operation/capacity of the EastLink tunnels and the Ringwood Bypass, and indicates that, in the vicinity of the RMAC, this is likely to mean that for the shortest (most likely) NEL option, the existing demand on EastLink and Ringwood Bypass approaching and leaving the existing tunnels to and from the Eastern Freeway is likely to remain and additional growth must be accommodated based on the new connectivity to the M80. If spare capacity is not available to accommodate all of this new demand, then the project would fail to achieve its aims of providing a viable alternative to the M1 for trips between the N and SE of Melbourne. Alternatively, the NEL project would succeed by displacing existing users onto arterials near the RMAC to avoid the route sections with capacity shortfalls.

In relation to truck issues associated with Option A, the O’Brien advice states the following, “For Option A, this would mean increases in truck demand through the EastLink tunnels. The impact of significant truck increases through the tunnels on the Eastern Freeway, EastLink and Ringwood Bypass operations is likely to be substantial under Option A.

As currently proposed, Options B, C and D will experience truck capacity issues on the NEL sections but will avoid adding to the existing issues in the EastLink tunnels by bypassing them…

… Therefore, consideration of the RMAC area operations is only a serious issue in relation to Option A where the NEL could significantly impact the RMAC area and vice versa – or if Options B and C are modified to have direct connections to the RMAC area roadways.

An important feature of many of the issues for the higher order roads in the RMAC area is how dynamic and inter-related they are. For example, flow breakdown in the EastLink tunnel eastbound may protect the eastbound operations on the Ringwood Bypass by preventing too much traffic entering it. The queuing still occurs but in a different place. If the EastLink tunnels manage to operate just short of flow breakdown that can provide maximum input onto Ringwood Bypass, triggering failure on that roadway that then causes queue-back into the EastLink tunnel. This in turn chokes off the inflow into Ringwood Bypass, possibly allowing some operational recovery there. Consequently, a descriptive analysis such as this one can only describe the general issues that may be involved and only a detailed (micro-simulation) modelling study with extensive sensitivity testing of assumptions can provide a sound basis for scheme selection and design refinement.”

To mitigate against these concerns if Option A is chosen as the preferred alignment, the O’Brien Traffic advice suggests the following:

1. Full traffic modelling and detailed assessment of the Ringwood Bypass and the Ringwood Activity Centre, to determine the NEL project impacts on Ringwood, and to determine additional works as required, to ensure the viability of the road project and the Ringwood Major Activity Centre. It is recognised that a mitigation may be

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 7 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

additional road capacity into and out of Ringwood, connecting with the Ringwood Bypass, which would most likely require additional tunnelling works parallel to the EastLink Tunnels;

2. To take pressure of the Ringwood Bypass, which in turn builds additional capacity for the NEL project, the inclusion of the Northern Arterial is a priority. It is noted by Council officers that this could be undertaken as early works;

3. To take pressure of the Ringwood Bypass, which in turn builds additional capacity for the NEL project, the inclusion of the Healesville Freeway as a priority. It is noted by Council officers that this could be undertaken as early works;

4. Improvements / upgrades to complimentary parallel rail services;

5. Consideration of Bus Services between Activity Centres and along any new arterial roads; and

6. Introduction of a right turn off EastLink onto Maroondah Highway, from the south (to take pressure off the Ringwood Bypass)

For Option B & C, as the connection for the NEL road is into Ringwood south of the Bypass, point 1 and 2 above are expected to occur as part of the project. Points 3, 4 and 5, which are not listed as components of B & C are valid and should be included by Government.

For Option D, noting this includes the Healesville Freeway alignment as the nearest connection to Ringwood (south of Canterbury Road), this should also include the Northern Arterial (point 2), and points 4, 5 and 6 are all still valid.

It is therefore important that Council advocates for a number of improvements, despite which option is chosen.

(a) Complimentary connections – the Northern arterial & Healesville Freeway

The northern arterial is the extension of Reynolds Avenue through to Maroondah Highway in Chirnside Park. It is considered essential that this road is included in option A as well as options B and C, otherwise all vehicular traffic coming from Yarra Ranges and further east and wishing to travel west or north will be forced into Ringwood, putting further pressure on traffic in and around the Metropolitan Activity Centre, the Ringwood Bypass and the EastLink tunnels.

Whilst the route may not carry significant traffic numbers it would still provide an alternative to travelling into Ringwood.

(b) Public transport & Active Transport

Whilst the current consultation is specifically about which road corridor will be selected, it is vital to ensure that public transport options are also considered, in particular improvement within region and external connection such as the rapid bus transport which is currently proposed along the Eastern Freeway, and complimentary rail upgrades. Without these improvements, it is likely that the road improvements will take existing patronage off public transport and increase congestion and the effectiveness of the road project.

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 8 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

Active Transport (as seamless as possible) should be included at every opportunity for the full length of the project, and for any complimentary ancillary projects.

Further to the above, in April 2017, Transport for Victoria came into operation as the State Government agency that is responsible for coordinating Victoria's growing transport system and planning for its future. Transport for Victoria brings together the planning, managing and coordinating of Victoria's transport system and its agencies, including VicRoads and Public Transport Victoria.

Transport for Victoria is charged with ensuring that all major transport projects are considered against the objectives of the Transport Integration Act 2010. The Act requires that all decisions affecting the transport system be made within the same integrated decision-making framework and support the same objectives.

Key elements of the Act include applying considerations in the following areas when assessing any major transport project:

• Economic prosperity - Transport has an important role facilitating economic prosperity. An efficient and reliable transport network helps the productivity of existing businesses. It also helps people access a wide range of job opportunities.

• Social and economic inclusion - Transport plays an important role in developing social and economic inclusion by removing barriers to the use of the transport system. It also has a capacity-building role where opportunities for social and economic participation are maximised in partnership with communities.

• Transport resource efficiency and environmental sustainability - The transport sector is a significant consumer of energy, and a major source of urban air pollution. It is important to minimise the resources used by transport. Environmentally-responsible decisions protect, conserve and improve the natural environment. This ensures that we have the ability to maintain and improve living conditions needed to sustain people and other species.

Regardless of the alignment chosen for the NEL, the objectives set out in Transport Integration Act should be considered and applied in terms of establishing the best option, and benefits beyond just the movement of cars and freight.

FINANCIAL / ECONOMIC ISSUES

Whilst the full cost of each option has not been formally announced, the State government when it announced they would construct the North East Link, identified a figure of $10 billion.

ENVIRONMENTAL / AMENITY ISSUES

The selected corridor will be subject to a very detailed Environmental Effects Statement which will review how the existing environment may be affected and the proposed measures to avoid, minimise or manage adverse environmental effects.

SOCIAL / COMMUNITY ISSUES

Not Applicable

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 9 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

COMMUNITY CONSULTATION

The North East Link Authority has provided a number of opportunities for community information and involvement, including 14 information sessions, two community information newsletters, online information and social media, and a community survey.

CONCLUSION

The NEL is deemed to be a critical project in relation to Melbourne’s transportation needs.

All of the options will have a major impact on Maroondah, especially the Ringwood Major Activity Centre.

If Option A, B or C is selected, full and proper consideration of the traffic impact on Ringwood Major Activity Centre, The Ringwood Bypass and the EastLink tunnels must be considered as part of the project. Ancillary, complementary projects should also be included as part of the NEL project. These projects would include, but not be limited to:

• New tunnel access to the Ringwood Bypass (under Option A);

• The construction of the Norther Arterial & Healesville Freeway (all options);

• The construction of a right turn exit from EastLink to Maroondah Highway from the south (option A);

• Freeway standard Rapid Bus Transit between Activity Centres, along NEL and EastLink;

• Complimentary Rail upgrades, (Hurstbridge, Lilydale, Belgrave); and

• Active Transport inclusion along the full alignment of the project and as part of any complimentary ancillary works.

ATTACHMENTS

1. North East Link - Community Update - Issue 2 - August 2017 2. O'Brien Traffic advice on Potential Ringwood Area Impacts of North East Link Options - 12 September 2017

CONFIDENTIALITY

Not Applicable

RECOMMENDATION

THAT

1. COUNCIL SUPPORTS THE NORTH EAST LINK PROJECT SUBJECT TO APPRORIATE TRAFFIC CONSIDERATIONS BEING APPLIED FOR THOSE AREAS AFFECTED BY THE PROPOSED ROUTE AND ANY ANCILLIARY WORKS

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 10 18 September 2017 DIRECTOR PLANNING & COMMUNITY – PHIL TURNER

NORTH EAST LINK Cont’d ITEM 3

2. COUNCIL CALLS FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO ENSURE THAT THE ALIGNMENT SELECTED BEST MEETS THE HIGH LEVEL OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT, AND THE TRANSPORT INTEGRATION ACT 2010

3. APPRORIATE ANCILLARY PROJECTS, SUCH AS UPGRADED / DUPLICATE TUNNEL ACCESS TO THE RINGWOOD BYPASS, THE NORTHERN ARTERIAL, THE HEALESVILLE FREEWAY, EASTLINK RIGHT TURN EXIT ONTO MAROONDAH HIGHWAY, RAPID BUS TRANSIT BETWEEN ACTIVITY CENTRES, RAIL UPGRADES AND ACTIVE TRANSPORT BE INCLUDED AS NEEDED; AND

4. COUNCIL PROVIDES THE NORTH EAST LINK AUTHORITY WITH A COPY OF THIS COUNCIL REPORT, WHICH CONTAINS ITS RECOMMENDATIONS AND THE O’BRIEN TRAFFIC ADVICE DATED 8 SEPTEMBER 2017

Ordinary Council Meeting Agenda 11 18 September 2017

12 September 2017

Phillip Turner Director Planning & Community Maroondah City Council Braeside Ave Ringwood VIC 3134

Dear Mr Turner

I refer to your request for an assessment of the possible implications of the North East Link (NEL) options A to D, put forward by the North East Link Authority (NELA) in August 2017, on the Ringwood area in particular.

Our background in making these comments includes extensive experience in freeway network planning, design, operations and safety and very detailed knowledge of the Ringwood Metropolitan Activity Centre (RMAC) area based on a range of projects conducted for and in close consultation with Maroondah City Council, VicRoads, Places Victoria, Public Transport Victoria and Transport for Victoria (and the various prior incarnations of these agencies) on an almost continuous basis since 2001.

As part of preparing this assessment, we have:

 Reviewed the North East Link Technical Summary, August 2017 document released by NELA;

 Reviewed the recently released WSP-PB reports prepared for the Victorian Planning Authority relating to the existing conditions and future transport and land use development options for the RMAC (namely Ringwood Metropolitan Activity Centre: Key Issues Paper, Ringwood MAC Transport and Movement Modelling Assessment: Part 1 Existing Conditions and Ringwood MAC Transport and Movement Modelling Assessment: Part 2 Future Transport Analysis and Improvement Options);

 Reviewed previous OBT assessments for improving the capacity of the Ringwood Bypass;

 Confirmed our understanding of VicRoads current and anticipated future operation of Ringwood Bypass;

 Considered the potential traffic implications of the NEL options in the vicinity of the RMAC;

 Considered the known mitigation options to improve the Ringwood Bypass and EastLink in the vicinity of the RMAC and the likely impact on them of the NEL;

 Examined the safety and operation implications if the mitigations are unable to accommodate NEL demands; and

 Identified modifications to the scope of the NEL that are likely to be required to achieve suitable outcomes in the RMAC area.

Based on the NEL Technical Summary, the basic rationale of the NEL is that it, among other things:

(a) provides a direct freeway-standard connection between the M80 and the M3 (EastLink and Eastern Freeway) corridors; (b) allows for existing heavy vehicles and excessive traffic demands from other vehicles to be removed from local roads at critical locations; and (c) avoids over-reliance on the M1 corridor to provide the only freeway standard connection between the freight centres of the SE and N of Melbourne.

Essentially, the purpose of the NEL is to cater for increases in demand between the EastLink and M80 corridors as well as relieving local arterial congestion on nearby routes wherever possible.

In the vicinity of the RMAC, this is likely to mean that for the shortest (most likely) NEL option, the existing demand on EastLink and Ringwood Bypass approaching and leaving the existing tunnels to and from the Eastern Freeway is likely to remain and additional growth must be accommodated based on the new connectivity to the M80. If spare capacity is not available to accommodate all of this new demand, then the project would fail to achieve its aims of providing a viable alternative to the M1 for trips between the N and SE of Melbourne. Alternatively, the NEL project would succeed by displacing existing users onto arterials near the RMAC to avoid the route sections with capacity shortfalls.

For other (apparently less likely) options, the NEL intercepts some of the EastLink traffic demand (diverting it away from the RMAC roadways) and may reduce some RMAC area demands by omitting direct connections to NEL from Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway.

O’BRIEN TRAFFIC 17967 NORTH EAST LINK IMPACTS NEAR RINGWOOD V10.DOCX: 12 SEPTEMBER 2017 2

Route Paths The NEL Technical Summary indicates that many possible routes could be adopted for the project but that four (Options A to D) have been identified to illustrate the issues and benefits likely to arise from the project. The maps are shown below in Figure 1 to Figure 4.

FIGURE 1: OPTION A

FIGURE 2: OPTION B

O’BRIEN TRAFFIC 17967 NORTH EAST LINK IMPACTS NEAR RINGWOOD V10.DOCX: 12 SEPTEMBER 2017 3

FIGURE 3: OPTION C

FIGURE 4: OPTION D

O’BRIEN TRAFFIC 17967 NORTH EAST LINK IMPACTS NEAR RINGWOOD V10.DOCX: 12 SEPTEMBER 2017 4

Option Configuration Details The Technical Summary does not include detailed descriptions of the lane configurations for the routes but includes maps of the general alignment, possible interchange locations, likely tunnel sections and the project extents in each case.

The text of the Technical Summary describes “additional capacity and merging” works for Option A ending at Springvale Road. This appears to somewhat contradict the route diagram (see Figure 1) that shows ‘works’ for Option A extending to Ringwood Bypass. Given the constraints of the existing tunnels, it is considered likely that meaningful capacity enhancements would end at Springvale Road and not continue through the tunnels to Ringwood Bypass or beyond.

From other sources of information, we understand the Option A is to include 2 extra lanes on the Eastern Freeway from the NEL to Hoddle Street in the west and 1 extra lane to Springvale Road in the east. Given that the existing configuration of the Eastern Freeway from Bulleen Road to EastLink varies between 3 lanes and 4 lanes in each direction depending on the section under consideration, it is not clear whether the future Eastern Freeway contemplated in Option A would involve widths of 4 and 5 lanes or simply a consistent 4-lane cross-section. The latter case would likely experience significant localised congestion around the existing 4-lane sections.

In any event, the widening of M3 as far as Springvale Road proposed is an implicit recognition of the additional traffic to be generated by the NEL along the Eastern Freeway due to the improved connection to the M80. However, it ignores the very high likelihood that a significant share of the extra traffic to and from the east will come from Ringwood Bypass and from EastLink interchanges further to the south and not from the largely built- out residential catchment abutting the Eastern Freeway itself. The apparent extent of widening is expected to leave the tunnels and interchanges between Springvale Road and Maroondah Highway vulnerable to problems emerging from significant lack of freeway capacity and queuing and capacity constraints caused by growth in demand from the RMAC.

The descriptions for Options B, C and D are similarly vague in terms of lane configurations but their basic changes to connectivity address the uncertainty as to the adequacy of the capacity of the proposed NEL facility in the RMAC area identified for Option A. For example, Options B and C effectively extend extra lanes directly south of Maroondah Highway via the new tunnel and Option D leaves EastLink well to the south of the RMAC so significant new demand is not likely to be added to the EastLink tunnels or interchanges around the RMAC by these NEL options.

O’BRIEN TRAFFIC 17967 NORTH EAST LINK IMPACTS NEAR RINGWOOD V10.DOCX: 12 SEPTEMBER 2017 5

The Technical Summary does not include sufficient information on which to base commentary on the suitability of the travel catchments and traffic demands assumed in the modelling underpinning the assessment.

The only direct future demand information provided is a single dot point for each option outlining a broad range of daily demands on each option 10 years after opening with very general comment as to whether demand is evenly distributed along the route or biased to one end or the other. This demand comment indicates that Option A has the highest demands and has more consistent demand along its length than the alternatives. Options B and C have almost the same results and a similar maximum demand to Option A. However, these two routes have more limited connectivity at their southern end and so have substantial lower minimum demand sections than Option A. Option D has the lowest demands on the corridor and significant drops in demand at the southern end of the route.

The other catchment information provided that is useful to an evaluation of the possible impacts of the NEL is an existing survey of truck patterns. The truck origin destination pattern illustrated in the Technical Summary (extracted to Figure 5 below), indicates that heavy vehicle demands on the various crossing locations in the study area are dominated by the movements along Bulleen Road between Eastern Freeway and M80/Bell- Banksia. Truck demand using this major crossing does not experience significant gains or losses along Eastern Freeway between Bulleen Road and Springvale Road but has most of its demand supplied from EastLink and Ringwood Bypass.

Importantly, this catchment reflects the existing road network so that traffic between EastLink and M80 must occur via arterial roads, incurring significant delays.

In the event that a freeway standard connection is available between the M3 and M80 (particularly the more direct Options A to C), it is considered highly likely that all of the existing truck demands in light green between EastLink and M80 in Figure 5 would use the new link.

Furthermore, the improved travel times using the NEL (Options A to C) would likely significantly extend the travel catchment (for trucks and for other vehicles) southwards along M3. In our estimation, the NEL would likely capture all of M3, parts of M1 southeast of M3 and also part of M1 to the NW of M3 as illustrated in Figure 6.

Interchanges along most of the NEL route (Options A to C) would be likely to mainly add non-freight traffic due to the nature of the adjacent land uses and intersecting roadways. The main exception to this would be the Bell Street-Banksia Street interchange for Option A.

Option A should attract more traffic of all classes along its route (i.e. traffic that does not follow its entire length) than the other options because almost the entire Option A route

O’BRIEN TRAFFIC 17967 NORTH EAST LINK IMPACTS NEAR RINGWOOD V10.DOCX: 12 SEPTEMBER 2017 6

has ‘two-sided’ catchments and significantly more dense and better connected supporting arterial road system. By contrast, Options B, C and D have significant sections with ‘one- sided’ catchments (due to the green wedges) and much more limited arterial connectivity.

FIGURE 5: TRUCK CATCHMENTS FOR THE VARIOUS YARRA CROSSINGS IN THE STUDY AREA – ILLUSTRATES EXTENT OF TRUCK CATCHMENT BEYOND EASTERN FREEWAY

Furthermore, Option A provides the opportunity for both a radial function (toward the CBD) as well as a circumferential function (part of the metropolitan ‘ring road’) so it serves an additional range of trip functions compared to the other options. We note that the CBD end of the Eastern Freeway currently has significant capacity issues so the ability to accommodate significant radial trips during the peak periods is relatively limited under present circumstances. Should the Eastern Freeway CBD-end capacity issues be resolved or significantly improved, however, peak period radial trips for Option A are likely to be substantial. Under such conditions, Option A would likely offer significant competition to the parallel Hurstbridge Railway Line and would likely attract existing and potential patronage away from it. The other options are primarily circumferential routes that do not directly compete with any existing railways.

O’BRIEN TRAFFIC 17967 NORTH EAST LINK IMPACTS NEAR RINGWOOD V10.DOCX: 12 SEPTEMBER 2017 7

FIGURE 6: POTENTIAL FREEWAY TRAVEL CATCHMENT CHANGES AFTER NEL

O’BRIEN TRAFFIC 17967 NORTH EAST LINK IMPACTS NEAR RINGWOOD V10.DOCX: 12 SEPTEMBER 2017 8

The NEL options proposed are likely to have quite different impacts on the RMAC because of the way they connect to the existing road network and serve key catchments.

Option A – extends the catchment for the NEL onto EastLink via the existing tunnels and captures the northeast corridor from Ringwood to Lilydale via the existing Maroondah Highway and Ringwood Bypass connections. Consequently, Option A is subject to – and can be a significant cause of – capacity, safety or operational issues in this extended catchment even if the project boundary for NEL works has been terminated further west. This is particularly true for roadways in the RMAC where NEL-related demand would be at its maximum and where significant issues already arise.

Options B and C – extend the NEL catchment onto EastLink via a direct tunnel connection that does not allow connection between Ringwood Bypass or Maroondah Highway and the NEL. The travel catchment to the northeast from Ringwood to Lilydale – which is important to achieving reasonable loading on the quieter southern end of these NEL options – is instead connected to the NEL via the completion of the long-planned Northern Arterial. Unfortunately, the Northern Arterial is unlikely to adequately replace the Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway connections for several reasons. It is expected to be a much smaller (lower capacity) roadway that has a permanently one-sided direct catchment (due to the Green Wedge on its northern side) and has small, topographically difficult local connections that limit the natural extent of its catchment to the south. The Northern Arterial would perform a useful function in the arterial network and, if constructed, could provide a useful amount of relief to the Maroondah Highway / Ringwood Bypass route by siphoning off a portion of its catchment for certain trips. However, it should not be considered a direct replacement for the Maroondah Highway / Ringwood Bypass route for connection to the NEL. From the perspective of RMAC traffic operations, the NEL effectively bypassing the Maroondah Highway / Ringwood Bypass route and the existing EastLink tunnels means that the capacity and operations in the RMAC area will not be exacerbated by the NEL and may actually be slightly improved by it intercepting some of the existing traffic that would otherwise have used the EastLink tunnels. Unfortunately, this benefit is achieved by significantly longer tunnels, higher cost and by providing a poorer service to the Ringwood to Lilydale catchment.

In a similar manner to the Northern Arterial, the Healesville Freeway Reservation (made use of in Option D) could be developed (in whole or partially from EastLink eastwards) as a freeway, expressway or limited access arterial. A ‘Healesville Road’ connection to the NEL and/or EastLink could provide increased flexibility to the network around the RMAC and provide some relief to the Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway connection to EastLink by intercepting the southern end of its catchment (i.e. from the area around and south of Mt Dandenong Road) for trips to and from the south. However, unlike the Northern Arterial, such a ‘Healesville Road’ is not included in the current proposal for the Options B and C of the NEL.

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Option D – is also likely to provide quite poor service to much of the Ringwood to Lilydale catchment because it is located much further south than Maroondah Highway and only intersects with Maroondah Highway at the extreme eastern end of the catchment. As for Options B and C, Option D therefore does not draw new traffic into the RMAC area from this catchment, reducing the future pressure on existing roads in the area. However, unlike Options B and C, Option D is likely to offer a lesser reduction in EastLink traffic past the RMAC because its indirect route would likely intercept far less traffic that would otherwise use EastLink and Eastern Freeway.

The eastbound carriageway of the Eastern Freeway currently has the following cross- sections in the NEL study area:

to Bulleen Road – 4 lanes;

 Bulleen Road to Tram Road – 3 lanes;

 Tram Road to Blackburn Road – 4 lanes;

 Blackburn Road to EastLink – 3 lanes; and

 EastLink – 3 lanes.

The westbound carriageway of the Eastern Freeway currently has the following cross- sections in the NEL study area:

 EastLink (including Tunnel) – 3 lanes.

 Tunnel to Springvale Road – 4 lanes;

 Springvale Road to Blackburn Road – 3 lanes;

 Blackburn Road to Tram Road – 4 lanes;

 Tram Road to Bulleen Road – 3 lanes; and

 Bulleen Road to Chandler Highway – 4 lanes.

Typical traffic conditions at 5:30pm on a Thursday (from Google Traffic data) are shown in Figure 7. This indicates significant existing eastbound traffic congestion on Eastern Freeway in the PM peak from Bulleen Road to Blackburn Road.

Note that the eastbound shoulder lane is opened to traffic from 4:30pm to 7:00pm, Monday to Friday from Blackburn Road to the off-ramp to Springvale Road, increasing this section to 4 eastbound lanes. This extra lane is likely to be responsible for the higher speed operation of the Eastern Freeway and EastLink from Blackburn Road to Ringwood Bypass.

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In a similar way, the 4 to 3 lane drop at Bulleen Road limits merging capacity for the metered Thompsons Road eastbound on-ramp immediately east of Bulleen Road (causing the significant congestion shown in red in Figure 7).

FIGURE 7: TYPICAL TRAFFIC CONDITIONS 5:30PM THURSDAY – GOOGLE TRAFFIC

Typical traffic conditions at 6:50am on a Thursday from Google Traffic are shown in Figure 8. This indicates significant existing westbound traffic congestion on Eastern Freeway in the AM peak from just west of the tunnel outlet to Bulleen Road (at the end of 3-lane section prior to the widening to 4 lanes at the Bulleen Road westbound on-ramp).

FIGURE 8: TYPICAL TRAFFIC CONDITIONS 6:50AM THURSDAY – GOOGLE TRAFFIC

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Note that Figure 7 and Figure 8 also show the Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway through Ringwood are congested in the peak direction in each peak period.

Interestingly, despite the known grade-related slowdown in the EastLink tunnels (particularly when trucks are present) these facilities are not shown to have significant speed reductions in the typical Google Traffic maps. In some cases, this can occur because transmissions from probe vehicles are not able to penetrate the tunnel so no data is obtainable and the system defaults to representing the speed limit. In other cases, private road owners may ban the use of data collected on their facilities. It is not clear whether either of these issues is relevant in this case. However, as shown in Figure 9 at 4:10pm on Thursday 7 September 2017 the system was reporting slowing on the tunnel approaches in each direction but not at either exit. This pattern is consistent with grade and truck related slowdown even with moderate levels of traffic.

FIGURE 9: LIVE TRAFFIC CONDITIONS 4:10PM THURSDAY 7/9/2017 – GOOGLE TRAFFIC

In summary, the Eastern Freeway and the Ringwood area roadways appear not to have significant spare capacity to accommodate a significant increase in demand to and from the NEL (particularly for Option A). Even the provision of a continuous extra lane in each direction between Springvale Road and Bullen Road (making for some 4-lane and some 5- lane sections along the route) may not be sufficient to provide capacity for the NEL given the extent of existing congestion.

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EastLink and Ringwood Bypass opened in 2008. Since that time, RMAC land uses and transport network have changed significantly.

The major land use changes include:

 the major expansion of the Eastland Shopping Centre (Stage 5);

 the Costco development;

 changes to retail offerings at the Ringwood Square Shopping Centre;

 the development of several major apartment complexes; and

 smaller-scale redevelopment of low density residential to medium density residential uses.

The transport network changes include:

 The completion of the bus-rail interchange at Ringwood Station;

 Upgrades to Ringwood Street and Warrandyte Road;

 Completion of the boulevard treatment of Maroondah Highway for the central section between Ringwood Street and Warrandyte Road involving reducing the street to two through lanes in each direction, adopting permanent 40 km/h speed limits and providing on-street bicycle lanes;

 Upgrades to Bond Street as part of the Costco redevelopment;

 New POS crossings on Maroondah Highway opposite the railway station, on Ringwood Street and on Maroondah Highway at Larissa Avenue;

 Completion of most of the Box Hill-Ringwood rail trail (shared path facility); and

 A range of changes to the Ringwood Bypass corridor to address various capacity, operations and safety issues outlined below.

The last major review conducting by O’Brien Traffic was in 2013 and it led to several of the improvements outlined above and the resolution of the related issues. The key operational issues pertaining at that time are illustrated in Figure 10, Figure 11 and Figure 12. Note that one major issue was omitted from these diagrams – the absence of a SE right-turn movement from EastLink at its interchange with Maroondah Highway. That issue had been set aside in that study due to the extent of work required to address it being significantly beyond the resources available at the time.

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FIGURE 10: AM PEAK 2013 – RMAC ISSUES

FIGURE 11: AM PEAK 2013 – WESTBOUND RINGWOOD BYPASS LANE DROP ISSUE

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FIGURE 12: PM PEAK 2013 – RMAC ISSUES

Ringwood Bypass has been physically upgraded on several occasions to address significant demand growth and the operations and safety issues that arise as a result. The traffic signal operations along the route have also been reviewed by VicRoads on multiple occasions. In summary, the changes made since 2008 include:

 Ringwood Street/Ringwood Bypass intersection upgrade to include triple right-turns on the north and south approaches, split phasing of the north and south approaches and staging of pedestrians across Ringwood Bypass – added significant exiting capacity from the RMAC, entry capacity to Ringwood Bypass westbound.

 Ringwood Bypass/Maroondah Highway/Mt Dandenong Road intersection upgrade to allow staging of pedestrians on the eastern leg, introduction of split phasing for the Maroondah Highway approaches – fixed significant crash issue and increased capacity.

 Linemarking changes – to improve lane utilisation in the eastbound direction between Ringwood Street and Mt Dandenong Road.

 Peak period signal cycles on Ringwood Bypass were increased to 140s to allow for maximum east-west capacity – any further increases are likely to produce significant and undesirable ‘short lane effects’ on the side streets and turning lanes and are considered to excessively penalise pedestrians crossing Ringwood Bypass.

 Counter-peak and off-peak right-turn movements from Ringwood Bypass reconfigured to run every second cycle when demand is low enough to free up time for east-west

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movements – the ability to do this is already at a limit due to increased demand from the expanded Eastland Shopping Centre and ongoing increases in other land uses in the RMAC.

At the conclusion of all of the changes above, Ringwood Bypass manages to perform its allocated functions reasonably well, although ongoing incremental demand growth is making the maintenance of acceptable operations progressively more difficult.

Remaining key eastbound issues that need to be addressed at present include:

 Eastbound queues back from Ringwood Street extending too close to the EastLink tunnels risking highly undesirable queue-back into the tunnels and also encouraging high-risk weaving movements for as many vehicles move from the lane on which they entered Ringwood Bypass to their desired exiting lane over a distance shortened significantly by queued vehicles. These queues arise due to high, unregulated demands approaching from EastLink and Maroondah Highway and on the heavy demands for traffic exiting the RMAC via Ringwood Street in the PM peak. Importantly, the queuing tends to be uneven, favouring the two left-most through lanes due to the popularity of the lanes bound for Maroondah Highway compared to those bound for Mt Dandenong Road. This lane bias makes the development of queue-back toward the tunnels and the associated safety issues occur much more quickly and severely than would otherwise be expected from the observed demands.

 Unnecessary reliance on Ringwood Bypass for access to the RMAC from EastLink because of the absence of a SE right-turn from EastLink to Maroondah Highway. The omission of this movement adds ES right-turn traffic, particularly at Ringwood Street (which is contrary to the stated goals for the Ringwood Masterplan that seeks to minimise traffic use of Ringwood Street whenever possible).

 Congestion on Ringwood Street and Loughnan Road due to a single SE right-turn lane compared to the nearby parallel SE right-turn movement from Warrandyte Road that has dual right-turn lanes. This capacity difference leads vehicles that could exit Ringwood Bypass via a left-turn at Ringwood Street having to stay on the most congested eastbound lanes on Ringwood Bypass in the PM peak until Warrandyte Road before exiting via left-turn.

 Limited northeastbound through movement capacity in the PM peak at the Maroondah Highway/Olive Grove intersection approximately 150m downstream of Ringwood Bypass. It is not clear that this particular capacity issue can be resolved except to extend the signal cycle length. The lack of access route alternatives is likely to make more aggressive actions such as deleting movements at this intersection to improve Maroondah Highway throughput unworkable.

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Remaining key westbound issues that need to be addressed at present include:

 Lack of capacity for the 3-lane westbound carriageway of Ringwood Bypass (compared to the 4 lanes eastbound). A short separate 4th lane exists for only about 200m on each side of the Ringwood Street signals, but has less than 20% utilisation because it must merge back into the busiest lane on the carriageway, which is the only lane that caters to the ES movement onto EastLink. This merge area also features a ‘two-sided’ merge as vehicles seeking to reach EastLink’s southbound lanes attempt to push into the access lane from the right-hand side as well as the left-hand side merge from the short lane. The safety issues associated with this traffic behaviour are so prominent that the permanent VMS sign adjacent to it defaults to a ‘dangerous merge’ message when urgent notifications are not required. The under-use of the short 4th lane leads to significant queuing back from Ringwood Street in the AM peak that can extend back into Maroondah Highway and Mt Dandenong Road. This queueing causes significant interference to operations on Warrandyte Road, Maroondah Highway and Mt Dandenong Road. This congestion also means that Ringwood Bypass cannot fully relieve the existing Maroondah Highway boulevard treatment for westbound movements because the lane allocated to this use on the bypass is shared with the busy ES movement onto EastLink. Previous Origin-Destination surveys indicated that of the 900 vph of westbound through traffic on the Maroondah Highway-Ringwood Bypass corridor – only 100 vph was using Ringwood Bypass due to the capacity constraints.

 Significant weaving issues on the southbound off-ramp to Maroondah Highway that is currently protected by the westbound lane drop issue on Ringwood Bypass. Resolving the lane drop is likely to make this underlying issue much more significant by increasing the flows and likely retaining the extremely proportion of weaving flows from both the Ringwood Bypass and EastLink approaches to the off-ramp. If demands also increase from EastLink, then the weaving area may pose an additional queue-back risk toward the EastLink tunnels.

The recent WSP study of the RMAC confirmed that many of the previously identified key transport network issues remain to be resolved and that the need to address them becomes more urgent due to forecast land use intensification in the RMAC and expected ongoing regional traffic demand growth on the combined Maroondah Highway and Ringwood Bypass routes. Further, the increased demands may cause additional issues to arise that are not yet apparent, particularly if NEL is also constructed.

The planned growth in land use in the RMAC is significant, particularly residential and retail rather than ‘destination’ uses such as office. Residential uses are expected to increase by 160% to 215% by 2031 while employment is expected to grow by 45% to 50% over the same period. This is likely to increase demands along similar pattern lines as existing

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rather than more evenly balance the share of origins and destinations generated by land uses in the RMAC in each peak.

The key land use changes include:

 known developments – e.g. the hotel tower at Eastland;

 potential redevelopment of the remaining sections of the Eastland site (including and likely future apartment towers), the Ringwood Station ‘superblock’ redevelopment and the completion of the Ringwood Market redevelopment; and

 likely redevelopment of numerous residential and retail/commercial sites in Ringwood for higher intensity uses.

A number of important local transport network changes are proposed for the RMAC in the WSP reports including public transport, pedestrian and bicycle improvements. The critical traffic-related changes include:

 Extension of the Maroondah Highway boulevard treatment to Larissa Avenue in the east and New Street in the west; and

 Improvements to Ringwood Bypass (similar to those outlined in this assessment) to accommodate general growth and traffic displaced by the Maroondah Highway boulevard extensions.

Other changes transport network proposed include:

 Significant alterations to the capacity of Ringwood Street for private vehicles (to free up space for bicycle lanes and a northbound bus lane) – not supported by OBT – as many access routes have no realistic alternative to Ringwood Street and the so downgrading Ringwood Street is simply reducing capacity with no prospect of reclaiming it on other routes.

 Very major changes to the accessibility of Eastland from both Ringwood Street and Warrandyte Road to a system based almost entirely on left-in and left-out movements to reduce road space given to turning lanes and to release that space that can be used for bus lanes and bus ‘jump’ lanes – not supported by OBT – as the 7 key ‘gateway’ intersections through which RMAC is accessed are unlikely to cope with the traffic demand changes required to make the altered Eastland access adjustments.

 Improvements to bus route patterns and bus-rail interchange accessibility – supported in most cases by OBT.

 Extensive provision of bus lanes and bus jump lanes – not supported by OBT – not justifiable based on the competing needs for roadway space and the limited bus demands.

 The provision of an interconnected bicycle lane and path network – supported by OBT although some bicycle lane routes proposed by WSP are not supported as a suitable design is unlikely to be achievable or the road space is needed for other purposes.

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 Provision of new and wider footpaths and footbridges – new footpaths supported by OBT; wider footpaths mostly supported by OBT; and footbridge across Ringwood Bypass is not supported by OBT as avoiding ground level signal crossings is not politically achievable.

Based on our examination of the previous reports, studies and recent discussions with VicRoads about the future change in the area, options for capacity improvement or road network adjustment aimed at accommodating the traffic demand growth anticipated in the RMAC area – without the NEL – have been identified. They are outlined below.

Improvement for the Ringwood Bypass westbound lanes include:

 4th westbound lane on Ringwood Bypass – Part A – a 4th lane from the eastern approach to the Ringwood Bypass intersection to EastLink, requires works from the end of the existing lane drop to the start of the current exit lane to Maroondah Highway – see Figure 13;

 4th westbound lane on Ringwood Bypass – Part B – 4th lane from the approximately 110m west of the Mt Dandenong Road signals to the eastern approach to the Ringwood Bypass intersection. Involves converting the right-turns from Ringwood Bypass into Warrandyte Road from two lanes to one. This will increase the time required to accommodate the right-turn demands, ultimately penalising the eastbound through movement to enhance westbound through movement capacity – see Figure 14 and Figure 15;

 4th westbound lane on Ringwood Bypass – Part C – relocate the right-turn from Ringwood Bypass to Maroondah Highway to a new signalised intersection on Mt Dandenong Road to the east and use the space released to extend the 4th westbound lane to the signals, convert the northeast Maroondah Highway approach to a L, T, T&R, R, R, R layout and the Mt Dandenong Road approach to a L, T, T, T, T, R layout – see Figure 15 and Figure 16;

 Potential upgrade to the EastLink/Maroondah Highway interchange to restore the missing SE right-turn movement and relieve Ringwood Bypass westbound capacity at the Ringwood Street signals – see example of a Diverging Diamond Interchange that restores the right-turn movement without additional major bridge works in Figure 17;

 Braid the off-ramps from EastLink tunnels and Ringwood Bypass toward Maroondah Highway to minimise queue-back risks onto Ringwood Bypass westbound – requires significant alteration to the current layout of the ramps in question;

 Add an extra lane to the combined section of the southbound off-ramp to Maroondah Highway to reduce queue lengths – see example in Figure 17;

 Construct the Northern Arterial – would likely attract a very small share of Ringwood Bypass westbound traffic but any amount would assist; and

 Construct a ‘Healesville Road’ along the Healesville Freeway Reservation – would likely attract a small share of Ringwood Bypass westbound traffic but any amount would help.

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FIGURE 13: 4TH WESTBOUND LANE – PART A (RINGWOOD ST TO MAROONDAH HWY EXIT)

FIGURE 14: 4TH WESTBOUND LANE – PART B (AT WARRANDYTE RD)

FIGURE 15: 4TH WESTBOUND LANE – PART B AND PART C (NEAR MAROONDAH HWY)

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FIGURE 16: 4TH WESTBOUND LANE – PART C (AT MAROONDAH HWY AND MT DANDENONG RD)

FIGURE 17: ILLUSTRATION OF A DIVERGING DIAMOND INTERCHANGE TREATMENT AT THE MAROONDAH HIGHWAY/EASTLINK INTERCHANGE

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Improvement for the Ringwood Bypass eastbound lanes include:

 Potential upgrade to the EastLink/Maroondah Highway interchange to restore the missing SE right-turn movement and reduce demand for Ringwood Bypass westbound approaching the Ringwood Street signals – see example of a Diverging Diamond Interchange that restores the right-turn movement without additional major bridge works in Figure 17;

 Braid the off-ramps from EastLink tunnels and Ringwood Bypass toward Maroondah Highway to minimise queue-back risks onto the eastbound EastLink tunnel – requires significant alteration to the current layout of the ramps in question.

 Add an extra lane to the combined section of the southbound off-ramp to Maroondah Highway to reduce queue lengths – see example in Figure 17;

 Extend the left-turn lane from Ringwood Bypass eastbound into Warrandyte Road to optimise queuing and throughput in the adjacent busiest eastbound through lanes – see Figure 18;

 Convert the left-turn only lane into a second SE right-turn land from Ringwood Street at Loughnan Road to compete with the nearby parallel Warrandyte Road route – to encourage as many vehicles as possible to exit Ringwood Bypass via a left-turn at Ringwood Street rather than continuing on using the most congested eastbound lanes on Ringwood Bypass in the PM peak – see Figure 19;

 Construct the Northern Arterial – would likely attract a very small share of Ringwood Bypass eastbound traffic but any amount would assist; and

 Construct a ‘Healesville Road’ along the Healesville Freeway Reservation – would likely attract a small share of Ringwood Bypass eastbound traffic but any amount would help.

FIGURE 18: EXTEND LEFT-TURN LANE INTO WARRANDYTE RD FROM RINGWOOD BYPASS EASTBOUND

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FIGURE 19: ADD 2ND RIGHT-TURN LANE AT RINGWOOD STREET / LOUGHNAN ROAD

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Technical Summary Lacks Detail The Technical Summary does not include information as to the operational performance of the NEL in terms of volume/capacity ratios of merge and weaving area performance or the need for ramp metering at the on-ramps or the myriad of other important issues necessary to understood before an acceptable or preferred option could be identified.

Truck Impacts on Tunnel Capacity The Technical Summary does include some indirect but useful operations commentary about the impact of route (particularly tunnel) grades on truck speeds and lane changing including:

“Depending on the terrain and along each alignment, some tunnels will likely be long and steep, which will significantly increase fuel consumption and slow trucks down, sometimes to below 40 km/hr which impacts on the performance of the road for other traffic and introduces potential safety issues. Trucks climbing at steep and extended grades also places additional strain on the vehicle and increases operating costs. These factors reduce the attractiveness of some of corridors, and as a result it is likely that some freight operators will instead opt to continue using the arterial road network.”

The truck performance issues identified due to grades closely resembles freeway ‘flow breakdown’ due to lack of capacity and has similar impacts, particularly where slow moving trucks are present in more than one lane of a multi-lane freeway or tunnel. Major tunnel facilities with these grade and truck-related flow breakdown issues include: the EastLink Tunnels and the in Melbourne and the Sydney Harbour Tunnels and M5 East Tunnels in Sydney. The more gently sloped in Melbourne rarely encounters such issues.

The Technical Summary goes on to show a map of the proposed routes and the likely locations with truck issues, which is reproduced in Figure 20.

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FIGURE 20: LIKELY TRUCK GRADE ISSUES FOR THE VARIOUS NEL OPTIONS

It uses this diagram to highlight the benefits of Option A. However, importantly the diagram and discussion of the Option A route omits the significant existing issues with the EastLink tunnels where the steep grades routinely cause significant slowing for traffic flows even outside of the peak demand periods. As discussed above, the NEL concept relies on significant increases in truck flows between EastLink and the M80. For Option A, this would mean increases in truck demand through the EastLink tunnels. The impact of significant truck increases through the tunnels on Eastern Freeway, EastLink and Ringwood Bypass operations is likely to be substantial under Option A.

As currently proposed, Options B, C and D will experience truck capacity issues on the NEL sections but will avoid adding to the existing issues in the EastLink tunnels by bypassing them.

Eastern Freeway Impacts The total extra traffic demand from the NEL only has a significant negative impact on the Eastern Freeway under Option A. The other options are likely to see some existing Eastern Freeway users divert onto the NEL, freeing up capacity on Eastern Freeway.

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As indicated above, the NEL is intended to include additional capacity on the Eastern Freeway between Bulleen Road and Springvale Road and this is expected to be in the form an additional lane in each direction. If the NEL is to achieve its desired function of connecting the M3 and M80 routes together and providing a relief route to the M1 for long- haul trips then the extra lane would need to be additional for this entire length rather than linking together the existing 4-lane sections of the route. If this extra lane is providing for the full length described, the Eastern Freeway should operate reasonably well east of Bulleen Road although great care with be needed with the design of the NEL/Eastern Freeway interchange.

The most likely capacity problems for the M3 due to the NEL Option A are likely to arise east of Springvale Road where no extra capacity is apparently to be provided.

When contemplating the potential operation of the roadways in the RMAC area after NEL, the relevant considerations are for both:

 Impact of NEL on RMAC issues; and

 Impact of RMAC issues on NEL effectiveness.

As indicated above Options B, C and D are expected to reduce traffic demands in the RMAC area on EastLink by intercepting some demand south of the RMAC and are not expected to see increased use of Ringwood Bypass or Maroondah Highway because these routes do not connect to the NEL as they are currently proposed.

Therefore, consideration of RMAC area operations is only a serious issue in relation to Option A where the NEL could significantly impact the RMAC area and vice versa – or if Options B and C are modified to have direct connections to the RMAC area roadways.

An important feature of many of the issues for the higher order roads in the RMAC area is how dynamic and inter-related they are. For example, flow breakdown in the EastLink tunnel eastbound may protect the eastbound operations on Ringwood Bypass by preventing too much traffic entering it. The queuing still occurs but in a different place. If the EastLink tunnels manage to operate just short of flow breakdown that can provide maximum input onto Ringwood Bypass, triggering failure on that roadway that then causes queue-back into the EastLink tunnel. This in turn chokes off the inflow into Ringwood Bypass, possibly allowing some operational recovery there. Consequently, a descriptive analysis such as this one can only describe the general issues that may be involved and only a detailed (micro-simulation) modelling study with extensive sensitivity testing of assumptions can provide a sound basis for scheme selection and design refinement.

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Westbound issues after NEL include:

 The lane drop on the approach to the EastLink tunnels may cause flow breakdown before the tunnels, potentially protecting the Ringwood Bypass westbound from excessive inflows;

 Extra trucks in EastLink tunnel reduces its capacity – may cause flow breakdown in the tunnels due to reduced truck speeds on the climb out of the tunnel. Flow breakdown in the tunnels may also potentially protect the Ringwood Bypass westbound from excessive inflows but it comes with significant safety risks and significant environmental (air quality, fuel consumption, etc,) impacts due to slow vehicles moving on steep grades.

 If the EastLink tunnel manages to avoid flow breakdown, it is likely to operate at capacity, maximising the potential inflows into Ringwood Bypass. This in turn maximises the chances of queue-back into the tunnel from Ringwood Bypass – an issue that is already known to occur without additional RMAC growth, regional traffic growth or extra traffic from the NEL. This queue-back poses significant safety risks. The potential eastbound improvements to Ringwood Bypass are relatively limited in the capacity improvements available compared to the potential demand increases on the route from all sources – and the potential for westbound improvements to ‘steal’ some capacity from eastbound movements.

 Significant, regular and extended duration flow breakdowns along the M3 or Ringwood Bypass could result in displacement of existing freeway users to surface arterial roadways (e.g. Springvale Road and Maroondah Highway) replicating the issue that NEL is trying to resolve in the area around Bulleen Road and undoing the improvements made by EastLink in 2008 near the RMAC.

Eastbound issues after NEL include:

 Extra demand into the EastLink tunnels from the RMAC area and EastLink further south due to the NEL apparently has to be accommodated by the existing layout. We expect that the existing layout will be insufficient to the task as EastLink is already known to have some difficulty accommodating the combined westbound inflows from Maroondah Highway and Ringwood Bypass. If both EastLink and RMAC westbound demands rise due to NEL, then we consider it almost certain that the EastLink tunnel entrance would become a regular bottleneck location where significant congestion persists for many hours of the day.

 The solutions outlined above to the significant existing and future RMAC westbound capacity issues (particularly on Ringwood Bypass) are expected to make any capacity shortfall entering the EastLink tunnels more acute by allowing more demand to arrive at the bottleneck more quickly. The exception to this are works on potential alternative routes – e.g. Northern Arterial and ‘Healesville Road’ which notionally remove some demand from the bottleneck area entirely. However, while these works are likely to be

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helpful we do not expect them to offer a complete resolution of the issue and may only act to ‘buy time’ before the congestion reaches its peak.

 Bottleneck control strategies (such as ramp metering or mainline lane closures) typically involve intentionally sacrificing throughput on some or all of the approaches to the bottleneck to maximise total throughput and then to try and encourage diversions or safely accommodate the queuing that results. Diversion of traffic from the EastLink tollway is considered highly undesirable and the relatively lack of alternative routes makes diversion from either route problematic. Similarly, safely accommodating the queuing with acceptable impact on any of the approaches is likely to be unworkable due to the high levels of demand involved on each approach and the resulting extent and rate of growth of the queues if demands are not met.

 The extra trucks expected to be generated by the NEL in the westbound EastLink tunnel are likely to drop throughput capacity compared to current levels, increasing the chances of secondary flow breakdowns, even if aggressive bottleneck management strategies are adopted.

Based on the above assessment, we consider it highly likely that the adoption of Option A for the NEL will require significant works to provide additional capacity between Springvale Road and the RMAC.

Option A Modifications There are a wide range of possible methods of providing extra capacity in the RMAC area but we consider that any should include the following features:

 Increase the physical separation between potential congestion on RMAC area roadways and potential congestion points in the EastLink tunnels; and

 Allow for at least 4 continuous freeway lanes in each direction from Springvale Road to Maroondah Highway (and possibly further south depending on the detailed modelling results).

We consider it highly unlikely that the existing EastLink tunnels could be modified, particularly while in active use to accommodate a 4th lane. Consequently, auxiliary tunnels are likely to be required.

We also consider it inadvisable to provide a single dual lane tunnel with one lane in each direction due to the safety risks involved and the potential for slow vehicles in a single lane to substantially reduce capacity.

Therefore, the most feasible configuration would, in our view, involve a new dual lane tunnel in each direction.

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A possible configuration for this arrangement is illustrated in Figure 21. It essentially involves having the connections to and from the Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway moved from the eastern to the western end of the EastLink tunnels. This provides:

 significant physical separation of EastLink and RMAC bottleneck risk areas – avoiding queue-backs into the eastbound EastLink tunnel and preventing queue-back from the westbound EastLink tunnel bottleneck onto Ringwood Bypass;

 releases EastLink tunnel capacity in both directions for new NEL-related trips;

 allows EastLink to become an express freeway from Spingvale Road to the south side of Maroondah Highway; and

 avoids the need for aggressive bottleneck management in the RMAC area where resulting queueing would be high undesirable.

FIGURE 21: OPTION A – CONCEPT FOR AUXILIARY TUNNELS FOR CAPACITY AND SEPARATION FROM RMAC

Note that, depending on the modelling results, the new auxiliary tunnels could also have a single lane connection to and from EastLink further south if this is the best solution to making appropriate use of the new tunnel. This further adds to the ability of NEL to achieve its desired outcome of being a viable alternative to the M1.

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The particular concept shown in Figure 21 is designed to require the minimum changes to the RMAC mega-interchange. Essentially is takes over the on-ramps upstream of the westbound EastLink tunnel and the off-ramps downstream of the eastbound EastLink tunnel. The concept could be modified to allow braiding of the southbound off-ramp to Maroondah Highway.

Option B and C Modifications Applying a similar modification rationale applied to Option A could see Options B and C realigned (and possibly shortened) to overcome the issues these options have with lack of connection to the RMAC area using a concept such as that shown in Figure 22.

FIGURE 22: OPTIONS B AND C – CONCEPT FOR REALIGNMENT AND CONNECTION TO RMAC ROADWAYS

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The recommended changes to Options B and C shown in Figure 22 provide:

 connections to Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway, likely increasing demand on the southern end of these options and making them more competitive with Option A;

 avoids the need for major mitigations on Northern Arterial, Springvale Road and EastLink south of Maroondah Highway;

 provides the same – and sufficient – NEL-related capacity through the RMAC area as Option A;

 avoids a similar length of tunnelling that was part of the original Option B and Option C concept so is likely to be relatively cost-neutral (compared to Option A where the auxiliary tunnel cost is entirely additional to the expectations associated with the original concept).

Due to the limited time and information available, detailed considerations have focussed on the traffic issues associated with the NEL options. Further investigation is definitely warranted for the potential risks and opportunities for public transport associated with the NEL proposal. The limited issues noted in our assessment to date are outlined below.

Railways Option A competes with Hurstbridge Railway Line as outlined above. To offset the likely loss of rail patronage if Option A is constructed, it is recommended that the substantial improvements to this line be made including duplicating all single track sections to allow significant frequency increases and possibly adding sections of triplication to allow for the more common provision of ‘limited express’ trains along the route.

Note that the possible inclusion of express bus operations along Eastern Freeway to the east of Doncaster Road may pose a patronage risk to the Belgrave and Lilydale Railway Lines.

Buses There are a range of possible impacts and options for bus-based public transport associated with the possible provision of the NEL including:

 Adding a dedicated bus route along the NEL corridor (all or parts);

 Diverting some existing routes to use parts of NEL;

 Improved bus progression on nearby bus routes simply because some existing traffic diverted to new NEL route; and

 Provision of dedicated arterial bus infrastructure on arterials if traffic diversion to NEL is significant enough and likely bus frequencies are potentially sufficient to justify it.

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It would seem that improved bus progression along arterial routes where traffic has been reduced due to diversions to the NEL is the most likely form of bus benefit from the NEL, in part because it does not require active government intervention to be realised. Using this newly released arterial capacity to adding selected bus jumps and more easily accessed ‘in-line’ bus stopping to assist localised bus operations are also considered to be easily achievable gains from the NEL.

Based on the assessment above, we foresee significant operational and safety issues due to the NEL in the RMAC area and in the EastLink tunnels. These issues are exacerbated by the anticipated growth of the RMAC and one of the key intended functions of the NEL (i.e. to carry significant truck from M3 to M80 as an alternative to M1).

It is recommended that major modifications be made to the NEL Options A, B and C in the vicinity of the RMAC to address these issues.

It is recommended that further consideration be given to risks and opportunities for public transport due to the NEL.

Lastly, it is hoped that more detailed information on design layouts and modelling outputs will be made available as the NEL development process proceeds. This is essential before support for the project could be offered.

Please let me know if you require any further information.

Yours sincerely

O’BRIEN TRAFFIC

Mark O’Brien Senior Associate

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TRIM 18/36975

26 February 2018

Mr Duncan Elliott CEO North East Link Authority [email protected]

Dear Mr Elliott,

Maroondah City Council’s Submission - North East Link

Prior to an alignment being selected for North East Link, Maroondah Council formally considered the project and provided a submission (dated 19th September 2017), that included a copy of a Council Report, and a supporting technical paper prepared by O’Brien Traffic.

As detailed in Council’s previous letter, at its meeting on 18 September, it was resolved that:

1. Council supports the North East link project subject to appropriate traffic considerations being applied for those areas affected by the proposed route and any ancillary works

2. Council calls for the government to ensure that the alignment selected best meets the high level objectives of the project, and the transport integration act 2010

3. Appropriate ancillary projects, such as upgraded / duplicate tunnel access to the Ringwood bypass, the northern arterial, EastLink right turn exit onto Maroondah highway, rapid bus transit between activity centres, rail upgrades and active transport be included as needed subject to appropriate community consultation; and

4. Council provides the North East link authority with a copy of this council report, which contains its recommendations and the O’Brien traffic advice dated 8 September 2017

Council is yet to receive a response from North East Link Authority (NELA) in relation to its submission. Given Council’s support was subject to appropriate traffic considerations and ancillary works being included as required, it is requested that NELA provide Council with a response that addresses the concerns raised in the reports attached with Council’s submission. Council officers would also welcome the opportunity to meet with NELA to discuss Council’s specific concerns and how they relate to Ringwood.

If you require any further information in Council’s previous submission, please contact Council’s Director Strategy & Community, Phil Turner, on phone number 9298 4255.

Yours sincerely

Cr NORA LAMONT MAYOR copies: Councillors, CMT

Meeting NELA & Maroondah City Council Coordination Date & Time 30/04/18 Venue 121 Exhibition Street, Melbourne Attendees Phil Turner Andrew Taylor Steven O’Brien Tony Frodsham Bill Sibahi Howard Newman

Chair Bill Sibahi

1. PURPOSE

To discuss the interface between the North East Link Authority and Maroondah City Council

2. PRODUCT Awareness on Key Activities Issues/Actions Register and Minutes

3. PROCESS - Discussion on issues and concerns - Update on Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) development - Discussion of key dates - Actions from previous minutes

4. PREPARATION Understanding of key tasks and actions Review of previous meeting minutes

TRIM REF: DOC/ 5. MINUTES AND ACTIONS

5.1 Transport Modelling

• NELA presented the current transport modelling plots to MCC for discussion

5.2 Ringwood Bypass / Maroondah Hwy

• Maroondah City Council concern relates more to Ringwood and ability for Ringwood Bypass to cope with the traffic load once NEL is completed. • NELA is to provide a status update when information is available regarding: - Managed motorway and lane configuration - Next steps forward in transport modelling

5.3 Ringwood Activity Centre

• MCC to provide traffic / transport information around Ringwood Activity Centre • MCC noted that currently there is minimal truck movement through Ringwood • MCC has had a catch up with Connect East on Ringwood Master Plan

5.4 Other

• MCC will be continuing to progress with politicians on future northern arterial connection • MCC to report back to Councillors on this meeting

Meeting NELA & City of Coordination

Date & Time 6/04/2018

Venue 121 Exhibition Street, Melbourne

Attendees Bill Sibahi Katie Watt Phil Turner Sebastian Motta Steven O’Brien Stuart Beatton Andrew Taylor Howard Newman

Chair Bill Sibahi

1. PURPOSE

To discuss the interface between the North East Link Authority and Maroondah City Council

2. PRODUCT Awareness on Key Activities Issues/Actions Register and Minutes

3. PROCESS

- NELA update on Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) development - Discussion on issues and concerns - Discussion of key dates - Actions from previous minutes

4. PREPARATION Understanding of key tasks and actions Review of previous meeting minutes

TRIM REF: DOC/17/729444 5. MINUTES AND ACTIONS

• BS provided a presentation (PowerPoint) - Scope Overview

• Confidentiality Agreements to be emailed to MCC - ACTION

• PT indicated the Council acknowledges the NEL Project and supports it.

• AT indicated that traffic is a key subject that it would like to discuss further to understand potential impact within the municipality. NELA to provide traffic modelling, type of traffic, assumptions made etc. to Council at next meeting – ACTION

• SO noted that the area of concern is also east of the Tunnels (citybound) due to flow breakdown. BS noted that it is aware of current issues and will be looked into to further understand the constraints and potential solution/s.

• PT noted that Ringwood Bypass in the future is also of interest to Council.

• SM noted that VicRoads is embedded within NELA including specialist that are familiar with the road network.

• MCC to resubmit submission on traffic and transport assessment - ACTION

• MCC to review and provide feedback on the MoU - ACTION

TRANSPORT & MOVEMENT PRIORITIES RINGWOOD METROPOLITAN ACTIVITY CENTRE

advocacy with stakeholders.

Given the extent of consultation needed and funding and authorisation by outside parties, it is critical for the detailed planning, consultation and design tasks for the proposed bus improvements to be undertaken as early as possible to ensure that opportunities to implement improvements can be taken when they arise.

4.6 KEY AIM 6: MANAGING RMAC TRANSPORT AND MOVEMENT IMPACTS FROM EXTERNAL TRANSPORT CHANGES

4.6.1 External Transport Network Changes Considered The various previous studies and 2017 Masterplan Update documents have considered a range of external transport network changes on the RMAC as discussed in Sections 3.2 and 3.3.

4.6.2 External Transport Network Changes Likely to be Beneficial to the RMAC The external transport network changes that were expected to have either positive or neutral impacts on the RMAC included:

 Northern Arterial – linking Reynolds Road in Doncaster East to Maroondah Highway in North Croydon (see Figure 72) – this route would likely reduce regional traffic pressure on RMAC roadways to some degree by intercepting long distance east-west traffic from the northern part of the Maroondah Highway corridor. Its benefits are blunted somewhat by the one-sided catchment due to the Green Wedge lands adjacent to the route, the low density development at both ends of the route and the relatively limited local north-south connectivity to the Northern Arterial route.

 Increased train frequencies – would likely enhance the ability to shift travel mode for trips to and from the RMAC and would impact on the RMAC road network only at the Bedford Road level crossing (which ideally would be eventually grade-separated).

 Increased bus frequencies – would likely enhance the ability to shift travel mode for trips to and from the RMAC although the extra buses would have with some negative impact on RMAC road network performance. Road network impacts would be highest in the vicinity of the Ringwood Station bus-rail interchange unless the recommended access changes are made to the interchange. However, this should be a net gain for the aims of the RMAC.

 Possible provision of new ‘fast’ regional bus routes – would likely enhance the ability to shift travel mode for trips to and from the RMAC. The longer distance routes operating at high speeds (with fewer stops) may be able to attract some long distance trips to the RMAC that would otherwise be made by car. The relatively few vehicles likely to be involved in this service should minimise impacts on the road network but generally the same issues around Ringwood Station are likely to apply as with extra local buses.

 Provision of enhanced bicycle facilities in the region around the RMAC – would likely enhance the attractiveness of bicycle access to the RMAC and so likely affording some reduction in traffic demand growth.

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The projects above should act generally to reduce the traffic demands in the RMAC to varying degrees whenever they are implemented. The only potential issues arise for the increases in bus numbers under several options if improvements to the Ringwood Station bus-rail interchange are not made and for the additional trains if a grade separation of the Bedford Road level crossing does not occur. However, these issues should be largely offset by the extra public transport usage resulting from the changes.

The largest traffic reduction in the RMAC area likely from any of these projects is the Northern Arterial shown in Figure 72. The most recent reports issued for the NEL project (December 2017) indicate the potential for the Northern Arterial route to relieve roadways in the RMAC as shown in Figure 73.

FIGURE 72: PROPOSED NORTHERN ARTERIAL ROUTE – SOURCE: NEL ASSESSMENT AUGUST 2017 – OPTION B MAP

Note that Figure 73 represents the ‘best case’ for relief of RMAC roadways because the NEL Option C layout in the diagram connects directly to the Northern Arterial with both Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway seeing daily traffic decreases (shown in blue). A direct connection to the NEL (under Option C) makes the Northern Arterial a far more effective regional relief route than it would be for the preferred NEL Option A route, which follows the Eastern Freeway alignment and does not connect directly to the Northern Arterial.

Note also that the limited traffic impact information contained in the August 2017 or December 2017 NEL reports relates to the daily demands. There is no information provided about the critical peak period demands. Consequently, the only firm conclusion that can be drawn about the Northern Arterial from the reports is that it would have a tendency to materially benefit the RMAC area road network if it were constructed.

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FIGURE 73: POTENTIAL RELIEF FROM NORTHERN ARTERIAL BASED ON DIRECT CONNECTION TO NEL OPTION C

4.6.3 External Transport Network Changes that are Potentially Beneficial to the RMAC The implementation of a ‘Healesville Road’ using the Healesville Freeway corridor would act like a distant ‘Southern Bypass’ of the RMAC. The alignment is shown in Figure 74 along with the main movements that it could potentially impact the road network in the vicinity of the RMAC.

FIGURE 74: HEALESVILLE FREEWAY RESERVATION – SOURCE: NEL ASSESSMENT AUGUST 2017 – OPTION C MAP

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Movements between the south and northeast in both directions (shown in blue) are:

 The most likely to be divertable because the Healesville Road would not include significant out-of-direction travel for most attracted users, likely making the travel times competitive with the route through the RMAC; and

 The beneficial to the RMAC because these diverted trips are removed entirely from the RMAC area.

Movements from the EastLink tunnels (shown in red) are:

 Likely to be fewer because the catchment that would not require significant out-of- direction travel is smaller; and

 Are not removed from the RMAC road network but are transferred from the Ringwood Bypass-Maroondah Highway corridor to the EastLink corridor and so have less impact on the gateways – unless southbound congestion on EastLink south of the RMAC becomes an issue.

Movements to the EastLink tunnels (shown in red) are:

 Likely to be fewer because the catchment that would not require significant out-of- direction travel is smaller; and

 Are not removed from the RMAC road network but are transferred from the Ringwood Bypass-Maroondah Highway corridor to the EastLink corridor;

 May have adverse impacts on the RMAC road network by adding to the peak demand at the critical merge between Ringwood Bypass and EastLink at the entry to the tunnels. This is expected to become an issue because capacity released from Ringwood Bypass is expected to be ‘back-filled’ by demand from other sources (including the new RMAC uses). This issue becomes potentially even more significant if the NEL Option A is also constructed and demands for the EastLink tunnels grow, as expected, by 30%.

Based on the above issues, it is considered that a ‘Healesville Road’ project should be supported by the RMAC Masterplan as it is likely to help relieve the RMAC area road network. There is a risk of adverse impacts due to extra demands from the roadway adding to the peak northbound demand on EastLink approaching the RMAC and the tunnels. However, the relatively small catchment for these problematic movements (where drivers would not experience uncompetitive travel times and significant out-of- direction travel) means that a substantial net benefit to the RMAC network should result from the facility.

4.6.4 NEL Impacts on the RMAC & Possible Mitigations

NEL Route

The external transport network change considered most likely to have potential negative impacts on the RMAC is the NEL. The preferred ‘Option A’ route for the NEL is shown in Figure 10 in Section 3.3. Importantly, the preferred route ends at Springvale Road – one interchange to the west of Ringwood Bypass on the other end of the pair of three-lane EastLink tunnels.

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The latest (December 2017) documentation indicates that the NEL project intends to upgrade the Eastern Freeway from Springvale Road to Bulleen Road including:

 Adding up to 7 new lanes in some sections – presumably one in each direction for the proposed busway from Doncaster Road westwards;

 Separating inside ‘express lanes’ from outside merging and diverging lanes to minimise flow disturbance and maximise throughput capacity; and

 Add ramp metering and dynamic lane use management signage to the Eastern Freeway west of Springvale Road. Unfortunately, none of the recent publications specifies how many lanes are to be added to the Eastern Freeway near the Springvale Road terminus of the project. Earlier background reports indicated that one extra lane would be added in each direction, which would become part of the west-facing on-ramp and off-ramp at Springvale Road. In that fashion, the Eastern Freeway configuration east of Springvale Road would be unchanged. Given the physical issues with ending more than one lane at a single arterial interchange, it is considered likely that this ‘eastbound lane drop and westbound lane add’ would be the detail of the layout at the Springvale Road interchange.

NEL Issues Near the RMAC

The NEL Report from December 2017 includes some important new comments and traffic output data about the NEL and its likely impacts in the vicinity of the RMAC.

It acknowledges an issue Council had raised in September of 2017, which is that ‘flow breakdown’ – where vehicle speeds drop significantly (usually to 40 kph or less) and throughput capacity drops by around 10% – can occur in the EastLink tunnels in either direction.

Council’s contention is that flow breakdown in the tunnels is due in large part to the steep grades in the tunnels although some queue-back from downstream congestion can also occur. The steep grades up from the low point in the middle of each tunnel particularly impact on the ability to trucks to climb at the designated speed limit of 80 kph. This effect is similar to the Burnley Tunnel on CityLink where slow truck climbing speeds significantly reduce the throughput the tunnel would have on a gentler grade.

The December 2017 NEL Report states that:

Traffic flow in the vicinity of the EastLink tunnels also often breaks down in the peak periods, affecting the freeway’s performance and creating queues. However, the flow breakdown that occurs in the tunnels is not due to a lack of capacity in the tunnel, but rather upstream and downstream bottlenecks at Springvale Road and Ringwood Bypass. (underline emphasis added)

Firstly, it is not clear why the NEL Report is unable to acknowledge the grade problem, but its omission significantly impairs the conclusions with respect to the RMAC area.

Secondly, the report acknowledges that congestion on Ringwood Bypass – under existing demand levels – causes congestion that impacts on the tunnel capacity. Note that it is unclear as to whether the congestion in question is at the eastbound merge

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prior to the tunnel or queue-back along the westbound exit to Ringwood Bypass. Similarly, it is not clear whether the ‘upstream and downstream bottlenecks’ refer to on-ramps in both directions at Springvale Road – or just at Ringwood Bypass.

In any event, the NEL Report goes on to add that:

Implementation of Managed Motorway systems and the upgrade of the Springvale Road inbound on-ramp will improve traffic flow in the EastLink tunnels. Tunnel traffic will no longer need to slow down significantly to allow vehicles from Springvale Road to enter the Eastern Freeway, reducing the likelihood of a ‘shockwave’ of congestion travelling back into the EastLink tunnels and providing a significant capacity uplift for future traffic. (underline emphasis added)

By implication, it appears that nothing will be altered at the eastbound on-ramp from Springvale Road prior to the EastLink tunnels – and nothing will be done by the project to address the flow breakdown causes at Ringwood Bypass. It is worth noting again that these flow breakdown issues are occurring before the NEL is built and extra traffic is attracted to the area. It is also worth noting that it is not clear if the levels of growth proposed for the RMAC are accurately reflected in the NEL modelling.

The traffic data outputs presented in the December 2017 NEL Report also provide more information than previous documents – and highlight the likelihood of problems for the RMAC from the NEL.

Figure 75 shows the distribution of southbound traffic from the NEL onto the rest of the network. The southbound proportions should generally be mirrored in the two-way percentages as all existing and proposed interchanges in the study area allow for the same access in both directions (i.e. every off-ramp has a paired on-ramp in the opposite direction).

The proportions in the distribution in Figure 75 relate to both ‘new’ traffic attracted to the route from the arterial system or the M1 and existing Eastern Freeway traffic that would shift to the new NEL tunnels near Bulleen Road from the adjacent arterial roads. Therefore, the EastLink tunnels would not necessarily see a 30% increase in demand – with 25% increases on EastLink south of the RMAC and 5% increases in traffic using the Ringwood Bypass (and Maroondah Highway) corridor.

The daily traffic changes shown in Figure 75 indicate that the level of ‘new’ traffic using the Eastern Freeway west of Springvale Road increases the 2036 baseline demands by 25% - compared to the 45% distribution share of NEL tunnel traffic at the same point. Unfortunately, the changes shown relate to an unknown 2036 baseline (i.e. how much growth occurs between 2017 and 2036 without the NEL project – with NEL growth then added on top of that). Essentially, the provision of partial information makes it impossible to determine exactly how much of an increase in traffic is projected compared to current conditions. More concerning is that the daily traffic changes diagram is ended at Springvale Road – rather than extending east of the RMAC as per the NEL tunnel traffic distribution diagram. This makes RMAC area impacts even more difficult to identify.

Based on an interpretation of the available information in Figure 75, it is assumed that the daily increase – compared to an unknown but presumably higher 2036 baseline – is

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around 15% (after the traffic exiting to Springvale Road is taken conservatively into account). Even if the 2036 baseline were assumed to have 0% growth compared to 2017, a 15% increase over 2017 demands in traffic through the Ringwood Bypass/EastLink interchange is liable to cause substantial difficulties for the RMAC.

FIGURE 75: NEL OPTION A – CHANGES IN DAILY TRAFFIC VOLUME AND DISTRIBUTION OF NEW NEL TRAFFIC

Lastly, it is unclear whether the forecast demands for the critical weekday peak periods (which would be known to the modellers working on the NEL project) would show more or less intense peaking of demands. These peak periods are likely to be largely determinative of the scale of mitigations required in the RMAC area to allow it to keep functioning acceptably if the NEL is built.

Based on the above, more accurate information about modelling assumptions and outputs – that is directly relatable to current conditions – is urgently needed to allow Council and VicRoads to identify management options for the RMAC road network.

A much wider-scale plot of the changes in 2036 daily traffic flows with and without the NEL were included in the December 2017 NEL Report. Figure 76 shows the preferred Option A impacts – and is the counterpart for Figure 73 (which showed Option C and included the Northern Arterial).

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Unfortunately, while Figure 76 shows the area of concern around the RMAC it:

 Only shows demand changes as coloured bands for increases (red) and decreases (in blue) with thickness reflect relative amounts rather than % or absolute numbers;

 Is left blank in the EastLink deed area – including the EastLink tunnels and the western end of the Ringwood Bypass and Eastlink adjacent to the RMAC; and

 Appears that the network coding in the vicinity of the RMAC contains significant errors and may include sufficient congestion to become unstable in its demand assignment.

FIGURE 76: POTENTIAL RMAC AREA IMPACTS FROM PREFERRED NEL OPTION A

The most prominent error in the model appears to show substantial demand increases along Plaza Centre Way – a roadway that ceased to exist in 2014 when the most recent Eastland expansion commenced construction.

Other apparent issues in the vicinity of the RMAC include:

 Ringwood Bypass traffic increases east of Warrandyte Road only but all other legs of that intersection either remain unchanged or are reduced.

 Ringwood Bypass traffic sees no change west of Warrandyte Road (i.e. in the public section east of the EastLink deed area).

 A significant increase on the Plaza Centre Way-Ringwood Street route and a corresponding decrease in traffic on Warrandyte Road south of Ringwood Bypass – this appears to be path used by the model to avoid increases in the section of Ringwood

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Bypass between Warrandyte Road and Ringwood Street. Removing Plaza Centre Way from the model would likely restore this traffic to Warrandyte Road and increase the traffic on Ringwood Bypass west of Warrandyte Road.

 Extra traffic on Maroondah Highway through the RMAC – despite the proposed capacity reduction associated with the boulevard treatment that has been in place since 2015.

 All traffic increases east of the RMAC are concentrated on Mt Dandenong Road with no increases on Maroondah Highway.

These outputs suggest a significant lack of refinement to the strategic model used in the vicinity of the RMAC and that the local area traffic assignment appears to be both incorrect and unstable.

Strategic model assignment instability tends to occur in congested conditions where roadways are closely spaced and demand seeks alternative paths through the network. These models do not directly account for intersections but instead rely on speed/flow curves applied to the roadway links between intersections. This often means that the diversions around congestion are unrealistic.

Given that Plaza Centre Way is still included in a 2036 model when it was removed from the network in 2014 it is considered unlikely that the network capacity subtleties and anticipated land use growth forecasts for the RMAC are accurately reflected in the NEL modelling.

In addition, the December 2017 NEL Report contains almost no detail as to how the modelling was undertaken. Presumably, the 2036 scenario shown in Figure 76 contains the usual list of ‘assumed future projects’ around Melbourne’s road network but the content of this list – particularly near the RMAC – may not be suitable for the purpose of the NEL assessment.

As with previous reports on the NEL, the December 2017 NEL Report does not address in a quantifiable manner the following key issues for the performance of the RMAC road network:

 The increase – compared to existing and 2036 – in traffic demand that continues through the EastLink tunnels into the various roadways around the RMAC;

 The proportion of trucks – particularly large ones – in the traffic using the RMAC roadways; and

 The increases in traffic that may be experienced during peak times compared to the remainder of the day.

Potential Issues with the NEL and Possible Mitigations for the RMAC

Based on the shortcomings of the NEL modelling apparent in the RMAC area, a first principles assessment of the potential issues is needed to understand what mitigations may be needed. When contemplating the potential operation of the roadways in the RMAC area after NEL, the relevant considerations are for both:

 Impact of NEL on RMAC issues; and

 Impact of RMAC issues on NEL effectiveness.

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An important feature of many of the issues for the higher order roads in the RMAC area is how dynamic and inter-related they are. For example, flow breakdown in the EastLink tunnel eastbound may protect the eastbound operations on Ringwood Bypass by preventing too much traffic entering it. The queuing still occurs but in a different place. If the EastLink tunnels manage to operate just short of flow breakdown that can provide maximum input onto Ringwood Bypass, triggering failure on that roadway that then causes queue-back into the EastLink tunnel. This in turn chokes off the inflow into Ringwood Bypass, possibly allowing some operational recovery there.

Consequently, a descriptive analysis such as this one can only describe the general issues that may be involved and only a detailed (micro-simulation) modelling study with extensive sensitivity testing of assumptions can provide a sound basis for scheme selection and design refinement. Ideally, this would have been undertaken as part of the NEL project development. However, the information available to date indicates that this has not occurred.

Figure 77 indicates the potential congestion risks in the vicinity of the RMAC that are created, exacerbated and occasionally assisted by the addition of the NEL.

FIGURE 77: RMAC AREA CONGESTION RISKS AFTER THE NEL

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The issues identified in Figure 77 and possible mitigations for them include: 1. The westbound on-ramp merge at Springvale Road interchange on the Eastern Freeway – which accordingly to the NEL Report can cause queue-back into the EastLink tunnels. - The proposed improvements associated (if they involve converting the on-ramp to an added lane and applying ramp metering to it) should resolve this potential issue. 2. Flow breakdown in the westbound EastLink tunnel – which is caused by the steep grades, particularly their impacts on large truck speeds. This issue is likely to be significantly worsened by the NEL due to the likely increase in trucks (as the NEL is partly justifiable as a new freight route) and the increases in other traffic that can be caught up in the congestion. It would also be worsened by queue-back from downstream congestion from flow breakdowns from the Springvale Road interchange ramps. - No mitigations are likely to resolve this issue other than parallel auxiliary EastLink tunnels, particularly if they have gentler grades. However, the proposed Springvale Road westbound on-ramp improvements should prevent the exacerbation of the issue by queue-back from downstream. 3. Flow breakdown at the merge of EastLink and Ringwood Bypass just prior to the westbound EastLink tunnel. Increases in traffic from EastLink south and/or from Ringwood Bypass would be likely to significantly increase the frequency and severity of flow breakdown at this location. This site already requires the closure of the left-most lane of EastLink at peak times to allow the demand from Ringwood Bypass to enter EastLink. - Applying ramp metering to the on-ramp from Ringwood Bypass could be physically accommodated but its operation could only involve ‘smoothing’ the merge rather than more aggressive metering to restrict inflows from Ringwood Bypass. Inflow restriction – even at 2017 demand levels – would rapidly produce queues that significantly reduce the capacity of Ringwood Bypass for other movements. Again, auxiliary tunnels should offer much more significant and reliable mitigation to this risk by essentially relocating the merge off the EastLink mainline and onto a new ‘collector-distributor’ tunnel in a similar fashion to the improvement scheme proposed for the Eastern Freeway as part of the NEL project. 4. Flow breakdown at the merge of EastLink and the northbound on-ramp from Maroondah Highway just prior to the on-ramp from Ringwood Bypass and the westbound EastLink tunnel – increases in traffic from EastLink south due to NEL and/or from Maroondah Highway due to NEL (but more likely due to RMAC growth) may trigger flow breakdown at this location. The likely more restricted growth in demand from Maroondah Highway and the overall lower flows involved makes this issue secondary to the merge of the on-ramp from Ringwood Bypass immediately downstream. - Applying ramp metering to the on-ramp from Maroondah Highway would be difficult physically due to the short length of the ramp prior to joining the EastLink mainline and would likely require substantial effort to realign the EastLink mainline to accommodate the necessary ramp lane flaring and metering hardware. Due to the ramp short length, any meter that is installed would – as for the downstream on- ramp from Ringwood Bypass – be limited ‘smoothing’ the merge rather than restricting inflows from Maroondah Highway. As for the on-ramp from Ringwood Bypass, auxiliary EastLink tunnels should offer much more significant and reliable mitigation to the risk of flow breakdown at this location.

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5. Maroondah Highway through the RMAC is unlikely to have spare capacity to accommodate additional regional traffic access to the NEL via EastLink – this area may see increases in traffic attempting to reach EastLink but this is most likely to be new NEL traffic generated by the RMAC rather than being extra through traffic demand. - The mitigations proposed to relieve the pressure for extra through traffic on Maroondah Highway through the RMAC are outlined in Section 4.3.3. The primary relocation route would be to Ringwood Bypass (which has significant issues of its own) and to more distant alternatives such as the proposed Northern Arterial and suggested Healesville Road routes. 6. Severe congestion at the 4th lane drop on the westbound carriageway of Ringwood Bypass due to existing demands, background traffic growth and RMAC redevelopment. Additional traffic seeking access to the NEL via the most attractive corridor in the region (Ringwood Bypass-Maroondah Highway) would further increase this problem. - The mitigation identified is to provide a continuous 4th lane on Ringwood Bypass westbound from the ramp splits at the EastLink interchange back to the signals at Mt Dandenong Road, constructing in stages from west to east. This will maximise throughput potential and should be sufficient to the task of feeding traffic from all sources toward the EastLink westbound tunnel. Note, however, that fixing this capacity constraint will act to feed traffic more rapidly into the congestion areas 1, 2, and 3 in Figure 77 thereby increasing the challenge in dealing with those areas. Distant mitigations such as the proposed Northern Arterial should assist these congestion issues to some degree by removing some regional long-distance through traffic from Ringwood Bypass. A Healesville Road mitigation may simply shift demand from Ringwood Bypass to EastLink on the approach to congestion areas 1, 2 and 3. 7. Severe westbound congestion on Ringwood Bypass and its gateway intersections to the RMAC (particularly in the weekday AM peak) is expected due to existing demands, background traffic growth and RMAC redevelopment. Additional traffic seeking access to the NEL via the most attractive corridor in the region (Ringwood Bypass-Maroondah Highway) would further increase this problem. - As for congestion area 6, the mitigation identified is to provide a continuous 4th lane on Ringwood Bypass westbound from the ramp splits at the EastLink interchange back to the signals at Mt Dandenong Road, constructing in stages from west to east. Also as for area 6, this mitigation will likely act to feed traffic more rapidly into the congestion areas 1, 2, and 3 in Figure 77 thereby increasing the challenge in dealing with those areas. Distant mitigations such as the proposed Northern Arterial should assist these congestion issues to some degree by removing some regional long- distance through traffic from Ringwood Bypass. A Healesville Road mitigation may simply shift demand from Ringwood Bypass to EastLink on the approach to congestion areas 1, 2 and 3. 8. The on-ramp merge and trap lane to the off-ramp for the eastbound carriageway of the Eastern Freeway at Springvale Road interchange could create flow breakdowns that restrict flow into the EastLink eastbound tunnel and protect the RMAC area. Alternatively, this area can be impacted by queue-back from flow breakdowns further downstream (from issues 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13). - It is not clear whether the possible flow breakdown at the Springvale Road interchange on or off-ramp would be addressed by the proposed NEL project improvements. Queue-backs from congestion in issue area 9 is unresolvable except

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by use of an auxiliary EastLink tunnel. Queue-backs from congestion in issue areas 10, 11, 12 and 13 could be resolved by suitable mitigations at those sites. 9. Flow breakdown in the eastbound EastLink tunnel – which is caused by the steep grades, particularly their impacts on large truck speeds. This issue is likely to be significantly worsened by the NEL due to the likely increase in trucks (as the NEL is partly justifiable as a new freight route) and the increases in other traffic that can be caught up in the congestion. - No mitigations are likely to resolve this issue other than parallel auxiliary EastLink tunnels, particularly if they have gentler grades. 10. Existing congestion and safety issues in the weaving area between the western end of Ringwood Bypass and Ringwood Street arise due to significant lane changing as drivers arriving from the various entry ramps seek to move to the lanes they need to use to reach their downstream destinations. This issue is significantly exacerbated by queues from the traffic signals at Ringwood Street, which tend to be concentrated in the two left-most lanes due to the downstream access these lanes offer to Maroondah Highway. These queues force any weaving movements to occur in a significantly shorter distance, encouraging drivers to force their way into gaps that are too small. This weaving can cause flow breakdown under 2017 conditions but extra RMAC development, local through traffic diversions from Maroondah Highway to Ringwood Bypass and demand from NEL are likely to make the weaving issue and the queue-back issue from the Ringwood Street signals much more severe. This significantly increases the likelihood that the weave will create a flow breakdown and queue-back into the EastLink eastbound tunnels, congesting the outlet from the tunnels to EastLink south of the RMAC. The safety issues are the increased risks of side-swipe and rear-end crashes typically associated with excessive lane-changing in the weave and the range of concerns that arise when traffic queues extend back into tunnels. - The suggested mitigation to re-assign lanes on Ringwood Bypass eastbound to allow the three left-most lanes to access Maroondah Highway at the end of Ringwood Bypass may address the significant queuing lane bias at Ringwood Street, increase throughput at the Ringwood Street and Warrandyte Road signals by evening the lane utilisation across the four available eastbound lanes and reduce the lane changing movements overall but particularly into the two busiest lanes. Note that the capacity of the Ringwood Bypass/Mt Dandenong Road/Maroondah Highway signals and the small but critical Oliver Street/Maroondah Highway signals (located about 150 m northeast of Mt Dandenong Road) is not necessarily increased by these changes so the ability to clear significant increases in total eastbound demand along Ringwood Bypass are somewhat limited. Depending on the findings of more detailed assessments of the impacts of the NEL, extra lanes exiting Ringwood Bypass may be needed and/or reduced access at the four-leg Oliver Street signals may need to be pursued. Minor improvements to lengthen a left-turn lane into Warrandyte Road and improve the Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road signals could encourage some extra vehicles to exit Ringwood Bypass prior to Mt Dandenong Road, could also release some extra capacity for NEL movements. Note that if these improvements fail to provide sufficient capacity, if the suggested auxiliary tunnels are in use, any queue- back from Ringwood Bypass towards the tunnels will only impact on the auxiliary tunnels, leaving the existing ‘mainline’ tunnels unaffected. Under such conditions, the speed limits in the auxiliary tunnels could be lowered temporarily to reduce the crash risks associated with queue-back into the tunnels – again – without significant impact on the EastLink mainline. Distant mitigations such as the proposed Northern Arterial and Healesville Road routes should relieve these congestion issues to some degree by removing some regional long-distance through traffic from Ringwood Bypass.

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11. As indicated for congestion issue 10, significant congestion can occur at the signals along Ringwood Bypass and at the downstream Maroondah Highway/Oliver Street signals under current conditions and project RMAC area growth and diversions and new NEL traffic are expected to significantly worsen the situation. - The mitigation options and potential effectiveness are the same as for congestion issue 10. 12. The weaving area on the off-ramps from Ringwood Bypass and EastLink where they combine prior to the interchange with Maroondah Highway is a known potential congestion and safety issue due to the high percentage of weaving movements (up to 90%) at this location. Due to limited through traffic capacity on Maroondah Highway through the RMAC, it is not expected that the NEL would add significant regional traffic to this congestion area. However, RMAC growth (including some trips that would use the NEL) and increased westbound through traffic diversions of Maroondah Highway traffic to Ringwood Bypass are likely to increase congestion on this ramp. If this congestion queues back onto EastLink, the increases in traffic associated with the NEL is likely to increase the impact of this queue-back on throughput and queuing on EastLink. Note that this issue can become more significant when flow breakdown upstream on EastLink holds up traffic from reaching the off-ramp. If the upstream congestion resolves, the off-ramp may be ‘flooded’ with this blocked demand arriving more rapidly at the ramp than would occur under normal conditions. The rate at which traffic can be cleared from the off-ramp through the traffic signals is typically relatively fixed due to the competing demands at the signals, leaving it unable to compensate for intensified arrival rates. - The potential mitigations to minimise the weaving and avoid the resulting queue-back are part of the recommended Maroondah Highway ‘boulevard transition’ area improvements. These include possibly ‘braiding’ the ramps to essentially grade separate the weaving conflicts as was proposed in the original concept for the interchange in 2006. Measures to reduce upstream congestion need to be addressed at other locations. Note that the potential auxiliary EastLink tunnels may include improvement to this weaving area by realigning the off-ramp from EastLink to Maroondah Highway. 13. The capacity of the EastLink interchange and the off-ramp for traffic from the north may be insufficient to meet demand, particularly sharp spikes in demand due to upstream flow disruptions and so produce queue-back onto EastLink, creating the same issues as for congestion issue 12. - As per congestion issue 12, the potential improvements to the EastLink interchange as part of the Maroondah Highway ‘boulevard transition’ area should be sufficient to avoid this issue. 14. As for congestion issue 5, Maroondah Highway through the RMAC is unlikely to have spare capacity to accommodate additional regional traffic access from the NEL via EastLink. This area may see increases in traffic attempting to exit EastLink but this is most likely to be new NEL traffic generated by the RMAC rather than being extra through traffic demand. - The mitigations proposed to relieve the pressure for extra through traffic on Maroondah Highway through the RMAC are outlined in Section 4.3.3. The primary relocation route would be to Ringwood Bypass (which has significant issues of its own) and to more distant alternatives such as the proposed Northern Arterial and suggested Healesville Road routes. 15. The on-ramp from Ringwood Bypass to EastLink southbound is very busy under current conditions. Additional RMAC traffic generation and growth in regional traffic is expected to increase this demand even further to around the maximum capacity of a single freeway lane. This demand is expected to conflict with

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additional EastLink southbound traffic – including significantly more trucks – due to the NEL. This has great potential to create a flow breakdown at the merge with EastLink because very little traffic could be using the left-most EastLink mainline lane without the merging traffic exceeding available capacity. This flow breakdown would result in queues back along Ringwood Bypass and back toward the EastLink tunnels with significant capacity loss and safety implications. The nearby on-ramp from Maroondah Highway southbound onto EastLink (congestion area 16) is also quite busy – and is provided with an auxiliary (4th) lane as far as the Canterbury Road off-ramp to spread out the merging movements due to the amount of traffic from Ringwood Bypass in the left-most continuing lane on EastLink. - At flow rates as high observed under 2017 conditions, ramp metering would require three lanes at the stopline, which would be very difficult to accommodate in the space available. A fourth lane on EastLink through this area would be ideal to avoid this problem arising. The suggested parallel auxiliary EastLink tunnels could assist at this location if they involve adding a fourth continuing lane along EastLink to extend south of Canterbury Road. Under this type of auxiliary tunnel treatment the current auxiliary 4th lane between the on-ramp from Maroondah Highway and the off-ramp to Canterbury Road would become an auxiliary 5th lane. An auxiliary tunnel mitigation that adds a 4th continuing EastLink lane could prevent any congestion from reaching the Eastlink ‘mainline’ tunnels as the merge could occur entirely away from the EastLink mainline. It could also allow the lane from the auxiliary tunnels onto the EastLink mainline to be metered rather than the on-ramp from Ringwood Bypass. A further alternative could involve metering the southbound on-ramp from Maroondah Highway and converting it to a merging with the auxiliary 5th lane being available for traffic from Ringwood Bypass. It is clear from the issues outlined above, that the options for mitigations in this area need to be carefully studied and tested with suitable microsimulation modelling. Note that distant mitigations such as a Healesville Road route could relieve these congestion issues to some degree by removing some regional long-distance through traffic from Ringwood Bypass. 16. The on-ramp from Maroondah Highway southbound onto EastLink is quite busy – and is provided with an auxiliary (4th) lane as far as the Canterbury Road off-ramp to spread out the merging movements due to the amount of traffic from Ringwood Bypass in the left-most continuing lane on EastLink . Extra traffic from the NEL may significantly inhibit the ability for on-ramp traffic to merge, particularly if it arrives in platoons from the Maroondah Highway interchange signals. - The range of potential mitigations relating to this site is discussed for congestion area 15. Ramp metering may offer significant benefits at this site even if none of the larger-scale mitigations are implemented as it would act to break up the platoons on the on-ramp and to smooth the weaving movements with the Canterbury Road off- ramp and merging movement with the EastLink mainline.

NEL Mitigations

The NEL issues in the vicinity of the RMAC outlined above are numerous and interactive and serve to highlight the need for the impacts of the NEL to be studied more carefully than the publicly available materials would indicate. The mitigations identified for the various issues include:

 Bring forward mitigations proposed for the RMAC region – to increase capacity on Ringwood Bypass and at the Maroondah Highway/EastLink interchange.

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 Consider additional location mitigations beyond those recommended to accommodate RMAC-related growth and traffic diversions – e.g. adding an extra lane to the approach of Ringwood Bypass to Mt Dandenong/Maroondah Highway to clear additional traffic from Ringwood Bypass, measures to reduce the impact of the signals at Oliver Street/Maroondah Highway (presumably by restricting available movements and signal phases to increase Maroondah Highway throughput).

 Applying ramp metering where feasible – ramp metering is possible in most places but the provision of the necessary on-ramp lanes at the meter and the metering hardware is not always achievable without substantial disruption and cost. Similarly, significant limitations on queue storage and/or high traffic demands on the ramp mean that metering may be limited to smoothing merging flows rather than restricting inflows to the motorway. Design and operations studies are needed to confirm or adjust the initial conclusions drawn for congestion areas 1 to 16 above.

 Building major remote mitigations – e.g. constructing the Northern Arterial and/or ‘Healesville Road’ to free up some capacity in the RMAC region and the tunnels.

 Building major nearby mitigations – e.g. adding extra lanes to EastLink extending south of Ringwood Bypass and Canterbury Road.

 Implementing very major mitigations – e.g. widening the existing EastLink tunnels (assumed to be impractical) or constructing parallel auxiliary EastLink tunnels.

Note that even if the recommended mitigations east of Springvale Road are made, the proximity to a significantly busier EastLink facility after the NEL is implemented still increases the risks to the day-to-day operation of the RMAC roadways because the busier EastLink will have greater opportunity to feed traffic onto the RMAC roadways at higher ‘flow rates’. Essentially, this means that demands can spike more sharply at the exits from the NEL/EastLink corridor, which can produce queuing that is more difficult to manage safely. However, the suggested mitigations are likely to reduce the frequency and severity of any issues, particularly the auxiliary EastLink tunnel proposal.

EastLink Tunnel Capacity Expansion

There is a wide range of possible methods of providing extra capacity in the RMAC area to accommodate NEL traffic but the most effective and reliable mitigation schemes are likely to include the following features:

 Increase the physical separation between potential congestion on RMAC area roadways and potential congestion points in the EastLink tunnels; and

 Allow for at least 4 continuous freeway lanes in each direction from Springvale Road to Maroondah Highway (and possibly further south depending on the detailed modelling results).

It is considered highly unlikely that the existing EastLink tunnels could be modified (particularly while in active use) to accommodate a 4th lane. Consequently, parallel auxiliary tunnels are likely to be required.

It is further considered inadvisable to provide a single dual lane tunnel with one lane in each direction due to the safety risks involved and the potential for slow vehicles in a single lane to substantially reduce capacity. Therefore, the most feasible configuration

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for auxiliary EastLink tunnels would, in our view, involve new dual lane tunnels in each direction running parallel to the existing tunnels.

A possible configuration for this arrangement is illustrated in Figure 78. It essentially involves having the connections to and from the Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway moved from the eastern to the western end of the EastLink tunnels. This provides:

 significant physical separation of the EastLink and RMAC bottleneck risk areas – avoiding queue-backs from Ringwood Bypass into the eastbound EastLink tunnel and preventing queue-back from the westbound EastLink tunnel bottlenecks onto Ringwood Bypass;

 releases EastLink tunnel capacity in both directions for new NEL-related trips;

 allows EastLink to become an express freeway from Springvale Road to the south side of Maroondah Highway; and

 avoids the need for aggressive bottleneck management (e.g. capacity restrictive ramp metering) in the RMAC area where the resulting queueing would be highly undesirable.

FIGURE 78: POSSIBLE AUXILIARY EASTLINK TUNNELS TO MITIGATE NEL IMPACTS ON THE RMAC

Note that, depending on the design and modelling test results, the new auxiliary tunnels could also have a single lane connection to and from EastLink further south if this is the best solution to making appropriate use of the new tunnel. This further adds to the ability of NEL to achieve its desired outcome of being a viable alternative to the M1 while minimising its impact on the RMAC.

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The particular concept shown in Figure 78 is designed to require the minimum changes to the RMAC mega-interchange. This is considered highly useful to minimise the costs associated with the major mitigation. Essentially the concept shown takes over the on- ramps upstream of the westbound EastLink tunnel and the off-ramps downstream of the eastbound EastLink tunnel as entry and exit points for the new auxiliary tunnels. The concept could be modified to allow braiding of the southbound off-ramp to Maroondah Highway to address the known weaving issue there.

As indicated by the December 2017 NEL Report, the authority responsible for implementing the NEL has not, as yet, accepted any need for mitigations east of Springvale Road.

4.6.5 Recommended Actions Regarding External Transport Projects The key recommendations with respect to external transport network changes include:

 To advocate for external transport projects that should have neutral or positive impacts on the RMAC transport network and assist in achieving the goals of the RMAC Masterplan such as: - The Northern Arterial; - Increased train frequencies; - Additional major commuter car parking facilities at stations outside the RMAC; - Increased bus frequencies; - Possible provision of new ‘fast’ regional bus routes; and - Regional bicycle network improvements

 To advocate for external projects that are likely to have a mostly positive impact on the RMAC transport network and assist in achieving the goals of the RMAC Masterplan such as: - A Ringwood ‘Southern Bypass’ using the Healesville Freeway corridor;

 To seek the release of additional information with respect to the preferred Option A proposal and its impacts in the vicinity of the RMAC including; - Clarifications as to the proposed improvements on the Eastern Freeway in the NEL project as the publicly available information suggests certain improvements without clearly indicating the proposed layout adjustments; - Clarification as to the nature, frequency, impacts and exact locations of the existing flow breakdowns that are acknowledged to impact on the EastLink tunnels; - An opportunity to review the microsimulation models to understand how the proposed mitigations will resolve or address the anticipated congestion issues; - To obtain the full range of outputs from the microsimulation and strategic modelling outputs and reports to enable evaluation of the results in the vicinity of the RMAC including existing conditions base modelling, anticipated absolute growth from current traffic demands rather than presentation of differences between future scenarios, clarification of future included projects, etc.

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 To advocate for a series of early actions with respect to the proposed NEL including to: - Have refinements made to the modelling undertaken for the NEL to reflect the anticipated future land use and road network changes in the vicinity of the RMAC – including updates to reflect changes already made in 2017 such as the closure of Plaza Centre Way and the reduction of Maroondah Highway capacity opposite Ringwood Station;

 Undertake liaison with the North East Link Authority, Connect East, VicRoads and the with respect to the impacts and possible long-term resolution of issues associated with the NEL – even if RMAC area mitigations are not included in the NEL project;

 To accelerate the development and testing of a range of mitigations to address the likely capacity, safety and operations issues potentially associated with the preferred Option A route for the NEL to allow to co-exist with the local land use growth, traffic diversions and network capacity changes that are part of the preferred future RMAC including: - Mitigations already proposed to support growth and traffic diversions for the RMAC – e.g. improvements to Ringwood Bypass (in both directions) and at the Maroondah Highway/EastLink interchange. - Possible additional location mitigations beyond those recommended for the RMAC – e.g. adding an extra lane to the approach of Ringwood Bypass to Mt Dandenong/Maroondah Highway and changes to the Oliver Street/Maroondah Highway signals to increase Maroondah Highway throughput. - Evaluation of opportunities to apply ramp metering in the vicinity of the RMAC to improve EastLink and Ringwood Bypass operations. - Major remote mitigations – e.g. constructing the Northern Arterial and/or ‘Healesville Road’ to free up some capacity in the RMAC region and the tunnels. - Major nearby mitigations – e.g. adding extra lanes to EastLink extending south of Ringwood Bypass and Canterbury Road. - Very major mitigations – e.g. parallel auxiliary EastLink tunnels connected to Ringwood Bypass and – probably – to EastLink south.

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18 June 2013 Suite 2, 22 Gillman Street Hawthorn East, Victoria 3123

T: (61 3) 9811 3111 F: (61 3) 9811 3131 Bill Hronopoulous W: obrient raf f ic.com VicRoads Metro South East Lakeside Drive Burwood East VICTORIA 3151

Dear Bill

Re: Ringwood Bypass Capacity Assessment – Full Report

This letter summarises the methodology, findings and recommendations of an investigation into the ability of Ringwood Bypass to accommodate traffic diversions associated with the removal of Maroondah Highway clearways near Ringwood Station and major growth associated with land developments in the Ringwood Activities Area.

1 STUDY BACKGROUND

A recent analysis by Aurecon and earlier work by O’Brien Traffic both concluded that the removal of peak-period clearways on Maroondah Highway between Ringwood Street and Warrandyte Road associated with the proposed upgrade of the bus-rail interchange at Ringwood Station would produce diversions of peak-direction traffic in the AM and PM peak periods from Maroondah Highway to Ringwood Bypass.

The required scale of the diversions in each peak as identified by Aurecon and OBT was approximately:

 AM Peak – westbound diversion - 350 vph – based on existing and future uses

 PM Peak – eastbound diversion – 250 vph – based on existing uses

 PM Peak – eastbound diversion – 450 vph – based on future land uses

However, in the years since 2008 (when EastLink opened) the use of the Ringwood Bypass has grown significantly to the point where capacity to accommodate the necessary diversions without significant congestion and/or relocation of regional traffic (back) onto routes such as Canterbury Road is now in question.

The constraints are evident at the westbound 4:3 “lane drop” west of Ringwood Street and at the four signalised intersections along the Ringwood Bypass corridor (i.e. Mt Dandenong Road, Warrandyte Road, Ringwood Street and the EastLink Interchange with Maroondah Highway).

TRAFFIC ENGINEERING TRAFFIC PLANNING ROAD SAFETY TRAFFIC IMPACT ASSESSMENTS TRANSPORT PLANNING ANDREW O’BRIEN & ASSOCIATES PTY LTD ABN: 55 007 006 037

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2 STUDY OBJECTIVES

The key aims of our investigation were to confirm whether: a) Sufficient traffic currently using Maroondah Highway to travel through Ringwood could reasonably be diverted to use Ringwood Bypass; b) Ringwood Bypass has sufficient capacity to accommodate the amount of diverted traffic; c) Ringwood Bypass has sufficient capacity to accommodate the necessary traffic diversions plus growth associated with developments in the Ringwood Activities area; and d) Any improvements are needed or possible if sufficient capacity is not provided by the existing facility.

3 TRAFFIC DEMAND SCENARIOS CONSIDERED

Based on these aims and previous studies of the Ringwood Activities area, our assessment of the capacity of the Ringwood Bypass adopted the following traffic pattern scenarios:

AM peak:

 Existing; and

 Future – includes a 350 vph westbound diversion from Maroondah Highway.

PM peak:

 Existing;

 Initial Future – includes a 250 vph eastbound diversion from Maroondah Highway;

 Medium-Term Future – includes a 450 vph eastbound diversion from Maroondah Highway; and

 Post Eastland Expansion Future – includes a 450 vph eastbound diversion from Maroondah Highway plus traffic generated by major developments including Costco, Eastland Stage 5C but not major changes to the Eastern Precinct.

Note that the AM peak has only one future condition because the high-generating retail uses which dominate the Ringwood Activities area experience very low activity in the AM peak compared to the PM peak. This assumption has been tested in numerous previous studies of this area.

The potential intensification of non-retail use in the Eastern Gateway (Triangle) Precinct of Ringwood (east of Warrandyte Road) was not included in this assessment due to the significant uncertainty as to the scale of these potential uses. Previous investigations have found that increased residential uses in this area would generate relatively small peak direction flows that would be only very small fraction of the other travel demands for the Ringwood Bypass. Office uses in this area could generate counter-peak traffic of moderate

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amounts, which Ringwood Bypass should accommodate reasonably well (by using non- critical movements at key intersections). The one exception to this is the WS right-turn from Ringwood Bypass into Warrandyte Road, which can become critical in the AM peak under certain circumstances (e.g. if the right-turn facility is reduced from two lanes to one lane).

Similarly, future changes in bus patterns associated with the new bus-rail interchange have not been directly incorporated into the assumed future traffic patterns because bus frequencies and exact routes cannot yet be confirmed. However, where road improvements are contemplated that may interact with potential active or “dead-running” bus movements these improvements have considered the physical ability for buses to make the necessary movements.

4 DATA COLLECTION & ANALYSIS

4.1 Data Collected

The assessment of the Ringwood Bypass was primarily undertaken using SIDRA to model the 4 key intersections along the route. The primary data source for these SIDRA models was obtained on Wednesday November 14, 2012 from the SCATS signals including:

 Detector loop traffic counts – enabling lane-by-lane calibration of SIDRA;

 SCATS history data – showing exactly how the traffic phases were applied during the survey periods;

 IDM data – showing the number of pedestrian calls received by the signals during the relevant peak times; and

 Signal operations sheets – to confirm key signal settings.

To increase the accuracy and certainty of the assessment, the following additional survey data was collected on the same day as the SCATS data.

 Peak direction OD surveys to confirm amount of divertible traffic in the AM and PM peaks;

 Pedestrian counts at the 4 intersections along the Ringwood Bypass that may experience increased traffic conflicts due to the diversions;

 Heavy vehicle sample count on Ringwood Bypass (just west of Ringwood Street) in both directions;

 A turning movement count on the SW left-turn lane at Ringwood Street/Ringwood Bypass (which is not counted by SCATS detector loops); and

 Counts of the weaving movements at the southbound off-ramp from Ringwood Bypass/EastLink at Maroondah Highway to evaluate the impact of future traffic increases on queuing, capacity and safety.

Additionally, an attempt was made to collect traffic weaving and destination volumes at the westbound lane drop on Ringwood Bypass west of Ringwood Street to allow assessment of

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this critical bottleneck. However, this attempt was blocked by ConnectEast, who did not want the data collected. The lack of this data remains a significant outstanding issue and must be resolved to fully identify the scale of benefit to be achieved by one infrastructure improvement that is likely to be required to allow Ringwood Bypass to function adequately from the day the Maroondah Highway clearways are removed.

4.2 SCATS Data Results

The SCATS data appeared to be reliable and accurate (based on previous assessments of these same intersections) and matches to the other count data obtained from the OD survey and the heavy vehicle sample count. As such it was mostly fed directly into the SIDRA models.

The one exception to the reliability of the data occurred at the EastLink Interchange signals on Maroondah Highway where two counts from the detector loops were wildly inaccurate. For example, the WS right-turn movement loop count in the PM peak increased from 205vph in March 2012 to 690vph in Nov 2012 which would cause very noticeable queue- overspill (which was not observed). Also, based on the SCATS history of the phase times allocated on the November 2012 survey day this movement would be operating at over 200% of its capacity based on the signal timing history. Therefore, the loop counts for these suspect movements were adjusted (to 480vph) to reflect 2012 observations and previous loop counts that have been considered reliable. The other movement at this site that was adjusted was the SW left-turn, which had similar but less dramatic changes in recent times.

The new volume assumptions produced more realistic volume versus capacity results but are likely to be on the high side because they still represent quite large increases compared to the March 2012 counts.

4.3 OD Survey Results

Origin-Destination surveys obtained data for the peak direction of travel in the 3-hour AM and PM peak periods.

In the AM peak origin-destination pairs were obtained for all vehicles exiting the Ringwood Activities Area westbound along Maroondah Highway west of the EastLink Interchange signals.

Existing use of the Ringwood Bypass for traffic bypassing the Ringwood Activities Area was measured including whether drivers entered Ringwood Bypass via Mt Dandenong Road from the east or Maroondah Highway from the northeast. The unmatched volumes were assumed to enter Ringwood Bypass from either Ringwood Street or Warrandyte Road.

The potential pool of Maroondah Highway that may be divertible to Ringwood Bypass was measured in the same manner.

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An assumed future split for the diverted traffic from both Maroondah Highway and from Mt Dandenong Road was developed based on:

 the existing pattern of use Ringwood Bypass (i.e. proportion of existing diverted traffic from Mt Dandenong and from Maroondah Highway);

 the size of the potential pool of divertible traffic from each approach road that currently uses Maroondah Highway through the Ringwood Activities Area; and

 the capacity constraints on the gateway intersections (i.e. Mt Dandenong Road/Maroondah Highway/Ringwood Bypass intersection).

The surveyed use of the Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway routes for through traffic and the assumed split for the future diversion for the AM peak hour is summarised in Figure 1. A similar assessment was conducted for the PM peak hour with the results summarised in Figure 2.

Figure 1: AM Peak – Through Traffic on Ringwood Bypass, Potential Diversion Traffic on Maroondah Highway & Traffic Diversion Assumed in Models

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Figure 2: PM Peak – Through Traffic on Ringwood Bypass, Potential Diversion Traffic on Maroondah Highway & Traffic Diversion Assumed in Models

The key results from the survey data is that:

 Sufficient divertible traffic exists for the necessary AM and PM peak diversions to occur; and

 Existing AM peak use of Ringwood Bypass for diverted through traffic is much lower than for the PM peak (presumably due to easier turns and the greater queuing issues at the Ringwood Street intersection in the AM peak).

Note that while the OD pair combinations do vary over the 3-hour peak period, sufficient divertible traffic exists during the entire period as illustrated in Figure 3 and Figure 4 (i.e. the black lines are always lower than the corresponding blue lines).

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Figure 3: AM Peak Period – Variation of the Origin-Destination Pairs

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Figure 4: PM Peak Period – Variation of the Origin-Destination Pairs

4.4 Pedestrian Count Results

Pedestrian counts were undertaken at the critical crossing points at the four intersections along the Ringwood Bypass route to evaluate the number of pedestrians that would be impacted in the AM and PM peak periods. The results for the AM and PM peak hours are shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6, respectively.

The key results include:

 pedestrian flows are quite low at all crossings surveyed;

 at the Ringwood Street and Warrandyte Road signals the PM peak pedestrian flows are higher than the AM peak; and

 at the Mt Dandenong Road and the EastLink Interchange signals the AM and PM peak are approximately equal.

A key outcome of this pedestrian data is that if pedestrian staging were necessary at Ringwood Street, Warrandyte Road and Mt Dandenong Road the amount of median storage space required would not be excessive. Similarly, the number of pedestrians experiencing longer waits due to possible conversion of the zebra crossing on the WN left-turn at the EastLink Interchange signals to a signalised pedestrian crossing would be minimal.

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It is acknowledged that some pedestrian demand increases are likely as Ringwood redevelops but even a doubling of demand is unlikely to alter the recommendations regarding the operation of the pedestrian crossings along the Ringwood Bypass corridor.

Figure 5: AM Peak Hour – Critical Pedestrian Counts at Key Intersections

Figure 6: PM Peak Hour – Critical Pedestrian Counts at Key Intersections

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4.5 Heavy Vehicle Results & Modelling Assumptions

Heavy and light vehicle counts of each lane on Ringwood Bypass were obtained just west of Ringwood Street in each direction in the AM and PM peaks. The results are summarised in Figure 7 and Figure 8. Note that the AM peak data collection was disrupted between 7:30am and 8:00am by ConnectEast officials. However, data collection was resumed for the full 8:00am - 9:00am AM peak hour.

Figure 7: Westbound Truck Flows on Ringwood Bypass

Figure 8: Eastbound Truck Flows on Ringwood Bypass

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As illustrated by the PM peak graphs in Figure 9 and Figure 10 the heavy vehicle volumes are reasonably stable in both directions. However, the proportion of trucks in the traffic stream falls as overall traffic volumes rise.

Figure 9: Westbound Truck Flows on Ringwood Bypass in PM Peak

Figure 10: Eastbound Truck Flows on Ringwood Bypass in PM Peak

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Based on the heavy vehicle counts and supplemented by sample counts on side streets and previous full turning movement counts at each intersection, the assumptions regarding heavy vehicle proportions during the AM and PM peak hours summarised in Figure 11 were used in SIDRA.

Figure 11: Truck Proportion Assumptions for Ringwood Bypass Intersections Used in SIDRA

4.6 Weaving Survey Results at EastLink/Ringwood Bypass Off-Ramp

The existing “weaving area” located between the merge of the southbound off-ramps from the EastLink tunnels and Ringwood Bypass and the signals at Maroondah Highway is shown in Figure 12. The weaving area where left-turning vehicles from the tunnel can cross over right-turning vehicles from Ringwood Bypass is very short (only 100m) in geometric terms and is further shortened by any queues that may be present at the Maroondah Highway signals. The maximum queue currently observed was approximately 50m in both the AM and PM peak hours.

The weaving proportion (and number) of vehicles undertaking a weaving movement was surveyed in the AM and PM peaks. The proportions are summarised in Table 1, which shows that:

 Exiting movements from the EastLink tunnel has an almost even left-turn: right-turn split in the AM peaks (56:44) but a greater bias toward left-turns in the PM peak (67:33); and

 Exiting movements from the Ringwood Bypass are extremely skewed to right-turns in both the AM peak (5:95) and the PM peak (9:91) indicating that the potential for weaving conflicts is currently severe.

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Note that the likely AM peak diversion volume of 350vph is assumed to be 100% right-turns so the existing extreme bias is expected to increase!

Figure 12: Layout of Weave at Southbound Off-Ramp at EastLink Interchange Signals

The geometry, high proportion of weaving movements and the queuing combine to produce a weaving area that is too short but which is “saved” to some degree at present by the relatively low total volumes using the ramp (about 370 vph in each peak hour).

Unfortunately, under future conditions when traffic diversions from Maroondah Highway and major land developments occur in the Ringwood these low volumes are expected to increase significantly (e.g. roughly double to 350 vph hour extra in the AM peak with diversion alone). While clearing this increased volume through the intersection should not impose unacceptable changes to the allocation of green time at the EastLink Interchange signals, the additional queuing will create safety and operational problems in the weaving area. Measures to address this issue are considered in this assessment.

Note no crash history is available at this weave because the ramp is not coded into Crashstats.

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Table 1: Southbound Off-Ramp at the EastLink Interchange Signals - Weaving Proportions

4.7 Left-Turn Movement Count Results at Ringwood Street

The volumes counted for the SW left-turn have been incorporated directly into the SIDRA models to fill in the gap in the SCATS loop count data. They volumes were:

 80 vph in AM peak hour

 150 vph in PM peak hour

The heavy vehicle proportion in these counts was very small in both peaks.

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4.8 Post-Eastland Traffic Conditions

Based on assessments of the proposed Eastland Stage 5 conducted between 2008 and 2010, the additional traffic shown in Figure 13 is to be added to the Medium-Term Future PM peak diversion at 3 of the 4 intersections. This additional traffic represents traffic generated by major developments including Costco, Eastland Stage 5C but not major changes that may occur to the Eastern Precinct (bounded by Warrandyte Road, Ringwood Bypass and Maroondah Highway).

Figure 13: Post-Eastland Development Traffic – Add to the Medium-Term PM Peak Diversion

Based on previous assessments, the impact of this development is largely “washed out” at EastLink Interchange signals except for the Medium-Term PM peak through traffic diversion.

5 INTERSECTION ANALYSIS

The four key intersections along the Ringwood Bypass route have been analysed.

1. EastLink Interchange at Maroondah Highway. 2. Ringwood Street/Ringwood Bypass. 3. Warrandyte Road/Ringwood Bypass. 4. Mt Dandenong Road/Ringwood Bypass/Maroondah Highway.

The intersection assessments are summarised below and include:

 An review of existing conditions;

 Identification of existing performance and safety issues;

 Discussion of any data or SIDRA modelling issues for the site;

 An assessment of the options to improve the layout, phasing, operation and safety of the site under existing and future traffic conditions;

 Summary of findings;

 Recommended actions; and

 An assessment of the risks of the recommended actions (and possibly inaction).

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6 EASTLINK INTERCHANGE

6.1 EastLink Interchange Existing Conditions

This intersection currently operates significantly below capacity on most movements, with queuing contained within the available turning lanes and minimal interference with adjacent intersections. This is reflected in the PM peak period by the short 115 second signal cycle time.

The only movement that appears in the SIDRA models to experience high degree of saturation (DOS) is the WS right-turn in the PM peak – as shown in Figure 14. As noted in Section 4.1, this movement relies on manually corrected data that is significantly higher than the last reliable data available.

The generally good queuing and delay performance of this intersection reflects observations undertaken during the counts whereas the significant demand for the WS right-turn in the PM peak was not observed. The observations of the weaving behaviour indicated that drivers currently have significant difficulty with performing the weaving movements as reflected by sudden braking, driver hesitation to accept viable gaps and very rapid lane changes.

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AM Peak Volumes PM Peak Volumes

AM Peak Degree of Saturation PM Peak Degree of Saturation

AM Peak 95th Percentile Queue Distances PM Peak 95th Percentile Queue Distances

Figure 14: EastLink Interchange Signals - Existing Conditions SIDRA Results

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6.2 EastLink Interchange Improvement Options

6.2.1 Southbound Off-Ramp Options

The issue of weaving and queue interactions on the southbound off-ramp has resulted in three physical options and two phasing options being explored to accommodate the significant volume increase associated with the traffic diversion in the AM peak.

The physical options examined include:

 A fourth off-ramp lane option – see Figure 15 – designed to shorten queues, maximise the effective weaving distance and allow non-weaving drivers to avoid the conflicts – can be provided with minimal works between existing barriers and without changes to the signals;

 No merge option using separated off-ramps – see Figure 16 – designed to allow the two off-ramps to be kept separate up to the Maroondah Highway intersection where they would be treated as two separate approaches so weaving conflicts can be managed by signal phasing rather than gap acceptance – requires the extension of existing retaining wall and the relocation of barriers on the off-ramp as well as significant changes to the signals.

 No merge option using braided off-ramps – no drawing – minimises vehicle weaving movements and provides extra capacity for the busier right-turn movement – requires significant new works on the ramps and at signals and involves:

 Ringwood Bypass exiting traffic being split into two streams: left-turning and right- turning and using different off-ramps from the Ringwood Bypass;

 Converting the approach at Maroondah Highway to one left-turn lane and three right-turn lanes;

 The left-turn lane is fed directly via the existing off-ramp from the Ringwood Bypass (which is reduced to a single lane);

 The left-most right-turn lane is fed directly from the exit ramp from the tunnels (with left-turn movements requiring a single lane weave into lightly used left-turn ramp from Ringwood Bypass);

 The other two right-turn lanes are fed by a new ramp connection up from the southbound EastLink on-ramp that merges with the existing off-ramp on the western side just prior to the signals; and

 Any right-turning traffic that accidentally uses the existing off-ramp from Ringwood Bypass could escape by simply weaving across one lane into the right-turn lane from the tunnel exit but any left-turners using the right-turn ramp would be “trapped” into making a right-turn.

Note that the original proposal for this interchange included a variation of the braided ramps option. However, retro-fitting the option makes it much more expensive and complex to sign – and still relies on the 4th westbound lane on the Ringwood Bypass.

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Figure 15: Southbound Off-Ramp at EastLink Interchange Signals – 4th Lane Option

Figure 16: Southbound Off-Ramp at EastLink Interchange Signals – “No Merge” Option

The phasing options examined include:

 Converting the existing diamond right-turn phasing from Maroondah Highway to lead and lag phasing (which potentially offers better green time allocation to turning movements, more efficient intergreen times between phases and the ability to “overlap” the critical north-south pedestrian movements;

 Reducing the cycle time in the AM peak from 130s to 120s (although this may create signal coordination problems for peak westbound traffic); and

 Adopting a double cycling of the signals using lead and lag phasing – i.e. adopting a 65s cycle time in the AM peak (which still allows significant signal coordination in the peak westbound direction along Maroondah Highway).

Note that the lead and lag phasing was also tested in the PM peak period but because the signals already run at a 115s cycle time and the southbound off-ramp queues are non-critical double-cycle and cycle time reduction were not investigated.

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6.2.2 PM Peak - Left-Turn Trap Lane Layout Options

Options A to E were considered in a separate investigation into a long distance conversion of the left-hand lane on Maroondah Highway from just east of Deep Creek Road to the EastLink Interchange. This study was requested by the Ringwood Chamber of Commerce which expressed concern that drivers were unaware of the availability of the Ringwood Bypass to avoid travel through Ringwood along Maroondah Highway. The numbers seem to indicate that this concern is unfounded because the existing PM peak diversions are higher than AM peak diversions (see Figure 1 and Figure 2) and approximately every second vehicle in the left-hand lane approaching the EastLink Interchange signals eventually turns left.

These options are consistent in their layout except for the vicinity of the EastLink Interchange signals. Options A to E are illustrated in Figure 17 to Figure 21.

Figure 17: Left-Turn Trap Lane at EastLink Interchange Signals – Option A

Figure 18: Left-Turn Trap Lane at EastLink Interchange Signals – Option B

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Figure 19: Left-Turn Trap Lane at EastLink Interchange Signals – Option C

Figure 20: Left-Turn Trap Lane at EastLink Interchange Signals – Option D

Figure 21: Left-Turn Trap Lane at EastLink Interchange Signals – Option E

The potential for dual left-turn WN lanes was considered but was determined not to be viable due to geometric, signage and structural factors including:

 heavy vehicles turning left could not stay in their own lane;

 forcing lane selection choice for downstream tunnel versus Ringwood Bypass destinations prior to the left-turn was considered too difficult to sign (and unsafe); and

 the turning movement occurs on a structure of restricted width which makes widening the turning area prohibitively expensive.

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Note that the signalisation of the WN left-turn slip lane pedestrian crossing (which is currently a zebra crossing) was considered as a variation to the trap lane options in the SIDRA assessment.

VicRoads officers have expressed a likely preference for Option A (at this time) due to its simplicity, flexibility, public transport benefits and low-cost.

6.3 EastLink Interchange SIDRA Modelling Issues

6.3.1 Southbound Off-Ramp Weave

The EastLink Interchange signals were modelled using SIDRA, with the results summarised in Appendix A. It is important to note that one of the two key operational issues with this site after the assumed future traffic diversions occur cannot be fully modelled in SIDRA.

The issue of concern is the weaving area on the southbound off-ramp, which SIDRA cannot model directly because it can only consider one “intersection” at a time. However, useful information can still be gleaned from existing conditions by using the lane utilisation recorded at the stopline to indicate where vehicles are positioned at the end of the weaving area. This in turn allows assessment as to how far each lane will queue back into the weaving area and highlight issues with how likely queuing will reduce the weaving area length and so impact on traffic operations and safety. From this imperfect model, useful conclusions can be drawn and risks highlighted.

The potential phasing changes and the 4th off-ramp lane physical improvement option are similarly subject to limited modelling of the weaving area behaviour in SIDRA.

Importantly, the separated off-ramp option can be modelled satisfactorily in SIDRA as weaving is avoided and conflicts are controlled by signal phasing.

The braided ramp option sits somewhere in between the 4th off-ramp lane and separated off-ramp options in terms of SIDRA capabilities because it avoids the major weaving movement (right-turning vehicles from Ringwood Bypass across left-turning vehicles from the tunnel) but includes a minor weave (right-turning vehicles from the tunnel into the left- turning traffic stream from Ringwood Bypass) that SIDRA cannot model. This minor weave should be non-critical in both operational and safety terms so we consider that SIDRA can effectively model the option.

Based on the above, we believe that the findings from the SIDRA modelling are a sufficient basis on which stakeholders can make decisions. However, if the conclusions presented below are doubted by the stakeholders because of the limitations of SIDRA modelling, a micro-simulation such as Paramics micro-simulation model could be developed to produce a fully realistic model of the weaving area and queue interaction behaviour on the off-ramp for the existing layout and 4th off-ramp lane option. It may even be possible to simply model the off-ramp approach alone running fixed time as the current variation of the phase time for this approach being very stable with an average of 30s, a maximum of 32s with only 4 of 28 cycles below the average during the peak hour. This would avoid modelling the entire intersection and its approaches, which would be a reasonably costly investigation.

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6.3.2 Western Approach Lane Utilisation

The other critical issue is the eastbound lane utilisation on the western approach in the PM peak which has a number of issues that are so significant that the Initial Future traffic pattern is considered unsuitable at this location if a trap lane treatment is adopted (i.e. traffic will have to shift to the Medium-Term Future pattern immediately on the opening of the trap lane treatment).

Figure 22: Eastbound Traffic Approaching EastLink Interchange Signals – PM Peak Lane Use

As shown in Figure 22, the existing layout has reasonably even eastbound lane utilisation at Hillcrest Avenue and Heatherdale Road (L1 to L3) with volumes in the 800-1000vph range which then spreads to a reasonably even lane usage and a maximum flow of 844vph at the EastLink Interchange through lanes. If the future diversions are applied to the existing road layout the only change is that the left-turn lane volume rises and the left-most through lane volume falls in the vicinity of the EastLink Interchange signals. Therefore, the diversions should produce the same DOS and maximum through movement queue result because the central through lane is the most critical (i.e. the busiest) – as shown in Figure 23.

Figure 23: PM Peak Eastbound Through Traffic Queues EastLink Interchange Signals

The larger diversion in the Medium-Term Future traffic conditions coupled with any left- turn trap lane treatment produces a slightly less even lane utilisation and higher maximum lane flow at Hillcrest Avenue and Heatherdale Road. These flows then spread to a reasonably even lane usage and a slightly higher maximum flow of 897vph at the EastLink Interchange through lanes. Therefore, this option should work reasonably well but slightly worse than the existing conditions – as shown in Figure 23.

The smaller diversion in the Initial Future traffic conditions coupled with any left-turn trap lane treatment actually produces a much less even lane utilisation and significantly higher maximum lane flow at Hillcrest Avenue and Heatherdale Road. These flows then spread to a reasonably even lane usage and a much higher maximum flow of 1,021vph at the EastLink Interchange through lanes. Therefore, this option is likely to work very poorly at the EastLink Interchange signals and at the upstream intersections compared to the existing conditions and Medium-Term Future conditions with any trap lane layout – as shown in Figure 23.

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6.4 Key EastLink Interchange Findings and Recommendations

The key findings and recommendations regarding the layout and phasing options include:

 Existing intersection layout and phasing – can accommodate both PM peak diversions (Initial and Medium-Term) but cannot adequately accommodate the AM peak diversion without highly undesirable queuing performance, particularly on the southbound off- ramp;

 Lead and lag right-turn phasing – appears highly beneficial at shortening queues in both peaks for all layout options with the only downside being the need to stage the north- south pedestrian crossing during peak traffic (noting that pedestrian demand for this crossing is currently very low and there is a bridge directly above the crossing which attracts demand away from it) – recommended for all layout scenarios in both peaks;

 Reduced cycle times (with any phasing option) – generally beneficial but is likely to pose signal coordination problems in the AM peak and already in use in the PM peak (when eastbound signal coordination along Maroondah Highway is considered non- critical) – recommended where possible;

 Double-cycling (with lead and lag right-turn phasing) – running the signals with a 65s cycle time is the only method available to (at least partially) coordinate signals along Maroondah Highway in the AM peak and accommodate diversion traffic without major physical works but:

 Appears possible for the existing, 4th lane and braided southbound off-ramp layout options (which all place similar phasing requirements on the signals),

 Is unlikely to be possible with the separated off-ramp option (but is not required for this improvement option anyway), and

 Is unlikely to be possible if any of the western approach left-turn trap lane options are employed regardless of the treatment of the southbound off-ramp – so a left-turn trap lane is not recommended until major off-ramp improvements are made;

 Existing southbound off-ramp layout – only works in the AM peak if double-cycling and lead-lag right-turn phasing are adopted and even then has quite long queues in the weaving area (95th percentile of 70m) – recommended initially;

 A fourth southbound off-ramp lane option – is expected to offer about the same AM peak queuing outcomes for the southbound off-ramp as the existing layout but at greatly increased cost – not recommended;

 No merge option using separated southbound off-ramps – functions the best of all improvement options for the off-ramp by avoiding weaving movements and providing sufficient turn capacity and queue storage, is compatible with lead-lag phasing, reduced cycle times and all of the western approach trap lane options but is not likely to work with double-cycling – recommended as soon as possible.

 No merge option using braided southbound off-ramps – functions second best of the improvement options with minor weaving conflicts and queues that can be contained in the provided storage, and is compatible with the western approach trap lane options – recommended if separate off-ramps are not possible

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 All Western Approach Left-Turn Trap Lane Options in the AM Peak – all operate similarly in the AM peak and impose significant extra queuing in the AM peak and is likely to prevent double-cycling for any options so that only the braided or separated southbound off-ramps will work with the trap lane options – not recommended until either separated or braided southbound off-ramps are installed.

 All Western Approach Left-Turn Trap Lane Options in the PM Peak – all produce longer queues and higher DOS for the eastbound through movement in the PM peak compared to the existing layout (see e.g. in Figure 23) and force the need for full Medium-Term Future traffic diversion in the PM peak immediately to ensure that lane utilisation is balanced on the western approach (see Figure 22) – not recommended until suitable improvements are implemented at the Ringwood Street and Mt Dandenong Road signals along Ringwood Bypass to accommodate Medium-Term diversion traffic.

 Western Approach Left-Turn Trap Lane Option Differences – all options perform similarly in the AM peak with Option B providing slightly more queue storage on the southbound off-ramp and in the PM peak although the reduced WS right-turn storage length for Options D and E (and to a lesser extent Option C) may result in queue overspill depending on the phasing and cycle time used – the preferred option can be effectively selected by the stakeholders based on their features because they are so similar in operational terms.

 Western Approach Left-Turn Trap Lane Option with Signalised Pedestrian Crossing – increases the queue for this movement but otherwise has little impact on signal operations for any option (e.g. the 95th percentile queue for Option A trap lane under Medium-Term traffic conditions grows from 60m to 110m) (model 3c vs. 3c_1) – this item can be included with a left-turn trap lane option at stakeholder discretion.

6.5 Summary of Recommended Actions

Initial Recommendation:

 Retain the existing layout and introduce lead-lag right-turn phasing and double-cycling for the existing layout in the AM peak. However, this option may not achieve sufficient reduction in queuing on the southbound off-ramp to avoid safety issues and has substantial risks that are likely to prevent it being a long-term solution (see Section 6.6).

As soon possible:

 Construct the separated southbound off-ramp option and continue using lead-lag right- turn phasing or (less desirably) construct the braided off-ramp option. Given the length of time required to design, approve and source funding for such major works, this process should start immediately.

Longer term:

 Potentially implement the left-turn trap lane option preferred by the stakeholders but only after significant physical improvements have been made to the southbound off-ramps (and downstream intersections along Ringwood Bypass).

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6.6 Potential Risks to the Recommended Actions

Stakeholders may not accept lead and lag phasing and the associated potential need for pedestrian staging at peak times. This would likely require immediate construction of major works on the southbound off-ramp (either separated or braided ramps).

Stakeholders may not accept double-cycling with the existing intersection layout, which is reasonably inflexible as it just meets the minimum times for many pedestrian and vehicle movements. Double-cycling also is:

 likely to shorten queues around the intersection but at the cost of somewhat reducing the benefits of westbound AM peak signal coordination along Maroondah Highway (although this will likely encourage the diversion sought for the Ringwood Station section of Maroondah Highway);

 quite vulnerable to traffic demand increases on critical movements (e.g. WS right-turn or SW left-turn); and

 likely to require SCATS to allow a very short green time (of 7 seconds) for A Phase (Maroondah Highway through movements) which may not be acceptable to VicRoads.

Even providing the ideal lead and lag phasing and double cycling of the signals for the existing layout still produces southbound off-ramp queues in the AM peak that may produce unacceptable impacts on safety and operation of the weaving area.

Attempting double-cycling in the AM peak in concert with any of the left-turn trap lane options on the western approach (i.e. avoiding works on the southbound off-ramp while providing a trap lane) is not expected to be viable with the assumed turning movements and lane utilisation. For double-cycling to work in this context an additional counter-peak traffic diversion onto Ringwood Bypass and/or significant lane “spreading” in the last 100m near the intersection would be required. We have no data about the availability of counter-peak traffic that is suitable for this but assume that much of the divertible traffic is already using Ringwood Bypass. Any lane spreading is likely to produce undesirable safety impacts as vehicles change lanes under congestion, on a downgrade and immediately downstream of a bend (and so may be an unrealistic assumption to make in any case). Therefore, constructing the left-turn trap lane poses a very significant risk of triggering large scale works on the southbound off-ramp immediately.

Simply constructing a western approach left-turn trap lane may not be sufficient to “force” the Medium-Term diversion to occur in the PM peak and so significant operational, queuing and safety impacts may result from its implementation. This is particularly likely if other intersections along the Ringwood Bypass route are not upgraded to accommodate the additional PM peak diversion traffic.

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7 RINGWOOD BYPASS & RINGWOOD STREET

7.1 Ringwood Bypass & Ringwood Street Existing Conditions

7.1.1 AM Peak

As shown in the summary results in Figure 24, the Ringwood Street/Ringwood Bypass intersection currently operates at capacity (i.e. DOS of 1.0) in the AM peak on both the NW right-turn and the EW through movement.

The AM peak results shown in Figure 24 reflect the observed queuing on the critical NW right-turn and EW through movements, which can respectively exceed the available turn lane storage or extend back into the Warrandyte Road intersection on multiple occasions through the AM peak hour. Therefore, improvements to the existing operation of the intersection would be desirable notwithstanding the need to accommodate additional traffic.

The severe EW through movement queues result from high demand and uneven utilisation of the four lanes at the stop line, particularly the left-most lane which operates at less than 20% of capacity. The reason for this uneven utilisation and the critical importance of addressing it are discussed in Section 7.2.2 below.

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AM Peak Volumes PM Peak Volumes

AM Peak Degree of Saturation PM Peak Degree of Saturation

AM Peak 95th Percentile Queue Distances PM Peak 95th Percentile Queue Distances

Figure 24: Ringwood Street & Ringwood Bypass - Existing Conditions SIDRA Results

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As shown in Table 2 and Figure 25, the site in the AM peak is even more highly constrained than it appears from the DOS results in Figure 24 because the cycle time is already locked at the maximum desirable 130 seconds and the existing phase timing has little flexibility because:

 Phases F and E are operating with the minimum green time (i.e. cannot be further reduced),

 Phase B operates with the minimum green time plus one second to accommodate existing demand; and

 Phase D operates only 2 seconds more than the minimum allowed green time.

Therefore, the two critical movements that run in Phase A and Phase C can essentially only trade time between each other. Therefore, the intersection running with the existing phasing and layout has almost no capacity to accommodate any additional demand (or diversion) on either of these critical movements.

Phase A F C D E B Green Time (sec) 40 6 19 10 6 7 Yellow Time (sec) 5 3 3 4 4 4 All‐Red Time (sec) 2 3 4 3 3 4 Phase Time (sec) 47 12 26 17 13 15 Phase Split 36 % 9 % 20 % 13 % 10 % 12 % Table 2: AM Peak Phase Times

Figure 25: Ringwood Street & Ringwood Bypass Signal Phasing

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7.1.2 PM Peak Results

As shown in the summary results in Figure 24, the Ringwood Street/Ringwood Bypass intersection currently operates at capacity in the PM peak on the WE through movement and close to capacity on the SE right-turn.

The PM peak results shown in Figure 24 reflect the observed queuing whereby the queues on the critical SE right-turn significantly exceeds the available 80m single lane storage on most cycles in the PM peak hour.

Figure 24 also shows the long PM peak queue on the critical EW through movement extends back about halfway to the ramp merge area from EastLink to the south and north and the access from Maroondah Highway and extends back beyond the end of the adjacent left-turn lane. Note that this through movement queue is currently significantly biased to the left-hand two through lanes (i.e. those emerging from the EastLink tunnel), which has important implications for the future PM peak traffic diversion scenarios – see Section 7.2.3.

As shown in Table 3 and Figure 25, the PM peak phasing has more “spare” time in most phases in that all phases are running more than minimum green vehicle times, few movements are at capacity and some buffer exists in Phases C, D and E to run pedestrian crossing minimum times across Ringwood Bypass.

Phase A F C D E B Green Time (sec) 35 9 7 9 19 9 Yellow Time (sec) 5 3 3 4 4 4 All‐Red Time (sec) 2 3 4 3 3 4 Phase Time (sec) 42 15 14 16 26 17 Phase Split 32 % 12 % 11 % 12 % 20 % 13 % Table 3: PM Peak Phase Times

7.2 SIDRA Model Settings & Key Operational Issues

7.2.1 Model Setting Other than Defaults

The existing conditions results in Figure 24 are based on existing SCATS volumes and phasing and cycle times and nearby samples of heavy vehicle flows but can still only be achieved by changing several key SIDRA assumptions to reflect increased driver aggression caused by the congestion in the vicinity including:

 Light vehicle queue storage reduced from 7m to 6m (i.e. drivers cluster together more closely to fit within available queuing areas);

 Start loss and end gain defaults changed from 3s and 3s to 2s and 4s (i.e. drivers accelerate very promptly at the start of the green signal and start their entry into the intersection further into the amber at the end of the green signal); and

 In the case of the critical EW through movement in the AM Peak, the saturation flow has been increased from 1950vph to 2000vph (i.e. drivers at free flow accept slightly smaller gaps to the vehicle in front to ensure that make it through the intersection).

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It is only with these changes that the critical movements in both peaks can have their DOS reduced below 1.0 (which is a definitional requirement for existing conditions). The fact that these adjustments to the model settings are necessary indicates how little spare capacity is available at this site.

7.2.2 Westbound Lane Utilisation and Lane Drop in the AM Peak Hour

One of the most significant issues with this intersection is the westbound 4:3 lane drop about 200m to the west of the Ringwood Street shown in Figure 26. This lane drop significantly impacts on westbound AM peak through traffic and involves heavy traffic demand for EastLink South and Maroondah Highway being concentrated into a single lane for a distance of 700m instead of having separate EastLink South and Maroondah Highway lanes from Ringwood Street until the ramps “split” to their various destinations.

Figure 26: Westbound Through Movement 4:3 Lane Drop – Lane Use Impacts

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The key operational issues with the lane drop are:

 EastLink South demand is very high and does not all fit into L2 on the Ringwood Street eastern approach – some extra L2 demand spills into the L1 and L3;

 All traffic for Maroondah Highway must use L2 downstream of the merge;

 Lane drop merges all of L1 traffic with part of L3 traffic into busy L2 lane – produces highly undesirable “two-sided” merge with associated safety issues and queue-back toward the Ringwood Street signals; and

 EastLink South demand must be shared with Maroondah Highway diversion demand due to lane drop – this severely limits potential diversion from Maroondah Highway.

SIDRA models of this intersection can only directly include the secondary impact of the lane drop – the lane utilisation at the lane utilisation at the eastern approach stopline at Ringwood Street (as shown in Table 4).

This proxy method indicates that Lane 2 and Lane 4 operate significantly below apparent stopline capacity, particularly Lane 2 which carries only 20% of the traffic in Lane 5. Based on the above discussion regarding the impact of user destination on which traffic demand must/can use each lane, it is considered unlikely that Lane 2 and Lane 4 utilisation will increase significantly as traffic volumes grow unless the lane drop is removed.

Demand Flows Lane HV % Capacity DOS Lane Use 95th % Back of Queue Lane Length Lane Type L T R Total 1 274 0 0 274 3.5 1046 0.262 100 % 6 85 Turn Bay 2 0 158 0 158 3.5 827 0.192 19 % 21 115 Turn Bay 3 0 809 0 809 3.5 827 0.978 97 % 403 500 – 4 0 667 0 667 3.5 827 0.807 80 % 181 500 – 5 0 834 0 834 3.5 827 1.008 100 % 500 500 – 6 0 0 24 24 3.5 111 0.215 100 % 10 110 Turn Bay 7 0 0 24 24 3.5 111 0.215 100 % 10 75 Turn Bay Approach 274 2469 48 2791 3.5 1.008 500 Table 4: Eastern Approach Lane Use, DOS and Queuing in the AM Peak

The lane utilisation method is an accurate proxy for the capacity of the signals except when queues from the lane drop in Lane 2 extend back far enough to stop vehicles from entering the Ringwood Street/Ringwood Bypass intersection. A queue-back and/or a significant slowing of traffic flow in Lanes 2 to 4 due to the lane drop has been observed frequently in the field. This is the probable reason why Lane 3 has only 97% of the traffic use of Lane 5 despite very heavy demand for the destinations served by this lane only in the AM peak.

SIDRA cannot directly model the primary issue of congestion and queue-back from the lane drop into the Ringwood Street intersection and so has difficulty accurately reflecting the impact that changes in traffic demands or signal timing would have on the lane drop congestion. Therefore, to understand how the intersection might operate under higher westbound through traffic flows in the future and more detailed understanding of the lane drop area is needed.

An alternative method for considering the impact of the lane drop is shown in Table 5. This assessment involves considering the lane drop area like a freeway merge, factoring down the free-flow capacity to reflect the fact that through movements only operate for 41% of the 130

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second signal cycle time and then estimating the likely demand for Lane 2 compared the reduced capacity.

Table 5: Lane Drop Non-SIDRA Capacity Assessment for Westbound Through Movements

Based on this alternative assessment, demand for Lane 2 exceeds capacity by about 20%. This shows up in the field in traffic slow down and queue-back that clears up during the “recovery period” when the much lighter turning traffic flows enter the lane drop from Ringwood Street.

This method of analysis highlights why simply adding green time to the westbound through movement at the Ringwood Street signals does not necessarily increase the effective capacity of the movement overall even for the same amount of traffic. The extra green time is likely to force more traffic into the merge area at a faster rate than it can accommodate – i.e. one full lane and two partial lanes operating at 1950-2000vph stopline capacity feeding into one lane operating at no more than 2200vph capacity – producing the same congestion it did with the shorter green time – but the extra green time allows the “recovery” to occur toward the end of the extended green time for the through movement rather than during the Ringwood Street turn phases. Importantly, the longer green time for through movements risk allowing more vehicles into the merge area (i.e. increasing through traffic flows) while still having the shorter recovery time between heavy pulses of through traffic (assuming the same cycle time).

An alternative signal operation method that would be more effective in reducing the lane drop congestion (to a certain extent) is to reduce the cycle time of the intersection. This delivers short pulses of through traffic which minimises the amount of excess traffic that needs to be cleared through the merge area during each through movement phase. Unfortunately, at peak times the signals along Ringwood Bypass are likely to remain coordinated at very close to 130s cycle times.

Under future AM peak conditions, the 350vph diversion can be added to the westbound through lanes in a range of ways that can provide sufficient stopline capacity in SIDRA including: loading all of the extra 350vph into the short lane (as would likely occur if the 4th westbound lane were built) or retaining the existing relative lane use but applying more green time. Both of these were tested in our analysis. However, as noted above the queue-back from the lane drop area cannot be avoided by any lane distribution pattern at Ringwood Street because the downstream destinations for the vehicles in the traffic stream require too many vehicles to fit into the single lane bound for EastLink South.

Based on the above assessment, phasing and timing methods for reducing the impact of the lane drop (with the existing traffic demand) are likely to be either largely ineffective or impractical. Similarly, the lane drop area appears highly likely to require physical works to accommodate any significant future AM peak traffic diversion from Maroondah Highway.

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7.2.3 Eastbound Lane Utilisation in the PM peak hour

As highlighted in Section 7.1.2 and in Figure 27, the long PM peak queue on the critical EW through movement is significantly biased to the left-hand two through lanes (i.e. those emerging from the EastLink tunnel). This means that some spare capacity exists – without increasing movement green times - in Lanes 4 and 5 to accommodate additional traffic such as the Initial and Medium-Term Future diversions. Further, Lanes 4 and 5 are most easily be accessed from the ramp from the EastLink Interchange with Maroondah Highway (see Section 6).

Demand Flows Lane HV % Capacity DOS Lane Use 95th % Back of Queue Lane Length Lane Type L T R Total 1 593 0 0 593 1.7 1271 0.467 100 77 250 Turn Bay 2 0 807 0 807 1.7 809 0.997 100 445 500 – 3 0 791 0 791 1.7 809 0.977 98 385 500 – 4 0 726 0 726 1.7 809 0.897 90 249 500 – 5 0 678 0 678 1.7 809 0.837 84 197 500 – 6 0 0 81 81 1.7 157 0.516 100 31 120 Turn Bay 7 0 0 81 81 1.7 157 0.516 100 31 110 Turn Bay Approach 593 3002 162 3757 1.7 0.997 445 Figure 27: Western Approach Lane Use, DOS and Queuing in the PM Peak

Note that this potential benefit of the lane use bias is somewhat tempered by the likely issues downstream of the Ringwood Street signals where many diverted vehicles will need to be weave across two very busy lanes of traffic to make left-turns into Maroondah Highway at Mt Dandenong Road.

Nevertheless, the ability to realistically spread demand across all of the through lanes is critical given the difficulty in identifying other (i.e. physical) methods to increase eastbound through movement capacity – see Section 7.3.

7.3 Ringwood Bypass & Ringwood Street Improvement Options

7.3.1 Changes to North and South Approaches

Both phasing and layout improvements were considered to accommodate existing and future changes in right-turn demand on the northern approach (AM peak) and southern approach (PM peak) while not increasing – or preferably decreasing – the green time allocated to the northern and southern approaches. More effective use of the northern and southern approaches was expected to be a key method of providing for significant increases in traffic flows along Ringwood Bypass, particularly for the eastbound traffic in the PM peak.

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The phasing options examined included:

 Converting the existing lead and lag phasing of the northern and southern approaches to “split phase” by removing the through phase – this can occur with the existing layout that includes exclusive right-turns on both approach so that the lead and lag phasing can be reintroduced at off-peak times to maximise efficiency but it can also allow the use of shared through and right-turn lanes on both approaches that can maximise right-turn capacity at peak times.

Split phasing is likely to force pedestrians to “stage” their crossing of Ringwood Bypass (at least in one direction). Existing pedestrian numbers are quite low, so while staging involves pedestrians experiencing a reduced level of service there is likely to be sufficient space to safely store them in the median refuge for the foreseeable future.

Note that it is not considered viable to substantially reduce the 130 seconds AM and PM peak cycle times due to the impact on capacity as well as coordination with adjacent signals along Ringwood Bypass.

The physical options examined included:

 Shared right-turns on the northern approach (plus north-south split phasing) – see Figure 28 – designed to extract maximum capacity from existing green time in the AM peak – requires only linemarking changes and minor signal reprogram;

 Shared right-turns on the southern approach (plus north-south split phasing) – providing 1.5 right-turn lanes on the southern approach allows maximum use to be made of the existing green time in the PM peak – requires only linemarking changes and minor signal reprogram;

 Exclusive right-turn lanes on the southern approach (and existing or north-south split phasing) – see Figure 28 – providing 2 exclusive right-turn lanes on the southern approach to increase capacity on the right-turn existing green time in the PM peak but allow also allow off-peak lead and lag phasing if shared lanes are not provided on the northern approach – requires removal of the existing under-utilised bus queue-jump lane, minor island modifications, relocation of detectors and linemarking changes plus a minor signal reprogram;

 Shared right-turns on the southern approach (plus north-south split phasing) – providing 2.5 right-turn lanes by changing arrow designations and right-turn guidance lines for the southern approach layout shown in Figure 28 – requires only linemarking changes and minor signal reprogram in addition to the dual right-turn option shown in Figure 28;

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Key issues with the additional right-turn lane proposals include:

 2.5 right-turn lanes on the northern approach – heavy vehicles must use the left-most right-turn lane (with cars on the other two) in order to fit into the 4 receiving lanes on Ringwood Bypass and the necessary use of split phasing;

 1.5 right-turn lanes on the southern approach – no significant issues;

 2 right-turn lanes on the southern approach – the proposed changes to the northbound through lanes alignment, changes to island kerbs and signal detectors, removal of the bus queue jump lane, vehicle swept paths that allow two buses to turn right simultaneously and the necessary use of split phasing;

 2.5 right-turn lanes on the southern approach – has the same general issues as the 2 right-turn lane option except for the turning vehicle swept paths where heavy vehicles can only use left-most lane and buses can no longer turn side-by-side.

The proposed changes to the northbound through lanes for the 2 and 2.5 right-turn lane options for the southern approach involve (200m to 600m to 200m) reverse curves with tangent points located outside the intersection to avoid instant changes of direction or changes within the intersection. These changes reflect good design principles and should be acceptable based on recent design approvals.

The proposed changes to the island kerbs and signal detectors to the northbound through lanes for the 2 and 2.5 right-turn lane options for the southern approach should not impact on underground services or significant signal hardware.

The removal of the bus queue jump lane for the 2 and 2.5 right-turn lane options for the southern approach is likely to be somewhat controversial but should actually significantly improve bus progression because almost all active and “dead-running” buses turn right at this intersection and this volume is likely to increase after the Ringwood Bus-Rail Interchange upgrade interchange is constructed.

The proposed linemarking for the 2 right-turn lane option for the south approach allows two buses to turn right simultaneously. We understand that the current proposal for the Ringwood Bus-Rail Interchange upgrade may involve “dead-running” of empty buses in a right-turning loop around Eastland. This would mean that buses must turn right from the right-hand lane (in order to then immediately perform a WS right-turn from the Ringwood Bypass into Warrandyte Road). This option seems to be very inefficient in terms of bus running times and signal capacity at the four busiest signals in Ringwood but it could be accommodated by the 2 right-turn lane option for the south approach. However, the 2.5 lane option on the southern approach is not compatible with this mode of bus operation because all heavy vehicles must turn from the left-most of the right-turn lanes only (i.e. dead- running buses would have to weave across two lanes immediately after the turn).

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Figure 28: Shared Right-Turn on Northern Approach (2.5 lanes) and Exclusive Right-Turn Lanes on Southern Approach (2 lanes)

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7.3.2 Physical Works on Ringwood Bypass

The options to provide physical improvements to directly add capacity to the critical eastbound and westbound through movements are limited. No eastbound works appear feasible within the available road reserve.

The only identified physical improvement to add westbound through movement capacity was the provision of a 4th westbound lane between the lane drop area and the ramp split – as shown in yellow in Figure 29.

To Maroondah Hwy Figure 29: Section of Westbound Ringwood Bypass Requiring An Extra Lane

The provision of a 4th westbound lane would involve:

 Mark 4 x narrowed lanes between the existing barriers from the lane drop area (about 200m west of Ringwood Street) to the “ramp split” to provide continuous and separated lanes serving each destination (2 x tunnel, 1 x EastLink South, 1 x Maroondah Highway);

 A reduction in the speed limit to a permanent 60kph to reflect the narrowed lanes with less barrier clearance;

 Adjust signage to allocate lanes by destination (2 x tunnels, 1 x EastLink South, 1 x Maroondah Highway) from the start of the 4th through lane east of Ringwood Street; and

 A Road Safety Audit to confirm that the reduced lane widths, clearances and sightlines are sufficiently mitigated by a permanently reduced speed limit.

The beneficial impacts of the proposed 4th westbound lane would include:

 A major increase in capacity that is sufficient to allow the AM peak traffic diversion from Maroondah Highway – which appears to be non-viable without these works;

 A substantial increase in capacity for EastLink South and tunnel traffic by better matching lane allocation to traffic demand (which offsets any inconvenience imposed on these trips by the reduced speed limit); and

 Significantly improved safety due to the abolition of the lane drop merge.

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The potential shortcomings include:

 The potential risk that insufficient space exists between existing barriers to provide adequate lane widths and barrier clearances plus suitable sightlines for the left-mot lane around the bend – depends on the provision of detailed as built plans and/or new feature survey data; and

 The need for extensive cooperation and approval from ConnectEast.

7.3.3 Localised Traffic Transfers between Warrandyte Road and Ringwood Street

Several localised traffic transfers were tested that diverted turning movements from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street to reduce through traffic flows in the peak direction at Ringwood Street by small amounts and to take advantage of spare capacity that exists (or can be easily provided) on some turning movements.

In the AM peak, the only method identified that may add some capacity to the Ringwood Street signals without worsening the lane drop issue or fixing it with major physical works was to “force” a secondary, local traffic diversion. In this case, NW right-turns from Warrandyte Road onto Ringwood Bypass (most of which continue as westbound through movements across Ringwood Street and through the lane drop) are transferred to become NW right-turns at Ringwood Street (see Figure 30).

Normally, adding volumes to a 2-lane turning movement to release capacity on a 4-lane through movement would not make sense in signal operation terms, particularly when that turn movement is currently operating at capacity with long queues. However, in this case:

 the right-turn movement capacity can be readily expanded for the same green time allocation with linemarking (to provide 2.5 right-turn lanes) and a change to split phasing for the north and south approaches; whereas

 providing extra effective through movement capacity past the westbound lane drop requires significant works.

It is also noted that the right-turn at Ringwood Street currently operates at capacity whereas the corresponding Warrandyte Road movement does not. Therefore, it is likely that this type of transfer already occurs to the extent that capacity at Ringwood Street allows. Providing additional Ringwood Street right-turn capacity should encourage this transfer relatively easily – particularly if the main lane drop issue is not addressed directly.

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Figure 30: AM Peak – Potential Local Right-Turn Transfer from Warrandyte Rd to Ringwood St

The potential benefits of the local transfer include:

 Potentially releasing existing through movement capacity along Ringwood Bypass to accommodate (part of) the AM peak diversion from Maroondah Highway;

 Diverted traffic can avoid the lane drop merge congestion (which does not impact on right-turns from Ringwood Street;

 Reduces right-turn demand from the north at the Warrandyte Road intersection;

The potential drawbacks of the local transfer include:

 Requiring split phasing of the Ringwood Street approaches and associated pedestrian staging (which may be controversial);

 A maximum likely local diversion flow of only around 100vph (compared to a demand for 350vph extra through movements due to the AM peak divesion); and

 It being somewhat contrary to policy to transfer traffic from Warrandyte Road (which is a designated arterial road) to Ringwood Street (which is intended to have a secondary traffic carrying role).

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In the PM peak, a similar local traffic transfer can be undertaken to reduce the pressure on the busiest eastbound through lanes. In this case, WN left-turns into Warrandyte Road from Ringwood Bypass (which present as eastbound through movements across Ringwood Street) are transfer to become WN left-turns into Ringwood Street (see Figure 31).

The proposed transfer requires no physical works at either signal on Ringwood Bypass and there is significant evidence that major diversions of this type are already occurring. However, the Loughnan Road/Ringwood Street intersection to the north is currently prone to very long right-turn queues on the south approach. Therefore, this intersection is likely to require physical works to accommodate the local diversion, possibly including changes to turn lane designations on southern (install dual right-turn lanes) and possibly eastern approaches (exclusive left-turn lane) plus kerb and signal phasing changes may be required to accommodate PM peak traffic transfer.

Further, the proposed transfer is again contrary to the respective traffic-carrying roles of Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street.

As for the AM peak transfer, it is anticipated that around 100vph is the maximum likely scale of this local diversion in the PM peak due to the intersection capacities and relative travel times likely on the two travel paths.

Figure 31: PM Peak – Potential Local Left-Turn Transfer from Warrandyte Rd to Ringwood St

7.4 Ringwood Bypass & Ringwood Street SIDRA Results

The Ringwood Bypass/Ringwood Street SIDRA assessment results are summarised in Appendix B. These summaries outline how the various combinations of layout, phasing and volume described in this report were tested.

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7.5 Key Ringwood Bypass & Ringwood Street Findings and Recommendations

The key findings and recommendations regarding the signal phasing, road layout and local diversions at the Ringwood Bypass/Ringwood Street intersection include:

 Existing intersection layout and phasing (6 phases total) – not recommended for use – can just accommodate existing traffic demand but cannot accommodate the:

 future AM peak diversion (due to insufficient green time availability and inability to spread traffic into under-used lanes without the 4th westbound lane improvement), or

 Medium-Term Future PM peak diversion (due to lack of green time – even with maximum lane spreading).

 Split phasing for the north and south approaches (5 phases total) – is recommended for all layout scenarios in both peaks – as it releases significant green time for extra diversion and turning movements (at the cost of pedestrian staging in the Ringwood Bypass median) and:

 If deployed with the existing layout allows off-peak flexibility to revert to the existing lead and lag phasing, or

 If implemented permanently allows for the introduction of shared lanes on the north and south approaches which can significantly increase right-turn capacity and lane utilisation for all movements on these approaches at minimal cost.

 Existing intersection layout and split phasing (5 phases total) – best option achievable without any physical works but likely to experience immediate problems that worsen over time – can accommodate the:

 future AM peak diversion (with very long queues) but only because SIDRA cannot accurately factor the queue-back from the lane drop area into the stopline capacity assessment, and

 future PM scenarios (with very long queues) except for the Post-Eastland conditions.

 4th Westbound Lane on Ringwood Bypass (from lane drop to ramp split) – this improvement is essential for the safe and effective operation of Ringwood Bypass under existing and future AM peak conditions and must be pursued immediately to be ready for implementation as soon as changes are made to Maroondah Highway – critical to the operation and safety of the westbound traffic along the bypass at all times and to the ability to provide sufficient effective capacity at the Ringwood Street signals to accommodate the AM peak traffic diversion from Maroondah Highway.

 AM Peak local right-turn traffic transfer from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street – can be reasonably assumed to occur for up to a maximum of 100vph of demand and is not expected to require additional off-corridor works but:

 can only occur if the split phasing and 2.5 right-turn lanes improvements are implemented on the northern approach at Ringwood Street

 is likely to occur to fill capacity provided for NW right-turns at Ringwood Street assuming that the transfer travel path is faster, and

 is contrary to road management policies which favour traffic use of Warrandyte Road.

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 Shared right-turn lanes (x 2.5) on the northern approach (requires north-south split phasing) – is the preferred layout for this approach (which is required if the 4th westbound lane is not constructed on the Ringwood Bypass but is highly desirable in any case) – is a simple linemarking and signal programming change that:

 prevents the existing queue overspill issue for this movement in the AM peak,

 the shared lane allows maximum flexibility for traffic to fill all lanes equally prior to the green signal,

 reduces the green time required in the PM for this movement (which releases time to other approaches),

 provides capacity to attract a local transfer of NW right-turns from Warrandyte Road, and

 provides stopline capacity to accommodate the AM peak diversion from Maroondah Highway – but only if the local transfer of right-turns from Warrandyte Road is assumed – and even then the lane drop area issues would remain unresolved if the 4th westbound lane was not constructed.

 Shared right-turn lanes (x 1.5) on the southern approach (requires north-south split phasing) – is recommended for implementation immediately when the bus interchange opens due to bus operation benefits and queuing and capacity gains for the PM peak diversion scenarios but is likely to fail under the Post-Eastland traffic scenario – is a simple linemarking and signal programming change that:

 prevents the existing queue overspill issue for this movement in the PM peak,

 reduces delays to passenger carrying buses performing a right-turn,

 the shared lane requires only a single lane shift and so is easier for right-turning buses to enter after using the bus stop (in the left lane) adjacent to the law courts only 200m south of the intersection,

 allows two buses to turn next to one another if needed for future Bus-Rail Interchange operations,

 reduces the green time required in the PM for this movement (which releases time to other approaches),

 the shared lane allows maximum flexibility for traffic to fill all lanes equally prior to the green signal,

 provides capacity to accommodate small increases in right-turn demand in the short term in the PM peak and to more easily meet the Ringwood Bypass demand for the Initial or Medium Term Future traffic diversion,

 does not provide sufficient capacity to accommodate the Post-Eastland Future demand scenario – unless the localised Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street left- turn diversion is assumed – and even then the queues on the western and southern approaches are excessively long, and

 is actually a permit condition for the Eastland Shopping Centre Stage 5 expansion (that was included because it was considered the maximum feasible improvement to this approach that could be made at the time even through it was not expected to be adequate to meet post-development demand).

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 Exclusive right-turn lanes (x 2) on the southern approach (allows existing or north- south split phasing) – is not recommended for implementation – requires removal of the existing under-utilised bus queue-jump lane, minor island modifications, relocation of detectors and linemarking changes plus a minor signal reprogram but:

 Cannot accommodate demand under Post-Eastland traffic conditions because the short length of right-turn lanes (even though there are now two of them) cause right- turn queue overspill and interactions with through traffic queues to actually provide less capacity (for the assumed traffic pattern) compared to a 1.5 right-turn lane treatment,

 Performs reasonably poorly under north-south split phase operation because right- turn queue overspills into the adjacent through lanes results in inefficient lane utilisation (i.e. all lanes are not fully used), and

 Does not provide the same level of bus operational benefits as the 1.5 right-turn lane option except for allowing two buses to turn right at the same time and reducing bus delays (but by a lesser amount).

 Shared right-turn lanes (x 2.5) on the southern approach (requires north-south split phasing) – is the preferred option that accommodates all demand scenarios – has almost identical works required as the dual right-turn lane layout but provides the extra capacity to accommodate the Post-Eastland traffic demand and features of all of the benefits of the 1.5 right-turn lane treatment except that:

 It requires all heavy vehicles to turn right from the left-most right-turn lane (i.e. does not allow two buses to turn next to one another) and so any dead-running right-turn bus loop around Eastland associated with the future Bus-Rail Interchange operations cannot be accommodated. It is strongly recommended that any such routing patterns be adjusted to accommodate the swept path requirements of the 2.5 right-turn lane treatment given the other bus and traffic benefits achievable.

 PM Peak local left-turn traffic transfer from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street – can be reasonably assumed to occur for up to a maximum of 100vph of demand and allows for a reduction in the queue on the critical left-most eastbound through lanes that can then release green time to the southern approach if needed but:

 before any transfer occurs is likely to require additional off-corridor works at Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road to allow 1.5 lanes for the SE right-turn and associated changes to maximise intersection throughput,

 not required to meet Post-Eastland demand if the 2.5 right-turn lanes are built on the southern approach, and

 contrary to road management policies which favour traffic use of Warrandyte Road.

 Reduced cycle times (with any phasing option) – are not considered feasible due to the constraints on other intersections along Ringwood Bypass, which need to operate at about 130 seconds.

 Lane spreading on western approach – is assumed to occur under heavy future traffic although even though additional weaving between lanes further east along Ringwood Bypass are likely to result from loading all diverted traffic into the right-most two lanes.

 Lane spreading on the eastern approach – requires the 4th westbound lane treatment to make lane use more even to allow green time to be used most efficiently.

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7.6 Ringwood Bypass & Ringwood Street Recommended Actions

Based on the above findings, the recommended road improvements in the vicinity of the Ringwood Street/Ringwood Bypass intersection are:

 Split phasing of the north and south approaches;

 2.5 right-turn lanes on both the northern and southern approaches;

 The 4th westbound lane to the west of Ringwood Street to maximise lane utilisation and throughput for the AM peak westbound through movement.

If the 2.5 right-turn lanes option for the southern approach is not possible or cannot be implemented for some time, then the 1.5 right-turn lanes option is a preferable alternative compared to the existing (1-lane) or potential 2-lane right-turn options.

7.7 Potential Risks to the Recommended Actions

Stakeholders may not accept split phasing and the associated need for pedestrian staging at peak times (or at all times if lane shared lanes are employed on either the northern or southern approaches). This would make the intersection inadequate immediately upon the diversion of traffic.

Stakeholders may not accept the proposed geometry and operation of the 2.5 right-turn lane treatment for the southern approach, particularly for buses. This would limit the benefit available from the split phasing and prevent the intersection accommodating the Post- Eastland demand scenario in the PM peak. The best alternative is the 1.5 right-turn lane treatment which has already been approved by the stakeholders (and added into the Eastland expansion permit conditions).

Stakeholders may not accept the proposed geometry and operation of the 2.5 right-turn lane treatment for the northern approach, possibly on the grounds that it may simply attract more right-turn traffic rather than fix existing problems and release green time to other movements. This would limit the benefit available from the split phasing and limit the ability to reduce queue lengths in the AM peak.

The 4th westbound lane may not be feasible without moving noisewalls (at enormous expense). This improvement could also be rejected by Connecteast on commercial grounds or because stakeholders conclude that reduced speed limits, lane widths or clearances are unacceptable. There is no apparent viable alternative to address this problem and all AM peak scenarios will suffer significantly without it.

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8 WARRANDTYE ROAD & RINGWOOD BYPASS

8.1 Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass Existing Conditions

8.1.1 AM Peak Results

As shown in the summary results in Figure 32, the Warrandyte Road/Ringwood Bypass intersection currently operates almost at capacity (i.e. DOS of 0.98) in the AM peak on the NW right-turn.

The AM peak results shown in Figure 32 reflect the observed queuing on the critical NW right-turn but indicates a shorter than observed queue for the EW through movement (SIDRA reports a 95th percentile queue of 115m whereas at least 230m queues have been observed). This is most likely due to:

 the assumption in SIDRA that the lanes will be fed by a relatively stable flow from the Mt Dandenong Road signals to the east (where in fact the cycle time and the main phases that feed traffic onto Ringwood Bypass can vary significantly in the AM peak); and

 the lack of incorporation of queue-back from the Ringwood Street signals which can occur on occasion during the AM peak.

This difference in reported versus observed queues is not considered significant given that the Warrandyte Road and Mt Dandenong Road signals are more than 500m apart.

As shown in Table 6 and Figure 33, the site in the AM peak is currently able to provide significant time to the westbound through movements in Phases A and F. This relies on a number of competing vehicle movement phases imposing limited demand on the available time including:

 Phase B operates at the minimum green time;

 Phase F operates at 1s more than the minimum green time but only runs in 89% of the signal cycles;

 Phase E is actually operating below the minimum green time because it only runs in 64% of the cycles; and

 Phase D operates in two modes: around 14s phase time when Phase E runs and at around 25s phase time when Phase E does not run.

Generally, the Phase C and D and Phase D and Phase E pairs provide the minimum pedestrian crossing time for the crossings of Ringwood Bypass. It is considered that the AM peak turning and side street demand at this site will remain relatively stable so it is expected this intersection can continue to operate with roughly the same phase times as it does now into the future.

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AM Peak Volumes PM Peak Volumes

AM Peak Degree of Saturation PM Peak Degree of Saturation

AM Peak 95th Percentile Queue Distances PM Peak 95th Percentile Queue Distances

Figure 32: Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass - Existing Conditions SIDRA Results

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Phase A B C D E F Green Time (sec) 53 6 10 9 5 7 Yellow Time (sec) 5 4 3 3 3 3 All‐Red Time (sec) 2 3 4 4 2 4 Phase Time (sec) 60 13 17 16 10 14 Phase Split 46 % 10 % 13 % 12 % 8 % 11 % Table 6: AM Peak Phase Times

Figure 33: Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass Signal Phasing

8.1.2 PM Peak Results

As shown in the summary results in Figure 32, the Warrandyte Road/Ringwood Bypass intersection currently operates close to capacity (i.e. DOS of 0.95) in the PM peak on the WE through movement – at least in the busiest lanes. The other busy movement is the SN through movement which operates at a DOS of 0.80.

The PM peak results shown in Figure 32 reflect the observed queuing on all movements. Importantly, the relatively short western approach through movement queue is because this movement has exceptionally good signal coordination for the significant majority of these vehicles that are through movement at the adjacent Ringwood Street signals.

As shown in Table 7 and Figure 32, the site in the PM peak is currently able to provide less time to the eastbound through movements in Phases A and B than for the peak direction

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movement in the AM peak due to increased side street movements. It is considered that the PM peak turning and side street demand at this site will grow over time as retail and office uses continue to develop in Ringwood. Therefore, despite the relatively low DOS for many side street movements and the comfortable pedestrian crossing minimum time provision in Phases C, D and E there is likely to be relatively limited additional green time available for the WE through movement in the future. This means that the ability to obtain more even lane utilisation on the eastbound through movement (see Section 8.2.3) and on the northbound through movement (see Section 8.2.4) will be critical to providing sufficient capacity under future PM peak traffic conditions.

Phase A B C D E F Green Time (sec) 40 10 9 6 16 7 Yellow Time (sec) 5 4 3 3 4 3 All‐Red Time (sec) 2 3 4 4 3 4 Phase Time (sec) 47 17 16 13 23 14 Phase Split 36 % 13 % 12 % 10 % 18 % 11 % Table 7: PM Peak Phase Times

8.2 SIDRA Model Settings & Key Operational Issues

8.2.1 Model Setting Other than Defaults

The existing conditions results in Figure 32 are based on existing SCATS volumes and phasing and cycle times and nearby samples of heavy vehicle flows but – as per the Ringwood Street and Mt Dandenong Road signals – can still only be achieved by changing several key SIDRA assumptions to reflect increased driver aggression caused by the congestion in the vicinity including:

 Light vehicle queue storage reduced from 7m to 6m (i.e. drivers cluster together more closely to fit within available queuing areas); and

 Start loss and end gain defaults changed from 3s and 3s to 2s and 4s (i.e. drivers accelerate very promptly at the start of the green signal and start their entry into the intersection further into the amber at the end of the green signal).

8.2.2 Westbound Through-Lane Utilisation and Lane Drop in the AM Peak Hour

The westbound through relative lane utilisation in the AM peak is actually very well balanced (95%, 100%, 97%) reflecting the heavy feeding flows from the through and right-turns at adjacent Mt Dandenong Road signals. This makes this approach movement very efficient. Therefore, if any changes are made (e.g. adding a 4th through lane) consideration of the impact on these changes on this lane utilisation pattern is recommended.

8.2.3 Eastbound Through-Lane Utilisation in the PM Peak Hour

As highlighted in Figure 34, the high DOS on the critical EW through movement is significantly biased to the Lane 3.

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Significant spare capacity appears to exist in Lane 2 and in Lanes 4 and 5 – without increasing movement green times – to accommodate additional traffic such as the Initial and Medium-Term Future diversions. However, increasing the use of Lane 2 is difficult to the heavy left-turn volume the adjacent lane, which shares the Lane 2 at the upstream Ringwood Street signals and so absorbs capacity that would be otherwise available for through traffic. Measures to reduce this left-turn flow would therefore be useful in increasing the utilisation of Lane 2.

Demand Flows Lane HV % Capacity DOS Lane Use 95th % Back of Queue Lane Length Lane Type L T R Total 1 447 0 0 447 1.7 941 0.48 100 % 13 80 Turn Bay 2 0 714 0 714 1.7 884 0.81 85 % 95 500 – 3 0 840 0 840 1.7 884 0.95 100 % 250 500 – 4 0 697 0 697 1.7 884 0.79 83 % 87 500 – 5 0 621 0 621 1.7 884 0.70 74 % 61 500 – 6 0 0 45 45 1.7 171 0.26 100 % 17 130 Turn Bay 7 0 0 45 45 1.7 171 0.26 100 % 17 115 Turn Bay Approach 447 2872 89 3408 1.7 0.95 341 Figure 34: Warrandyte Road Western Approach Lane Use, DOS and Queuing in the PM Peak

The demand for Lanes 4 and 5 should increase somewhat under PM peak traffic diversions where WE through traffic demand at the downstream Mt Dandenong Road signals increases (which are most easily supplied by Lanes 4 and 5 at Warrandyte Road.

Based on this assessment, four scenarios for the western approach through lane utilisation were used in the SIDRA models as summarised in Table 8.

Relative Lane Use – Eastbound PM Peak Through Lanes Lane Existing Minimum Spread Extra Spread Maximum Spread 2 85 % 85 % 90 % 95 % 3 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 % 4 83 % 95 % 100 % 100 % 5 74 % 85 % 95 % 95 % Table 8: Warrandyte Road Western Approach Through-Lane Utilisation Scenarios – PM Peak

These scenarios were used to examine how traffic spreading would impact on the operation of the intersection.

The extra and maximum spread scenarios are likely to require the reduction of the adjacent left-turn movement based on the localised transfer shown in Figure 31.

8.2.4 Southern Approach Through-Lane Utilisation

The northbound through relative lane utilisation in the AM and PM peaks is actually very well balanced (70:100 in the AM peak and 88:100 in the PM peak).

In the future PM peak scenarios, through-lane demand spreading was assumed in several scenarios, particularly under Post-Eastland development conditions. This makes reasonable sense given that the left-turn and right-turn demands on the southern approach are roughly equal under Post-Eastland conditions so neither through lane should have extra capacity absorbed by turning vehicles – and because the turn lane lengths will be more even as well.

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8.3 Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass Improvement Options

8.3.1 Changes to North and South Approaches

Both phasing and layout improvements were considered to accommodate existing and future changes at this intersection.

As part of the Eastland Stage 5 expansion planning permit conditions, an extension of the southern approach left-turn lane from 45m to 60m is included in modifications to Warrandyte Road south of Ringwood Bypass to accommodate increased site access demands. This concept design is illustrated in Figure 35.

Figure 35: Eastland Stage 5 Permit Condition – Lengthen South Approach Left-Turn Lane

The extension of the southern approach left-turn should have relatively minor benefits during the weekday AM and PM peaks by increasing the efficiency of SN through movements by producing more “pure” queues because left-turning vehicles can bypass through movement queues more easily.

Other physical changes to the northern and southern approaches do not appear to be warranted based on the existing and anticipated traffic demands and phase times (e.g. adding shared right-turn lanes as recommended for Ringwood Street is not desirable because through movements significant exceed right-turn demands).

Similarly, split phasing of the north and south approaches is not desirable in either peak period because the through movement demand is proportionally greater than the right-turn demand so the existing lead and lag phasing is a more efficient way to meet these demands.

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8.3.2 Physical Works on Ringwood Bypass

The options to provide physical improvements to directly add capacity to the critical eastbound and westbound through movements are limited.

No eastbound works appear feasible within the available road reserve.

The only physical improvement to add westbound through movement capacity identified was the provision of a 4th westbound through lane (extending the project recommended in Section 7) back through Warrandyte Road as shown in the sketch in Figure 36.

The works to provide a 4th westbound through lane at Warrandyte Road would include:

 Converting the right-turn lanes on the eastern and western approaches from two lanes to one;

 Relocating the median and the associated signal hardware on the western leg one lane width to the north;

 Adjusting the right-turn guidelines from the eastern, western and northern approaches; and

 Adjusting the western leg pedestrian crossing times to match he eastern leg (which is likely to be more efficient).

Figure 36: Proposed 4th Westbound Through Lane at Warrandyte Rd

Importantly, this improvement has almost no value unless the recommended 4th westbound lane improvement west of Ringwood Street (see Section 7) is provided.

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The potential benefits include:

 Significantly increased capacity for westbound through movements;

 Reduction in the critical north stage of the western leg pedestrian crossing to match the south stage of the eastern leg (which should reduce the minimum time required to satisfy demands on the northern and southern approaches); and

 Ability to retain eastern and western approach right-turn queues based under existing and future scenarios.

The potential negative impacts include:

 A potential increase in green time for the right-turn is required to satisfy demand (at the expense of other critical movements) because:

 under existing conditions the minimum 6s vehicle green time is often sufficient with some time “wasted” as indicated by DOS values that are less than 0.51 as shown in Figure 32, and

 whenever right-turn demand exceeds about 100vph then more than 6s will be needed if only one lane is available assuming a 130s cycle time;

 Adding the through lane on the right hand side may produce lane changing turbulence as drivers seek to arrange themselves based on destination at the “ramp split” west of Ringwood Street (e.g. in the AM peak this concept design provides one whole continuous lane on the left-hand side which is bound for the relatively lightly used Maroondah Highway destination lane compared to two busy lanes destined for the tunnels sharing one lane on the approach); and

 Growth in the Eastern Gateway precinct in the long term may significantly increase WS right-turn demand in the AM peak, conflicting with the peak westbound through movement – this is likely to require additional green time but is not considered likely to produce excessive queues.

Note that the concept in Figure 36 could potentially be modified to add the additional through lane on the left-hand side but at the cost of additional median works on the eastern leg and/or a reduction in the length of the extra through lane on the approach to the Warrandyte Road stopline.

8.3.3 Localised Traffic Transfers between Warrandyte Road and Ringwood Street

The two localised traffic transfers which diverted turning movements from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street to reduce through traffic flows in the peak direction at Ringwood Street by small amounts and to take advantage of spare capacity that exists (or can be easily provided) on some turning movements were also tested at the Warrandyte Road signals.

In the AM peak the local transfer in Figure 30 results in NW right-turns at Warrandyte Road onto Ringwood Bypass being reduced by 100vph.

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In the PM peak the local transfer in Figure 31 results in WN left-turns into Warrandyte Road from Ringwood Bypass being reduced by 100vph. Importantly, this is likely to increase the utilisation of the left-hand through lane at Warrandyte Road, which currently has a significant proportion of its capacity absorbed by left-turning vehicles as discussed in Section 8.2.3.

Also, as noted in Section 7.3.3, the PM peak traffic diversion is likely to require off-corridor works at Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road.

8.4 Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass SIDRA Results

The Warrandyte Road/Ringwood Bypass SIDRA assessment results are summarised in Appendix C. These summaries outline how the various combinations of layout, phasing and volume described in this report were tested.

8.5 Key Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass Findings and Recommendations

The key findings and recommendations regarding the signal phasing, road layout and local diversions at the Warrandyte Road/Ringwood Bypass intersection include:

 Existing intersection layout and phasing (6 phases total) – recommended as basic layout with minor modification (to be undertaken by others) and probably off-corridor roadworks at one site – can accommodate:

 existing demand and future AM peak diversion (without or without additional works or local traffic transfers),

 existing PM peak demand,

 Initial Future PM peak diversion,

 Medium-Term Future PM peak diversion, and

 Post-Eastland PM peak demand (likely to require the maximum eastbound, needs even northbound through-lane usage and probably requires off-site roadworks at Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road and extended south approach left-turn lane).

 Split phasing for the north and south approaches (5 phases total) – not workable in either peak – due to high Warrandyte Road through volumes compared to the right-turn volumes in the AM and PM peaks.

 Lengthening the Southern Approach Left-Turn Lane – desirable improvement to be made as part of the Eastland redevelopment – has a minor direct benefit for left-turning vehicles by allowing them to bypass through movement queues and a significant indirect benefit of encouraging a more even utilisation of the adjacent though-lanes.

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 4th Westbound Lane on Ringwood Bypass at Warrandyte Road – improvement relies on other works and is not desirable at this time but may be worth considering again in the future in a modified form – this improvement:

 needs to be modified to add the extra lane on the left-hand side rather than the right to reduce lane changing disruptions,

 relies on 4th westbound lanes being provided west of Ringwood Street,

 is likely to be highly beneficial in the AM peak – when the westbound through lanes should work quite well anyway, and

 is slightly counter-productive in the PM peak because: a) reducing the right-turns from the Ringwood Bypass to single lanes requires 1s extra of green time to accommodate the expected Post-Eastland flows and makes the intersection highly vulnerable to increases in these right-turns with further development (and possibly with future dead-running bus patterns serving Ringwood Station), and b) eastbound through movements and side street phases place significant demand on the intersection (and cannot realistically be physically expanded) so any extra time required for right-turns from Ringwood Bypass must come at the expense of other critical movements.

 Lane spreading on the eastern approach – is relatively even now so no changes need be assumed in the future unless the 4th westbound lane at Warrandyte Road improvement is made where:

 adding the extra through lane on the right-hand side (as shown in Figure 36) may cause disruptive lane changing, but

 adding the through extra lane on the left-hand side to should produce minimal lane changing disruption as the short lane leads to the downstream lane with the lowest demand (i.e. the lane bound for Maroondah Highway to the west).

 Lane spreading on western approach – is required and/or desirable depending on the future PM peak demand scenario – a more even spread of demand across the eastbound through lanes is needed (or is highly desirable) to accommodate future PM peak demand scenarios because existing through traffic is heavily biased to Lane 3 and:

 A minimum amount of spreading is beneficial under the Initial and Medium-Term future conditions,

 Extra lane spreading is required and maximum lane spreading is desirable under Post-Eastland conditions, and

 The maximum (and to some extent likelihood of extra) lane spreading relies on changes to the Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road signals to encourage the PM peak transfer of about 100vph of WN left-turns from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street.

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 AM Peak local right-turn traffic transfer from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street – can be reasonably assumed to occur for up to a maximum of 100vph of demand if recommended improvements at the Ringwood Street/Ringwood Bypass signals are made and is not expected to require additional off-corridor works but:

 is likely to occur to fill capacity provided for NW right-turns at Ringwood Street assuming that the transfer travel path is faster, and

 is contrary to road management policies which favour traffic use of Warrandyte Road over Ringwood Street.

 PM Peak local left-turn traffic transfer from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street – is likely to be required along with off-corridor roadworks to allow the Warrandyte Road signals to accommodate the Post-Eastland PM peak conditions – can be reasonably assumed to occur for up to a maximum of 100vph of demand if additional off-corridor works at Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road to allow 1.5 lanes for the SE right-turn and associated changes to maximise intersection throughput.

8.6 Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass Recommended Actions

Based on the above findings, the recommended road improvements in the vicinity of the Warrandyte Road/Ringwood Bypass intersection are:

Initial Recommendation:

 Retain the existing layout and phasing.

As soon possible:

 Extend the southern approach left-turn lane from 45m to 60m (required of QIC as part of the Eastland Stage 5 expansion).

Longer term:

 Undertake additional off-corridor works at Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road to encourage WN left-turn transfers from Warradnyte Road – likely to be required for the Post-Eastland PM peak conditions so planning should start now.

 Possibly introduce a 4th westbound through lane if need and a suitable design can be found and the risks are considered sufficiently low – can be considered more at a later time.

8.7 Potential Risks to the Recommended Actions

The risks are minimal initially but significant in the longer-term if stakeholders reject the need for potential roadworks at Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road (or if a suitable design appears cannot be found).

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9 MT DANDENONG ROAD & RINGWOOD BYPASS & MAROONDAH HIGHWAY

9.1 Mt Dandenong Road / Ringwood Bypass / Maroondah Highway Existing Conditions

9.1.1 AM Peak

As shown in the summary results in Figure 37, the Mt Dandenong Road / Ringwood Bypass intersection currently operates very close to capacity (i.e. DOS of 0.93) in the AM peak on both the NEW right-turn and the NESW through movements from Maroondah Highway with significant demand for the ESW left-turn and EW through movements from Dandenong Road (DOS of 0.87) as well.

The AM peak results shown in Figure 37 reflect the observed queuing, including the very long queues on the northeast approach. Other queues that are shown in red in Figure 37 (for the WE through and ESW left-turn movements) are queues in short through and left- turn lanes where queues for the two movements may interact and reduce the utilisation of impacted lanes. Under existing traffic conditions, neither issue is significant but represent issues that need consideration under various future operating scenarios. In particular, these short lanes act to limit the amount of apparent “spare” capacity that can be effectively used on the EW through movement and the NEW right-turn to accommodate future AM peak diversions.

As shown in Table 9 and Figure 38, the site in the AM peak is more highly constrained than it appears from the DOS results in Figure 37 because the cycle time is already averaging slightly above the maximum desirable 130 seconds and the existing phase timing has little flexibility because:

 Phases B and D1 are operating with the minimum vehicle green time and cannot be further reduced;

 Phase E operates with the minimum pedestrian green time so would be difficult to reduce significantly as pedestrian demand rises; and

 The western leg pedestrian crossing requires almost all of Phase B and C to operate (with only 4s spare).

The result of the existing phasing constraints is that the two critical movements which increase under the future AM peak diversion (NEW right-turn and the EW through movements) cannot obtain spare green time from the two movements that are reduced (NESW through and ESW left-turn movements) because they operate in pairs in the same phases. The only exception to this is the Maroondah Highway approaches were split phased (i.e. Phase B were deleted) it could potentially release sufficient time to provide for traffic diversion while providing the minimum pedestrian and vehicle green times.

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AM Peak Volumes PM Peak Volumes

AM Peak Degree of Saturation PM Peak Degree of Saturation

AM Peak 95th Percentile Queue Distances PM Peak 95th Percentile Queue Distances

Figure 37: Mt Dandenong Road / Ringwood Bypass - Existing Conditions SIDRA Results

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Phase A B C D1 E Green Time (sec) 38 10 14 6 29 Yellow Time (sec) 4 4 4 3 4 All‐Red Time (sec) 4 2 3 3 3 Phase Time (sec) 46 16 21 12 36 Phase Split 35 % 12 % 16 % 9 % 27 % Table 9: AM Peak Existing Phase Times

Figure 38: Mt Dandenong Road / Ringwood Bypass Existing Signal Phasing

9.1.2 PM Peak Results

As shown in the summary results in Figure 37, the Mt Dandenong Road / Ringwood Bypass intersection currently operates at capacity in the PM peak on three movements: the WE through movement, the SWE right-turn and the NWW right-turn each of which run in different phases.

The PM peak results shown in Figure 37 reflect the observed queuing conditions well including the difficulty in containing the SWE right-turn queues within the available storage. This matter should be assisted greatly by the future traffic diversions which should reduce this flow.

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Table 10 illustrates that there is absolutely no spare capacity in this intersection during the existing PM peak with the existing phasing because:

 Phases A, C and E are all running the minimum time required to meet existing demand on their critical movements (i.e. no spare time is available);

 Phase B is running the minimum green time (10 seconds); and

 Phase D is actually running below the minimum 6 second vehicle green time because it only runs in 79% of signal cycles.

Note that very minor increases in right-turn flows in future will force the signals to add two seconds to the phase despite its very low DOS so this site is vulnerable to extreme congestion in the PM peak without any traffic diversions.

Once again the only obviously available method for releasing additional green to critical movements involves deleting Phase B because the movements in this phase have a maximum DOS of 0.71. Introducing split phasing the Maroondah Highway approaches is expected to reduce the amount of green time that is being “wasted” by meeting the minimum green time for Phase B).

Phase A B C D1 E Green Time (sec) 19 10 24 4 39 Yellow Time (sec) 4 4 4 3 4 All‐Red Time (sec) 4 2 3 3 3 Phase Time (sec) 27 16 31 10 46 Phase Split 21 % 12 % 24 % 8 % 35 % Table 10: PM Peak Phase Times

9.1.3 Known Existing Safety Issue

VicRoads has identified that this intersection is a “blackspot” location. In particular, 23 through (NESW) vs. right-turn (SWE) vehicle crashes have been recorded in the last 5 years. This is a very high number of crashes (3 is typically the threshold for consideration as a blackspot).

Further, the cause of these crashes is highly likely to be the existing phasing whereby this right-turn movement (which occurs in Phase C) “lags” the opposing through phase (which occurs in Phase A and B). The removal of Phase B would result in the two Maroondah Highway approaches running all of their movements completely separate from each other. It is considered likely that the majority of the existing right-turn vs. through vehicle crashes would be eliminated by the introduction of split phasing arrangement.

Therefore, the known safety issue provides additional impetus to adopt split phasing for this site even during off-peak periods (and possibly offers a full or partial funding source for any works required to implement as well).

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9.2 SIDRA Model Settings & Key Operational Issues

9.2.1 Model Setting Other than Defaults

The existing conditions results in Figure 37 are based on existing SCATS volumes and phasing and cycle times and nearby samples of heavy vehicle flows but can still only be achieved by changing several key SIDRA assumptions to reflect increased driver aggression caused by the congestion in the vicinity including:

 Light vehicle queue storage reduced from 7m to 6m (i.e. drivers cluster together more closely to fit within available queuing areas); and

 Start loss and end gain defaults changed from 3s and 3s to 2s and 4s (i.e. drivers accelerate very promptly at the start of the green signal and start their entry into the intersection further into the amber at the end of the green signal).

Note that the start loss and end gain for the two signalised left-turn movements was 3s and 4s to reflect the fact that there is 1s “late start” coded into the signals to reduce critical all-red times.

It is only with these changes that the critical movements can have their DOS reduced below 1.0 (which is a definitional requirement for existing conditions). The fact that these adjustments to the model settings are necessary indicates how little spare capacity is available at this site.

9.2.2 SCATS Data Issue

There is a shared detector (#21) across the left and middle through lane on the eastern approach. Previous comparisons of this site and manual turning movement counts indicate that multiplying this detector output by 1.6 consistently results in a very accurate estimate of the total through volume on this approach when combined with the adjacent detector (#22) for the right-hand through lane. This factoring of the data is further supported by comparing “in and out” volumes from adjacent signals along Ringwood Bypass.

Therefore, the total through movement volume is considered to be quite accurate. However, the relative lane utilisation calculations used elsewhere in this assessment cannot be used. Instead, the middle and left lanes were allocated a proportion of the traffic based on observed queuing and the fact that the left lane becomes a shared lane only 30m back from the stopline.

We have no significant reason to question the outputs of this analysis but it is noted that the input data is not “pure” for the lanes sharing detector #21.

9.2.3 Lane Utilisation in the Peak Hours

The relative lane utilisation for each lane under existing conditions has been used in almost every future case because the current lane utilisation reflects the geometrics of the existing site (e.g. short lane and shared lane lengths) rather than strong biases toward downstream

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destinations (such as those that apply more heavily to westbound through traffic at Ringwood Street).

9.2.4 Pedestrian Phasing Assumptions

In the SIDRA models all phases and cycles are assumed to provide the minimum pedestrian phase time even though existing demand is reasonably low. This is designed to ensure that the operation of this critical intersection does rely on ongoing low pedestrian crossing demand to function adequately into the future.

9.3 Mt Dandenong Road & Ringwood Bypass Improvement Options

9.3.1 Phasing Options

Both phasing and layout improvements were considered to accommodate existing and future changes traffic demand on the critical AM and PM peak movements while still allowing for the provision of minimum vehicle movement green times and pedestrian crossing times (to allow for pedestrian demand growth as Ringwood is progressively redeveloped).

As discussed above, the phasing options examined include:

 Split phase of the Maroondah Highway approaches with single stage pedestrian crossings – Converting the existing lead and lag phasing of the Maroondah Highway approaches to “split phase” by removing the through phase (Phase B) can occur with the existing layout but at the cost of long phases when the pedestrian crossings are triggered. For the eastern leg crossing, the very high traffic demand on the northeast approach typically “hides” this pedestrian movement by requiring more time to meet traffic demand than is needed for the pedestrian crossing. For the western leg, however, the pedestrian crossing minimum time can become critical in many situations where traffic demand requires less than 25s of green time. If a staged pedestrian crossing of the western leg could be introduced, even more traffic capacity benefit could be extracted from split phasing by removing this constraint.

 Split phase of the Maroondah Highway approaches with pedestrian staging but no pedestrian overlap – if a staged crossing of the western leg is constructed then the northern stage can run in both Phase A and Phase C to reach its minimum time of 19 seconds. This means that the critical minimum pedestrian crossing time for Phase C is the short southern stage (reduces from 25s minimum with single stage crossing to 16s for southern stage only).

 Split phase of the Maroondah Highway approaches with pedestrian staging and pedestrian overlap into adjacent phases – if a staged pedestrian crossing is physically installed and split phasing adopted then it is possible that additional efficiency can be gained – or possible complete single stage pedestrian crossing be completed from north to south – by allowing the southern stage movement of the western leg pedestrian crossing to overlap from Phase C into Phase D (D1 or D3 but not D2) where it can continue to run while the right-turns from Ringwood Bypass and Mt Dandenong Road also run. This allows Phase C to be reduced to the minimum vehicle green if necessary while still allowing a pedestrian crossing.

Note that introducing split phasing and a staged crossing of the western leg may still allow “single stage” crossings of Ringwood Bypass from north to south due to the order and likely

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green time of the phases in which the two stages of the crossing run, particularly if pedestrian phase overlap into Phase D is allowed. South to north crossings are likely to require a two stage crossing unless Phase C is very long. Pedestrians who are forced to stage would experience a reduced level of service (i.e. increased delay) but this it is likely to impact on relatively few people due to the low existing pedestrian use of this crossing. Also, it is likely that staging will require only a relatively small amount of median storage space to safely accommodate waiting pedestrians for the foreseeable future.

It was not generally considered viable to substantially reduce the 130 second AM and PM peak cycle times due to the impact on capacity, the length of critical minimum pedestrian times and the coordination with adjacent signals along Ringwood Bypass. Some minor peak period reductions in cycle length may be possible with a staged crossing of the western leg and somewhat larger reductions might be possible with staged north and south leg pedestrian crossings, particularly at off-peak times. However, any reductions are likely to be subject to signal coordination constraints.

An alternative signal phasing concept considered (but not modelled) was to potentially restrict the green time provided for ESW left-turns to achieve a similar capacity restriction and encouragement to divert around Ringwood Bypass to that which is achieved by reducing the existing two lanes to one. This option appears quite attractive due to its low cost and flexibility to cope with emergencies (e.g. EastLink closure).

The issue of planned or emergency closures of Ringwood Bypass and/or EastLink raises the issue of how the Mt Dandenong Road/Ringwood Bypass signals should be operated in that circumstance. Ideally, Maroondah Highway would resume (as far as possible) its former role in carrying through traffic during major closures producing significant increases in through traffic compared to right-turns at this site. For this reason, it is recommended that, even if split phasing is adopted as regular practice, Phase B be retained as a special phase to be deployed in the event of major closures so that the existing lead and lag phasing can be used temporarily. This in turn means that exclusive right-turn lanes should be retained on the Maroondah Highway approaches even if split phasing is adopted for normal use.

9.3.2 Physical Works Options

Physical works options examined explored three basic issues:

 Providing a staged pedestrian crossing of the western leg to take advantage of split phasing and provide a significant boost in traffic capacity to accommodate the AM and PM peak traffic diversions;

 Reducing the eastern approach left-turn to one lane (from two) to discourage left-turn entry to Ringwood and encourage “through” traffic to divert via Ringwood Bypass; and

 Providing staged crossings of the northern and southern legs to minimise pedestrian waiting times (and probably allow shorter off-peak signal cycles).

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Four physical works options were developed and tested in SIDRA:

 Option 1 – see Figure 39 – provides a staged crossing of the western leg by adjusting kerbs and linemarking and relocating some signal hardware – this option has a “wrong way” median stagger that allows for the western approach stopline to be located as far east as possible. Option 1 also provides a wider pedestrian crossing of the southern leg and wider median on the southern leg.

 Option 2 – see Figure 40 – provides the same facilities as Option but with a “correct” median stagger that requires the western approach stopline to be located a significant distance to the west (which shortens the shared left-hand through lane significantly).

 Option 3 – see Figure 41 – based on Option 2 plus the reduction to one ESW left-turn lane, swapping the third through lane to be added on the right (for more even and efficient lane use balance approaching from further east) and an extension of the existing bicycle lane and path to connect to the shared path system in Ringwood Lake Park.

 Option 4 – see Figure 42 – based on Option 3 plus staging of the north and south leg pedestrian crossings (which requires the removal of the bus queue-jump lane on the northwest approach that is currently used by two buses per hour and kerb, linemarking and signal hardware changes on all approaches).

Note that Options 3 and 4 can be easily altered to reflect the western leg pedestrian stage treatment from Option 1 if the stakeholders prefer that option.

Other physical improvement options that were considered (and tested in SIDRA) were to add shared through and right-turn lanes to the Maroondah Highway approaches that converts the:

 southwestern Maroondah Highway approach from L, T, T, R, R to L, T, T&R, R, R; and/or

 northeastern Maroondah Highway approach from L, T, T, R, R, R to L, T, T, T&R, R, R (assuming a third receiving lane on the southwestern leg can be provided).

The southwestern approach change can be added to the existing layout or any of the improvement Options 1 to 4.

The northeastern approach change can be added together with southwestern approach change. However, the requirement for a third receiving lane would prevent the widening of the median on the southwestern leg. Therefore, it would require modifications to the existing and Options 1 to 3 layouts and be incompatible with Option 4.

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Figure 39: Option 1

Figure 40: Option 2

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Figure 41: Option 3

Figure 42: Option 4

9.4 Mt Dandenong Road & Ringwood Bypass SIDRA Results

The Mt Dandenong Road & Ringwood Bypass assessment results are summarised in Appendix D. These summaries outline how the various combinations of layout, phasing and volume described in this report were tested.

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9.5 Key Mt Dandenong Road & Ringwood Bypass Findings and Recommendations

The key findings and recommendations regarding the signal phasing, road layout and local diversions at the Mt Dandenong Road & Ringwood Bypass intersection include:

 Existing intersection layout and phasing (5 phases total) – not recommended for use – can just accommodate existing traffic demand in both peaks but cannot accommodate the future AM peak and the larger future PM peak traffic diversion scenarios.

 Existing Layout with split phasing on the Maroondah Highway approaches – not recommended for use due to problems in the AM peak – cannot accommodate:

 Fails badly in the AM peak with existing volumes due to imbalance of NW through and right-turn demand versus number of lanes; and

 Only just works in the AM peak after the future diversion (and even then relies on through traffic on the northeast approach “spreading” much more evenly than they do now).

 Works under existing and diverted volume scenarios in the PM peak but is expected to fail after Eastland is redeveloped.

 Split phase of the Maroondah Highway approaches with pedestrian staging but no pedestrian overlap – this basic arrangement is required to reliably meet the future traffic demands in both peaks but can only be used if the Option 1 to Option 4 physical works are implemented – The pedestrian staging design contained in Options 2 to 4 just fails for the existing AM Peak traffic demand with pedestrian phase overlap (i.e. if diversion is not forced the intersection will not work effectively) whereas the Option 1 staging layout just works.

 Split phase of the Maroondah Highway approaches with pedestrian staging and pedestrian overlap into adjacent phases – highly desirable for the AM Peak and useful in the PM Peak – allows all Options to extract additional “wasted time” from Phase C for other phases in the AM peak but offers no traffic advantage in the PM peak (although the longer pedestrian crossing times would cater for less mobile pedestrians and possibly to make single stage crossings possible from north to south).

 Retain a “hidden” Phase B in SCATS even if Split Phasing is adopted – strongly recommended to cater for closures of EastLink or Ringwood Bypass – not compatible with shared lanes on the Maroondah Highway approaches.

 Reducing cycle times – desirable but not easy to achieve – marginal cycle length reductions might be possible at peak times depending on traffic scenario and coordination requirements with other signals along Ringwood Bypass – much easier with staged crossing of western leg.

 Option 1 – preferred layout for staged pedestrian crossing – operationally preferred to the Option 2 pedestrian staging layout due to the slightly shorter pedestrian crossing time for the northern stage and lesser reduction in the length of short through lane on the western approach but has a “wrong way” stagger in the median so Option 2 may need to be adopted instead.

 Option 2 – secondary option for staged pedestrian crossing – slightly worse traffic operations in the AM peak and reduced short lane storage on the western approach for the PM peak traffic demands compared to Option 1 but may be preferred due to “correct” median stagger.

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 Option 3 – not recommended – westbound bicycle connection and arriving lane utilisation balancing are useful but:

 lane reduction forces AM peak traffic diversion from ESW left-turn to EW through movements because it does not provide capacity for existing left-turn demand (and so cannot be introduced until Ringwood Bypass can accommodate the AM peak diversion); and

 restricts the ability of the ESW left-turn to accommodate traffic demand spike in the event of a Ringwood Bypass or EastLink closure.

 Option 4 – not recommended due to high cost of works with minor apparent benefit – north and south leg staging:

 offers no traffic benefit during peak periods;

 offers reduced pedestrian delays on the north and south leg crossings for travel in one direction and longer crossings for less able pedestrians;

 may offer some limited off-peak cycle length reductions but this was not explicitly tested;

 could be provided without the single ESW left-turn lane (to overcome negative issues with that feature).

 involves relatively high cost of works with minor apparent benefit; and

 requires the loss of the (lightly used) bus queue-jump lane.

 ESW Left-Turn Capacity Restriction by Signal Control Not Lane Reduction – preferred option to provide capacity restriction to force diversion if this is needed – is the recommended method of restricting ESW left-turn capacity because it has the flexibility to allow for closures of EastLink and Ringwood Bypass.

 Shared Right-Turn Lanes on Maroondah Highway approaches – not recommended - shared right-turn lanes appear to be of little benefit under split phasing and remove potential for temporary reversion to lead and lag phasing on Maroondah Highway if Ringwood Bypass and/or EastLink are closed.

 Lane spreading on the southwestern approach through movement – needed for all layouts to work in the Post-Eastland Traffic case in the PM peak – is considered reasonably likely to occur because split phase operation typically produces much better lane through lane spreading than lead and lag phasing.

 Lane spreading on the northeastern approach through movement – needed for the existing layout to accommodate the future AM peak demand with split phasing – is considered reasonably likely to occur because split phase operation typically produces much better lane through lane spreading than lead and lag phasing.

Note that the conclusions above are based on a “pedestrian phase always runs” assumption so that the minimum pedestrian time is always provided. In practice, some marginal gains are likely to occur when pedestrians do not place a call but for most phases traffic demands are quite close to the minimum pedestrian times in any case. Further it is considered unwise to rely on permanent low pedestrian demands to operate such a critical intersection.

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9.6 Mt Dandenong Road & Ringwood Bypass Recommended Actions

Based on the above, it is recommended that the Mt Dandenong Road/Ringwood Bypass intersection be modified to:

 adopt the Option 1 layout to address existing operational and safety problems and provide for future traffic demands;

 utilise split phasing of the Maroondah Highway approaches;

 employ pedestrian staging of the western leg pedestrian crossing;

 allow pedestrian phase overlap into Phase D for the western leg pedestrian crossing; and

 reserve the removed Phase B (Maroondah Highway through phase) for use during Ringwood Bypass and EastLink closures.

This should operate adequately for all existing and future traffic scenarios.

Further, the following actions are not recommended at this time:

 retain the existing layout and phasing;

 retain the existing layout and adopt split phasing;

 adopting the Option 3 layout - any restriction of ESW left-turn capacity should be performed using signal timing restriction rather than a reduction of two lanes to one; or

 adding north and south leg pedestrian staging (as shown in Option 4) – due to limited benefit for reasonably high cost.

9.7 Potential Risks to the Recommended Actions

The recommended action should carry very little operational risk, particularly compared to the Do Nothing alternative.

The safety risks at the intersection should be significantly reduced by the adoption of split phasing.

One potential safety risk that may increase is pedestrians to cross the proposed staged crossing of the western leg as a single stage – either because the fail to notice that the two stages are being operated separately or because they do not wish to wait and mistakenly believe that can safely complete the second stage against the red signal.

Note that if the recommended works are introduced prior to the works on Maroondah Highway that force the traffic diversions, the intersection is likely to function quite well because no (or only very small) diversions are needed to make it work and so Ringwood Bypass should be able to cope.

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10 FINDINGS

Based on the above assessment, we conclude that sufficient divertible traffic exists on Maroondah Highway to support the various assumed traffic diversion scenarios.

We understand that the major changes to Maroondah Highway through the Ringwood Activities Area that are likely to encourage traffic diversion are expected to begin very soon. These changes include:

 Reduction to a part-time speed limit of 40km/h;

 Initial removal of peak period clearways opposite Ringwood Station to allow construction of station of an upgraded Ringwood Bus-Rail interchange (and possibly Eastland Stage 5);

 The permanent removal of peak period clearways opposite Ringwood Station;

 Possible eastward extension of the removal of peak period clearways to near Mt Dandenong Road; and

 Possible westward extension of the removal of peak period clearways to near Mt Dandenong Road near to New Street or EastLink Interchange.

The timing of these changes is somewhat uncertain. However, even the first one is likely to trigger some type of peak direction diversion to Ringwood Bypass so many of the works recommended for initial or immediate post-diversion implementation need to be considered urgently.

Similarly, the existing through versus right-turn crash problem at the Mt Dandenong Road signals is an existing issue so the need to address it is already present.

11 RECOMMENDED ACTIONS

Based on our modelling, design and safety assessment, the recommended actions relating to the corridor are outlined below along with recommendations as to priority of action.

Ringwood Bypass:

Immediately:

 Implement a 4th westbound through-lane from 200m west of Ringwood Street (i.e. the lane drop) to the “ramp split” at the western end of Ringwood Bypass – would provide 4 continuous narrowed lanes with reduced clearance to barriers operating at a permanent speed limit of 60kph – this matter is critical to the operation of Ringwood Bypass which can barely accommodate its current level of traffic demand safely and has no room for any AM peak increases without these works – stakeholder consultation, design and Road Safety Audit, etc activities need to commence immediately.

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At the Mt Dandenong Road signals:

Initially:

 Adopt the Option 1 layout to allow pedestrian staging of the western leg pedestrian crossing and split phasing of the Maroondah Highway approaches (to address the existing safety issues);

 Allow pedestrian phase overlap into Phase D for the western leg pedestrian crossing; and

 Reserve the removed Phase B (Maroondah Highway through phase) for use during Ringwood Bypass and EastLink closures when Maroondah Highway demands are likely to rise significantly.

Longer-term:

 If the desired AM peak traffic diversion does not occur, examine the option to control ESW left-turn demand in the AM peak by signal control (i.e. deliberately reduced green times) rather than physically reducing lanes from two to one.

At the Warrandyte Road signals:

Initially:

 Retain the existing layout and phasing.

As soon as possible:

 Ensure that the works to extend the southern approach left-turn lane from 45m to 60m (required of QIC as part of the Eastland Stage 5 expansion) are carried out in accordance with the permit conditions.

Longer-term:

 Upgrade Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road to accommodate a local transfer for 100vph of WN left-turns from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street to assist with accommodating future PM peak traffic demands by allowing increased utilisation of the left-most through lane by through traffic at Warrandyte Road.

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At the Ringwood Street signals:

Initially:

 Change to split phasing of the north and south approaches (i.e. 5 phases overall);

 Provide 2.5 northern approach right-turn lanes (using linemarking changes only);

 Provide 1.5 southern approach right-turn lanes (using linemarking changes only); and

 Make use of the 4th westbound lane improvement to the west of Ringwood Street (above) to maximise lane utilisation and throughput for the AM peak westbound through movement – this work is essential to the function of this intersection in the AM peak immediately after the diversion occurs.

As soon as possible:

 Implement the proposed 2.5 right-turn lane improvement on the southern approach (which requires kerb, detector and linemarking changes, removes an under-utilised bus queue-jump lane and forces all right-turning buses to turn from the left-most lane) – given the length of time required for consultation, design, approval and sourcing funds for physical works, this process should start immediately.

 Request that PTV confirm that the dead-running bus pattern to service the Ringwood Station bus-rail interchange will not include a right-turning loop around Eastland (which includes additional right-turns at this site and restricts the ability to provide the necessary 2.5 lanes to meet right-turn demand) – this consultation should occur urgently so that bus-rail interchange planning is not compromised.

Longer-term:

 Upgrade Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road to accommodate a local transfer for 100vph of WN left-turns from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street to assist with accommodating future PM peak traffic demands by decreasing through traffic demand at Ringwood Street.

At the EastLink Interchange signals:

Initially:

 Retain the existing intersection layout and introduce lead-lag right-turn phasing (and double-cycling in the AM peak when cycle times will be around 130s).

As soon as possible:

 Construct the separated southbound off-ramp improvement option or (less desirably) construct the braided off-ramp option – given the length of time required for consultation, design, approval and sourcing funds for such major works, this process should start immediately.

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Longer term:

 Potentially implement the left-turn trap lane option preferred by the stakeholders but only after significant physical improvements have been made to the southbound off-ramps (and downstream intersections along Ringwood Bypass).

Off-Corridor Roadworks:

Longer term:

 Upgrade the Ringwood Street/Loughnan Road signals to accommodate a local transfer for 100vph of WN left-turns from Warrandyte Road to Ringwood Street to reduce through traffic demand at the Ringwood Street signals and even out eastbound through- lane utilisation at the Warrandyte Road signals – involves at least providing 1.5 right- turn lanes on the southern approach with associated linemarking and minor kerb changes – given the length of time required for consultation, design, approval and sourcing funds for physical works, this process should start immediately.

If you require any further information, please contact me on 9811-3111.

Yours sincerely O'BRIEN TRAFFIC

Mark O’Brien Associate 13803_Ringwood Bypass SIDRA Assessment v6.doc

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ATTACHMENT A

SIDRA RESULT SUMMARY

MAROONDAH HIGHWAY & EASTLINK INTERCHANGE

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EastLink Interchange Signals AM Peak Results

 Existing layout, traffic and phasing (see model 0a) – models observed conditions well with the biggest issue being the 50m 95th percentile queue on the southbound off-ramp which acts to shorten the weaving area and consequently poses safety issues.

 Existing layout with future traffic and existing phasing (see model 0b) – extends the southbound off-ramp queue from 50m to 115m (which would result in the weaving area being consistently blocked by queues) and draws away significant green time from other movements at the intersection– this issue needs to be fixed by improving the off-ramp layout or by significantly changing the phasing of the intersection.

 Existing layout with future traffic and lead-lag right-turn phasing - allows the southbound off-ramp queue to be reduced:

 from 115m to 105m with the existing 130s cycle time (see model 0b_1),

 to 90m with a`120s cycle time (see model 0b_1a), and

 to 75m with the minimum 65s (i.e. double cycling against the adjacent signals that operate at 130s) (see model 0b_1c) – this is the best result possible for this queue without major physical works.

 Critically, the double-cycling option may not work with any of the trap lane options due to excessive queuing on the western approach without additional counter-peak diversions to Ringwood Bypass or significant lane spreading on the western approach (see model 0b_1c vs. model 2b_5).

 Existing layout with future traffic, lead-lag phasing and 4th off-ramp lane (see model 0_b2) – does not shorten the southbound off-ramp queue compared the same model of the existing layout (i.e. same phasing and cycle time) under future traffic demand because lane utilisation is assumed to be unchanged – variations which add extra spreading of off-ramp traffic across the available lanes to reasonable limits only reduces queues slightly and is a somewhat artificial assumption in any case.

 Existing layout with future traffic, lead-lag phasing and separated southbound off- ramps (see model 0b_3) – frees up extra green time for Maroondah Highway through movements and on the southbound off-ramps has sufficient capacity, no weaving issues and queues that are easily contained within the available storage – this best performing option works without double-cycling which may not be viable in any case due to the inability to use a pedestrian overlap phase for the northern leg of the staged crossing of Maroondah Highway (because the left-turn from the tunnel off-ramp must run instead).

 Existing layout with future traffic, lead-lag phasing and braided southbound off- ramps (see model 0b_4) – works identically to the existing layout except that the southbound off-ramp lanes where moderate weaving flows would occur (left-turn lane and right-most right-turn lane) have 95th percentile queues of less than 30m and the longer queues in the busier right-turn lanes do not interfere with other traffic – this option performs acceptably well and does not require double-cycling and so is an alternative to the separated off-ramps option if that is not considered suitable by the stakeholders.

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 The left-turn trap lane options can be put into simplified groups (Options A and B, Option C and Options D and E) that would perform similarly in SIDRA assessments with slight variations based on right-turn queue storage lengths on the western and northern approaches.

 The only minor benefit available from any of the trap lane options in the AM peak is the minor increase in the effective weaving length on the southbound off-ramp approach offered by Option B (which increases queue storage by around 1 car length on all four lanes and also improves sight distances at the pedestrian crossing).

 All trap lane options reduce the ability of the intersection phasing and timing to be modified to accommodate the impact of the AM peak diversion on the southbound off- ramp without major physical works, for example:

 Option A & B layout with future traffic and lead-lag phasing (see model 0b_1 vs. model 2b_3) – produces the same undesirable southbound off-ramp queuing result (105m) as the corresponding scenario for the existing layout for the western approach but at the cost of longer queues (120m to 225m) and a higher DOS (0.58 to 0.82) for the eastbound through movement which critically prevents the use of the double-cycling required to make the existing layout work effectively to manage the southbound off- ramp queues, and

 Option A & B layout with future traffic, 4th off-ramp lane and lead-lag phasing (e.g. see model 0b_2 vs. model 4b_3) – produces the same undesirable southbound off-ramp queuing result as the corresponding scenario for the existing layout for the western approach but at the cost of longer queues (120m to 230m) and a higher DOS (0.56 to 0.82) for the eastbound through movement which critically prevents the use of the double-cycling required to make the 4th off-ramp lane layout work effectively;

 Even after major physical works are undertaken on the southbound off-ramp to accommodate the AM peak diversion, all trap lane options extend queues and increase DOS on the eastbound through movement (although much less so than if these major works have not been installed), for example:

 Option A & B layout with future traffic, lead-lag phasing and separated southbound off-ramps (e.g. see model 0b_3 vs. model 6b_3) – produces the same acceptable southbound off-ramp queuing result as the corresponding scenario for the existing layout for the western approach but at the cost of longer queues (110m to 195m) and a higher DOS (0.54 to 0.76) for the eastbound through movement which critically makes double-cycling unnecessary, and

 Option A & B layout with future traffic, lead-lag phasing and braided southbound off-ramps (see model 0b_4 vs. model 12b_4) – produces the same acceptable southbound off-ramp queuing result as the corresponding scenario for the existing layout for the western approach but at the cost of longer queues (120m to 225m) and a higher DOS (0.58 to 0.82) for the eastbound through movement which critically makes double- cycling unnecessary.

 A signalised crossing of the left-turn trap lane options could be added with only very slight increases in 95th percentile queues (7m to 25m) and DOS (0.14 to 0.16) on this movement that do not produce a material negative impact in the AM peak (model 2b vs. model 2b_2).

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EastLink Interchange Signals PM Peak Findings

 Existing layout, traffic and phasing (see model 1a) – models observed conditions well with the biggest issue being the very high degree of saturation (DOS) for the WS right-turn (which is based on volumes that are likely to be over-estimated) and the eastbound through movement queue that is likely to extend through the adjacent Hillcrest Avenue signals.

 The eastbound lane utilisation on the western approach has a number of issues (summarised in Figure 23 and Figure 22) which are so significant that the Initial Future traffic pattern is considered unsuitable at this location if a trap lane treatment is adopted (i.e. traffic will have to shift to the Medium-Term Future pattern immediately on the opening of the trap lane treatment).

 The eastbound traffic lane utilisation is:

 reasonably even under existing traffic conditions for the existing road layout (which produces reasonably short through movement queues at the signals),

 reasonably even under Medium-Term Future traffic conditions with any left-turn trap lane treatment (which provides for efficiencies at upstream intersections and queues for the through movement that are only slightly longer than for the existing traffic conditions), but

 very unevenly spread under the Initial Future traffic conditions with any left-turn trap lane treatment (which produces inefficiencies at upstream intersections and much longer queues for the through movement).

 Existing layout and phasing with all traffic scenarios (model 1a vs. model 1b vs. model 1c) – The existing layout produces the same results for all traffic pattern scenarios because the centre lane carries the most through traffic in each scenario and the volume in that lane remains the same – see Figure 23 – therefore, there is no requirement to institute a trap lane treatment to accommodate the PM peak diversions.

 All trap lane options – increase eastbound through traffic queues compared to the existing layout for the western approach under the same (i.e. existing) phasing by increasing the use of this critical centre lane - see Figure 23.

 Both the existing and trap lane layouts with Medium-Term traffic – produce queues that are likely to interact with the adjacent signals at Hillcrest Avenue (EastLink Offices) some 110m from the signals to a greater degree than at present and only a change to lead and lag right-turns from Maroondah Highway is likely to significantly reduce interactions with Hillcrest Avenue.

 Converting the existing phasing to lead and lag right-turns from Maroondah Highway:

 allows better matching of demands and green times and so reduces the critical eastbound through movement 95th percentile queue from 235m to 110m for the Options A & B layouts under Medium-Term traffic (model 3c vs. model 3c_3),

 continues to provide significant benefits when either the 4th lane or separated ramp treatments are applied to the southbound off-ramp approach (model 5c vs. model 5c_3 and model 7c vs. 7c_3), and

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 has only one apparent downside which is the potential for forced staging of north- south pedestrian movements at peak times although pedestrian demand for this crossing is currently very low and there is a bridge directly above the crossing which attracts demand away from it.

 Applying the existing phasing sequence, the shortened WS right-turn lanes:

 in Options C, D and E require extension of the cycle time to 119 seconds (model 9c and model 11c);

 in Options D and E result in 95th percentile queues that extend beyond the storage provided (model 9c); and

 in Option C produces 95th percentile queues that are closer to the end of the storage than Options A and B but they do not overspill into the through lanes (model 11c).

 Applying the lead and lag right-turn phasing sequence, the shortened WS right-turn lanes have slightly shorter queues but similar issues to the existing phasing (model 9c_3 and model 11c_3).

 Signalising the crossing of the WN left-turn lane increases the 95th percentile queue but otherwise has little impact on signal operations, for example:

 For Option A & B trap lane under Medium-Term traffic conditions (model 3c vs. model 3c_1) the queue grows from 60m to 110m and the DOS increases from 0.56 to 0.59.

 The potential AM peak related improvements to the southbound off-ramp layouts were tested for their effect in the PM peak (in concert with the Options A and B improvements to the western approach) with:

 The 4th lane improvement having no negative impact on PM peak operations under existing phasing (model 3c vs. model 5c) or with lead and lag right-turn phasing (model 3c_3 vs. model 5c_3); and

 The separated ramps improvement having significant negative impact under existing phasing (model 3c vs. model 7c) by extending both through and right-turn queues on the western approach but producing no negative impact with lead and lag right-turn phasing (model 3c_3 vs. model 7c_3).

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ATTACHMENT B

SIDRA RESULT SUMMARY TABLES

RINGWOOD STREET & RINGWOOD BYPASS

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Layout Phasing Volume Scenario Model Result Comments 6P Significant WBD lane drop congestion, long WBD 0a Just works (existing) Existing Nov 2012 AM Through and north approach RT queues 5P Peak Produces shorter queues on north and east 0a_1 Works better (n-s split) approaches but still has WBD lane drop problems Future Vol (350vph Only just works Lane drop congestion would be much worse after WBD diversion with in SIDRA which 0b diversion and so SIDRA result which shows adequate existing relative lane ignores the lane stopline capacity is almost certainly wrong. Existing Layout utilisation) drop congestion

5P Future Vol with WBD Through lane spread Cannot accommodate lane spread without 4th WBD (n-s split) 0b_1 Not modelled (i.e. all diversion loaded lane on receiving side. into short WBD lane) Future Vol + 100 East Fails with much longer queues on north approach. App Through to North 0b_2 Fails Lane drop would be somewhat better but still a very App RT significant problem. Downstream lane drop issue should be absent but 6P wasted green time for north-south through 8a_1 Just works (existing) movements makes intersection extremely inflexible 4th WBD Lane Future Vol with WBD (with all other movements running minimum times). only Through lane spread 5P Downstream lane drop issue should be absent but 8b_1 Works north approach RT queues are still too long without (n-s split) shared (2.5) RT lanes Only just works The lane drop congestion would be much worse after Future Vol (350vph in SIDRA which 2b diversion but this layout has shorter north approach WBD diversion) ignores the lane Shared RT North 5P queues compared to existing layout (2.5 lanes) & drop congestion (n-s split) South (1.5 lanes) Future Vol + 100 East Just works on north and east approaches and should App Through to North 2b_2 Just works make lane drop issue better but it would remain a App RT very significant problem. The expansion of south approach right-turn Shared RT North capacity from 1.5 to 2.0 or 2.5 lanes makes no (2.5 lanes) & 5P Future Vol (350vph Same as 4b & 6b difference to the operation of the intersection in South (2.0 or 2.5 WBD diversion) Models 2b (n-s split) the AM peak but does have major impacts in the RT lanes) PM peak. 4th WBD Lane & Resolves lane drop issue, shortens queues on Shared RT North 5P Future Vol with WBD east and north approaches. Extra RT lanes on (2.5 lanes) & 10b_2 Best result Through lane spread south approach do not significantly improve AM Shared RT South (n-s split) result. (1.5+ lanes) Figure 43: Ringwood Street & Ringwood Bypass – AM Peak Results

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Layout Phasing Volume Scenario Model Result Comments 6P Just Significant EBD Through (two left-most lanes) and 1a (existing) works south approach RT queues Existing Nov 2012 PM Peak 5P Works Produces shorter queues on south and west 1a_1 (n-s split) better approaches Produces long queues on south and west Initial Future Vol (250vph EBD 1b Works approaches than existing volumes for 5 phase diversion) operation but still less than for 6 phase operation West approach cannot accommodate demand based Medium-Term Future Vol (with 1c Fails on existing biased lane utilisation but intersection existing EBD Through lane bias) otherwise operates reasonably well. Medium-Term Future Vol (with West approach can accommodate demand when 1c_1 Works Existing Layout even EBD Through lane bias) EBD Through is evenly spread. South approach cannot accommodate demand and 5P Post-Eastland Future Vol (with 1d Fails west approach just accommodates demand, (n-s split) existing EBD Through lane bias) producing very long queues for both. Post-Eastland Future Vol (with South approach cannot accommodate demand, 1d_1 Fails even EBD Through lane bias) producing a very long queue Transfer of 100 vph of EBD Through traffic (that turns Post-Eastland Future Vol (with left at next signals) to left-turns at Ringwood St offers even EBD Through lane bias) + only a minor reduction in queues on the south 100vph West App Through 1d_2 Fails approach (where demand still exceeds capacity). Transferred to Left-Turn Also, this transfer requires works at Ringwood Movement St/Loughnan Rd signals to function. Medium-Term Future Vol (with The 4th westbound lane on Ringwood Bypass 9c_1 Works even EBD Through lane bias) west of Ringwood St provides no effective 4th WBD Lane 5P capacity benefit in the PM peak (although it would only (n-s split) Post Eastland Future Vol (with 9d_1 Fails shorten east approach queues and improve even EBD Through lane bias) safety). Initial Future Vol (250vph EBD 3b Works Intersection operates reasonably well. diversion) Demand is at capacity on west approach (with long Medium-Term Future Vol (with Just 3c queues). The rest of the intersection operates existing EBD Through lane bias) Works reasonably well. Medium-Term Future Vol (with 3c_1 Works Intersection operates reasonably well. even EBD Through lane bias) Post-Eastland Future Vol (with West and south approaches cannot accommodate Shared RT North 3d Fails (2.5 lanes) & 5P existing EBD Through lane bias) demand, producing very long queues Shared RT South approach cannot accommodate demand and (n-s split) Post-Eastland Future Vol (with South (1.5 lanes) 3d_1 Fails west approach just accommodates demand, even EBD Through lane bias) producing very long queues for both. Transfer of 100 vph of EBD Through traffic (that turns Just Post-Eastland Future Vol (with left at next signals) to left-turns at Ringwood St works even EBD Through lane bias) + enables west approach to reach capacity while the with south 100vph West App Through 3d_2 south approach accommodates its demand. West approach Transferred to Left-Turn approach and south approach queues are very long. queue Movement The left-turn transfer also requires works at issues Ringwood St/Loughnan Rd signals to function. Fails or just works The short length of right-turn lanes (even though when RT there are now 2 of them) cause T and RT queue Post-Eastland Future Vol (with 5d_1 & queue interactions and actually provide less capacity (for the even EBD Through lane bias) 5d_1a Shared RT North overspill assumed traffic pattern) compared to a 1.5 RT lane (2.5 lanes) & 5P modifies treatment. Additional RT (n-s split) geometry South (2.0 lanes) Post-Eastland Future Vol (with even EBD Through lane bias) + South approach lacks capacity to meet demand and 100vph West App Through 5d_2 Fails experiences severe queue overspill unless geometry Transferred to Left-Turn is modified to account for RT queues. Movement The expansion of south approach right-turn capacity to 2.5 lanes allows the future demand at Shared RT the signals including Eastland, Costco and the North (2.5 5P Post-Eastland Future Vol (with bus interchange by providing significant extra lanes) & Shared 7d_1 Works even EBD Through lane bias) capacity and better lane balance. Note that dead- RT South (2.5 (n-s split) running buses can no longer physically turn in RT lanes) the right-most lane but must instead use the left- most lane. Figure 44: Ringwood Street & Ringwood Bypass – PM Peak Results

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ATTACHMENT C

SIDRA RESULT SUMMARY

WARRANDYTE ROAD & RINGWOOD BYPASS

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Layout Phasing Volume Scenario Model No. Result Comments North approach RT is the critical movement (DOS = 0.98) with the westbound through movement having a DOS of 0.78. The westbound T movement queue is shorter than observed in the 6P Existing Nov 2012 0a Works field because large variations in westbound traffic phases from AM Peak (existing) the Mt Dandenong Rd signals and occasional potential queue- Existing back are not factored in to the model. This discrepancy is not Layout considered serious. Future Vol (350vph Extra traffic added to a non-critical movement so DOS result 0b Works WBD diversion) for the intersection does not change (still 0.98). Future Vol + 100 Extra traffic added to a non-critical movement and traffic Works East App Through to 0c removed from the critical movement so DOS result for the Best North App RT intersection is reduced (now 0.93). Increases capacity for a non-critical movement and so allows 6P Future Vol (350vph Works 4th WBD Lane 2b time to be transferred to the critical north approach RT WBD diversion) Well & Single East (existing) movement (which reduces the intersection DOS to 0.91). and West Future Vol + 100 Reduces traffic demand, DOS and queue length on the approach RT Works East App Through to 2c formerly critical north approach RT lane. The new critical lanes Well North App RT movement is the RT on the east approach (DOS = 0.91). Figure 45: Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass – AM Peak Results

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Model Layout Phasing Volume Scenario Result Comments No. Significant EBD Through demand and lane bias (to Lane 3) results in a DOS = 0.95. EBD T signal coordination is Existing PM Peak 1a Works considered to be "exceptional" because of the distance to and strong linkage with the Ringwood St signals about 250m to the west. Initial Future Vol Some adjustment to existing phase times allows the site DOS to 1b Works (250vph EBD diversion) stay the same (0.95) with the existing EBD T lane proportions. Initial Future Vol Allows critical EBD T movement DOS to drop to 0.90. This is Works 1b_1 considered the maximum lane spreading likely to occur into Lane (250vph EBD diversion with better minimum EBD T spread) 2 without additional works at Loughnan Rd/Ringwood St. Extra EBD T traffic is accommodated at a DOS (0.95) by Medium-Term Future Vol 1c Works removing time from the Warrandyte Rd T phase so that south app T movement also has a DOS of 0.95. Medium-Term Future Vol Extra EBD T traffic is accommodated partly by lane spreading at Works 1c_1 a DOS (0.92) so less time is removed from the Warrandyte Rd T 6P (with minimum EBD T better (existing) spread) phase so that south app T movement now has a DOS of 0.88. Existing Post-Eastland Future Vol Layout EBD T and south app T movements cannot both be (with minimum EBD T 1d Fails accommodated with the existing EBD T lane spread as DOS spread) exceeds 1.0 on one or the other. South app T is now critical at DOS = 0.97 while EBD T has a Post-Eastland Future Vol DOS of 0.93. The 95th % south app T queue is now 230m (with extra EBD T spread 1d_2 Works compared to existing queues of 140m. This will interfere to some and sth app T even spread) extent with the accesses to Eastland to the south but this was always expected to occur with Eastland Stage 5. Transfer of 100 vph of EBD T traffic at Warrandyte Rd to left- Post-Eastland Future Vol turns at Ringwood St offers a reduced EBT T queue at Warrandyte Rd because the maximum amount of lane spreading (with maximum EBD T Works 1e into Lane 2 can occur. Note that this transfer is likely to require spread) + 100vph West App Best Through Transferred to Left- works at Ringwood St/Loughnan Rd signals to function. South Turn Movement app T is still critical at DOS = 0.97 while EBD T DOS drops only slightly to 0.92. Post-Eastland Future Vol EBD T and south app T and RT movements all significantly 5P Fails (with minimum EBD T 1d_1 exceed a DOS of 1.0. Split phasing, as suspected, is not a (n-s split) Badly spread) workable option. Post-Eastland Future Vol DOS = 0.97 on both EBD T and south app T movements. South 3d_2a Works app lane bias means that maximum 95th % queue is 240m while (with extra EBD T spread) the EBD T queue is 250m. Post-Eastland Future Vol DOS = 0.95 on both EBD T and south app T movements. Existing Works Removing the south app lane bias means that maximum 95th % 3d_2b Layout & (with extra EBD T spread Better queue is 205m while the extra spread for the EBD T movement 6P Longer and sth app T even spread) results in a queue of 210m. South (existing) Approach Post-Eastland Future Vol RT Lane (with maximum EBD T Works Same as model 3d_2b except that adopting maximum EBD T spread and sth app T even 3e spread) + 100vph West App Better spread results in a DOS of 0.93 and a 95th % queue is 180m. Through Transferred to Left- Turn Movement The requirement for an extra 1s green time for the single RT 4th WBD Post-Eastland Future Vol lanes on the east and west approaches means that EBD T and Lane & (with extra EBD T spread 5d_2b Works south app T movements actually have a slightly higher DOS than Single East and sth app T even spread) the comparable model 3d_2b. This option is highly vulnerable to and West growth in the east and west app RT movements. Approach 6P Post-Eastland Future Vol RT Lanes & (existing) The requirement for an extra 1s green time for the single RT (with maximum EBD T Longer lanes on the east and west approaches means that EBD T and spread and sth app T even South 5e Works south app T movements actually have a slightly higher DOS than spread) + 100vph West App Approach the comparable model 3e. This option is highly vulnerable to Through Transferred to Left- RT Lane growth in the east and west app RT movements. Turn Movement Figure 46: Warrandyte Road & Ringwood Bypass – PM Peak Results

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ATTACHMENT D

SIDRA RESULT SUMMARY TABLES

Mt DANDENONG ROAD & MAROONDAH HIGHWAY & RINGWOOD BYPASS

- 86 -

Layout Phasing Volume Scenario Model No. Result Comments The intersection operates with high DOS and long queues on 5P several movements and is more highly constrained than it appears Existing AM Peak 0a Works (existing) due to minimise vehicle and pedestrian green times. Phase B appears to contain significant "wasted" time. NE approach RT is 10% over capacity at a 131s cycle time once all Existing AM Peak 2a Fails other min. ped times are met. Existing NE approach RT is 1% over capacity at a 131s cycle time once all Future Vol Just 4P 2b other min. ped times are met as diversion from T to RT traffic (w total diversion) Fails (M Hwy split) results in more even lane use on NE approach Future Vol spreading the NE approach T traffic evenly just allows all post- Just 2b_1 diversion traffic to get through the intersection (DOS ~1.0) with (w total diversion + Works NE app T spread) longer queues on the NE approach Existing + 3rd 4P NE approach RT is 8% over capacity at a 131s cycle time once all shared T Existing AM Peak 2e Fails other min. ped times are met. Shared lane does not significantly lane from (M Hwy split) improve result compared to model 2a NE Phase C needs to run a 16s green time to accommodate min. ped. 4P Just Existing AM Peak 4a time, which is not all needed for vehicle demand and takes time Works (M Hwy split) away from the critical NE approach. Introduction of ped phase overlap for the southern stage of the 4P western into Phase D allows extra time to be given to the NE (M Hwy split w Existing AM Peak 4a_1 Works approach. Therefore, ped overlap phasing allows Option 1 to ped overlap) accommodate existing AM traffic pattern so it can be implemented Option 1 before diversion for safety. 4P Future Vol Traffic diversion better balances lane use on NE approach and 4b Works switches critical movement to E app T movement (DOS = 0.97 in (M Hwy split) (w total diversion) busiest lane). Queues are all similar to or less than existing. 4P Introduction of ped phase overlap for the southern stage of the Future Vol Works western into Phase D allows extra time to be given to the E (M Hwy split w 4b_1 (w total diversion) Well approach. Therefore, ped overlap phasing allows Option 1 to ped overlap) accommodate future AM traffic pattern at a max. DOS = 0.94. Phase C needs to run a 17s green time to accommodate min. ped. 4P Just Existing AM Peak 6a time, which is not all needed for vehicle demand and takes time Fails (M Hwy split) away from the critical NE approach and has a DOS = 1.02. Introduction of ped phase overlap for the southern stage of the 4P western into Phase D allows extra time to be given to the NE approach. Therefore, ped overlap phasing allows Option 1 to Existing AM Peak 6a_1 Works (M Hwy split w accommodate existing AM traffic pattern so it can be implemented Option 2 ped overlap) before diversion for safety - IDENTICAL RESULT TO OPTION 1 (model 4a_1) 4P Future Vol 6b Works IDENTICAL RESULT TO OPTION 1 (model 4b) (M Hwy split) (w total diversion) 4P Future Vol Works (M Hwy split w 6b_1 IDENTICAL RESULT TO OPTION 1 (model 4b_1) (w total diversion) Well ped overlap) Option 3 layout is unable to provide sufficient E-to-SW LT capacity to meet existing demand being at or over capacity on 3 4P Clearly approaches. Therefore, Option 3 does act to "force" LT traffic to Existing AM Peak 8a (M Hwy split) Fails divert via Ringwood Bypass and so should not be deployed before other sections along Ringwood Bypass can accept the diverted traffic. 4P DOS results are slightly better but even ped. overlap does not allow Option 3 Existing AM Peak 8a_1 Fails (M Hwy split w Option 3 to accommodate the existing traffic pattern. ped overlap) 4P Future Vol 8b Works SIMILAR RESULT TO OPTION 2 (model 6b) (M Hwy split) (w total diversion) 4P Future Vol Works (M Hwy split w 8b_1 SIMILAR RESULT TO OPTION 2 (model 6b_1) (w total diversion) Well ped overlap) 4P IDENTICAL RESULT TO OPTION 3 (model 6b_1) for traffic but Future Vol Works Option 4 (M Hwy split w 10b_1 with reduced delays to pedestrians crossing the Maroondah Hwy (w total diversion) Well ped overlap) approaches Figure 47: Mt Dandenong Road & Ringwood Bypass – AM Peak Results

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Model Layout Phasing Volume Scenario Result Comments No. The intersection operates a capacity and with long queues on several movements and is very highly constrained by minimum 5P Just Existing Existing PM Peak 1a vehicle and pedestrian green times. Queue overspill occurs on Works (existing) the SW approach RT. Phase B appears to contain significant "wasted" time. Removing Phase B releases sufficient green time to reduce all 4P critical movement DOS results while providing min. ped. times. (M Hwy Existing PM Peak 3a Works Queues grow moderately on the M Hwy approaches but reduce split) on the Ringwood Bypass approach and do not change on the E app. Thus, split phasing encourages diversion. Initial Future Vol Critical DOS and queue length results improve compared to 3b Works (250vph diversion) model 3a. Extra traffic on RB means W app reaches capacity and W app Medium-Term Future Vol At 95th % queues grow from 300m (in model 3b) to 395m. Wasted 3c (450 diversion) Capacity time in Phase C to provide single stage ped crossing of west leg. Staging needed to release this wasted green time. Post-Eastland Future Vol Extra traffic on multiple movements and no flexibility to shift time (450 diversion + development 3d Fails to critical movements mean site would operate at 107% of traffic) capacity. Existing + 4P IDENTICAL RESULT TO EX. LAYOUT. No RT traffic uses third 3rd Existing PM Peak 3a_1 Works lane because lane demand is balanced under current layout (i.e. shared RT (M Hwy it is already as efficient as it can be for split phase). from SW split) The reduced length of the short T lane on the W app, increases Option 1 Existing PM Peak 5a Works the DOS for the site from 0.97 (model 3a) to 0.98. Otherwise, the results are identical to model 3a. Shifts in traffic demand allow the benefits of the staged W leg ped crossing to be applied. W app queues grow from 310m to Initial Future Vol (250vph Works 5b 325m due to increased traffic but DOS reduces slightly due to diversion) Well extra green time compared to model 5a. DOS and queues and other approaches either remain unchanged or are reduced. Further shifts in traffic demand add to the benefits of ped 4P Medium-Term Future Vol staging. W app queues grow from 325m to 340m but DOS stays 5c Works (M Hwy (450 diversion) the same as for model 5b. Other approaches perform as well or split) better than model 5b. Post-Eastland Future Vol Option 1 layout allows green time to be traded so that site DOS = (450 diversion + development 5d Just Fails 1.02 (i.e. just fails on the W app) based on existing lane traffic) utilisation (which has significant bias on the SW app). Post-Eastland Future Vol Allowing the SW app T traffic demand to spread across the T lanes evenly releases enough time to the W app to provide Just (450 diversion + development 5d_1 sufficient capacity. This spreading is likely to be realistic as split Works traffic + SW app T lane phasing tends to force spreading across lanes better than lead spread) and lag phasing. Option 2 Existing PM Peak 7a Works Initial Future Vol Works 7b (250vph diversion) Well Medium-Term Future Vol 7c Works 4P (450 diversion) All results for Option 2 are slightly worse than Option 1 due to (M Hwy the reduced length of the short T lane on the W app compared to Post-Eastland Future Vol Option 1. Other approaches are the same for both options. split) 7d Just Fails (450 diversion + dev. traffic) Post-Eastland Future Vol At 7d_1 (450 diversion + dev. traffic + Capacity SW app T spread) Option 3 Existing PM Peak 9a Works Initial Future Vol Works 9b 4P (250vph diversion) Well Same results as Option 2 except for the E app - where relatively (M Hwy Medium-Term Future Vol 9c Works low traffic demands fit easily into the changed layout in Option 3. split) (450 diversion) Post-Eastland Future Vol 9d Just Fails (450 diversion + dev. traffic) Medium-Term Future Vol Same results as Option 3 (model 9c) but produces potentially Option 4 11c Works reduced pedestrian delays for crossing the Maroondah Hwy 4P (450 diversion) approaches. (M Hwy Post-Eastland Future Vol Same results as Option 3 (model 9d_1) but produces potentially split) At 11d_1 reduced pedestrian delays for crossing the Maroondah Hwy (450 diversion + dev. traffic + Capacity SW app T lane spread) approaches. Figure 48: Mt Dandenong Road & Ringwood Bypass – PM Peak Results

RINGWOOD TRAFFIC STUDY PHASE 2

CONNECTEAST INTERCHANGE AT MAROONDAH HIGHWAY

Prepared by: Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd Suite 2, 22 Gillman Street HAWTHORN EAST VIC 3123 Ph: 9811 3111 Fax: 9811 3131

For: Braeside Avenue RINGWOOD VIC 3134 Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 This Report 1 1.2 Background 1 1.3 Connecteast Bid Design 1 2. RINGWOOD AND THE MITCHAM- IN CONTEXT 3 2.1 Ringwood in the Metropolitan Context 3 2.2 A Primary Metropolitan Freeway Function 3 2.3 Completing the Network Connections 3 3. FREEWAY DESIGN AND FUNCTION 4 3.1 User Expectation, Safety and Service 4 3.2 The General Issue of Traffic Performance 4 3.3 The Context of The Ringwood Business Centre and its Development 5 3.4 Microsimulation Test 6 4. SUMMARY 8 Ringwood Traffic Study, Phase 2 Connecteast Highway Interchange

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 This Report

This report is the response to the City of Maroondah’s request for comment on the form of the interchange proposed by Connecteast, the successful bidder for the Mitcham-Frankston Freeway (MFF) Project.

1.2 Background

The completion of Phase 1 of the Ringwood Traffic Study saw that study’s outcome with respect to the regional road system subsequently endorsed by VicRoads. In particular, a MFF/Maroondah Highway interchange that provided for all movements at this site was a thoroughly researched and significant element in the agreed regional road strategy.

Our modelling and design input resulted in significant changes to the interchange during the course of the study. This was a significant departure from the much more limited preceding planning proposals, and the interchange concept evolved to ensure that a freeway service capability could be matched to the constrained localised road network servicing the Ringwood Business Centre (RBC) where there are imminent proposals for further development, including a Transit Cities Program.

The resulting preliminary interchange layout proposal was effectively endorsed by a Ministerial Statement regarding traffic using the Ringwood Bypass being able to travel toll-free between the Maroondah Highway/Mt Dandenong Road intersection in the east and the Maroondah Highway/MFF interchange in the west.

In all of the Ringwood Traffic Study work the Highway interchange provided for all movements between the MFF (south) and Maroondah Highway.

1.3 Connecteast Bid Design

With the announcement of Connecteast as the preferred consortium to proceed with the MFF project, the form of its design bid has become available. It reveals that the MFF interchange with Maroondah Highway in Ringwood, shown diagrammatically in Figure 1, does NOT provide for right turn traffic from the northbound carriageway off the MFF onto the Maroondah Highway at Ringwood.

Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd 1 Ref : 4105 Connecteast Highway Interchange.doc – 5 December 2005 Ringwood Traffic Study, Phase 2 Connecteast Highway Interchange

To MFF (west) and From MFF (west) and Ringwood Bypass Ringwood Bypass to from Maroondah Highway Maroondah Highway

To Ringwood Centre Maroondah Highway

To Mitcham

RightTurn NOT Provided

From MFF (south) To MFF (south) to Maroondah Highway from Maroondah Hwy

Figure 1: Connecteast Proposal For Movements at MFF/Maroondah Highway Interchange

Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd 2 Ref : 4105 Connecteast Highway Interchange.doc – 5 December 2005 Ringwood Traffic Study, Phase 2 Connecteast Highway Interchange

2. RINGWOOD AND THE MITCHAM-FRANKSTON FREEWAY IN CONTEXT

2.1 Ringwood in the Metropolitan Context

For decades, Ringwood has been seen as a potential major District Centre. Accordingly, the original metropolitan transport context that embodied the former Eastern and Scoresby Freeways was to:

 Recognise Ringwood’s potential as a hub for regional suburban growth; and

 Provide a quality transport network linking between, and servicing access to, Ringwood, Dandenong and Frankston.

2.2 A Primary Metropolitan Freeway Function

The provision of very high cost urban transport infrastructure such as a freeway- standard facility is made for objectives other than the building of a roadway or a commercial asset. An urban freeway such as the MFF and its connection to the Eastern Freeway is not just a means of travelling from ‘A’ to ‘B’; it is not an interstate facility; it is not an intrastate facility; it is not a ‘bypass’. While an urban freeway can be all of those things, that is not the situation here.

The facility’s quality transport service potential is meant to provide a high level of accessibility to service and enhance the economic development in its transport catchment. Commitment to the building of a freeway is a signal to advance multi- million dollars worth of investment because of the quality transport service that is being foreshadowed. That investment, its multipliers and the enhanced annual regional turnover will dwarf the capital cost of well-founded infrastructure.

It is essential, therefore, that the facility serve its region and its regional purpose.

2.3 Completing the Network Connections

Connections to major regional arterial roads provide limb and branch connections that complete the network function and service penetration that an urban freeway provides to the economic units of activity in the freeway corridor. Adequate connection at Ringwood is a paramount need for the RBC and its growth aspirations in a centre so constrained by poor road access. The restricted nature of the road system through and past the core area of Ringwood was exposed by standardised -wide Commonwealth arterial road needs studies as far back as the early 1970’s.

To address that situation provision was made in the Metropolitan Planning Scheme for a reservation to connect the Eastern Freeway bypass of Ringwood to the northern terminal of the Scoresby Freeway at Maroondah Highway.

Under any metropolitan scale scenario for an outer eastern north-south road development, connection to the Maroondah Highway would be axiomatic where it is physically feasible.

Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd 3 Ref : 4105 Connecteast Highway Interchange.doc – 5 December 2005 Ringwood Traffic Study, Phase 2 Connecteast Highway Interchange

3. FREEWAY DESIGN AND FUNCTION

3.1 User Expectation, Safety and Service

With urban freeways providing high levels of service at high operating speeds, often in a complex environment of local connections and interchanges, a fundamental underpinning to their design standards is safe operation. Not all users will be regular everyday users so consistent visual clues, consistent messages and, meeting users’ expectations in a consistent and easily understood fashion, are essential requirements.

Experience from other urban environments warns us that motorists reactions to a confused situation or missed message can have horrendous consequences. One of the expectations of users that is part-and-parcel of sound freeway design is that an entry point to a freeway is near its companion exit point.

Unfortunately, this axiom has not been followed at two major freeway-to-freeway interchanges in Melbourne but that does not pave the way to repeat that error here in Ringwood.

Fundamental “human factors” considerations for safe freeway systems include consistency of access: all interchanges except “Y”-type interchanges should have all movements provided. Andrew O’Brien & Associates are not aware of any interchanges where an off-ramp does not allow traffic to turn left or right where the interchange crossing road would normally provide for such movements.

3.2 The General Issue of Traffic Performance

It is understood that the rationale for not providing the right turn from the MFF (south) to the Maroondah Highway (east) has come about in order that, in the operation of the interchange intersection on Maroondah Highway, the project consortium could meet standards set down by the Government’s Southern & Eastern Integrated Transport Association (SEITA) for intersection operational performance.

In this context at Ringwood, we consider this to be fundamentally trivial in a project where at this location alone, a complex multi-million dollar interchange is to be provided.

Our grounds for this view are:

 It ignores fundamental freeway design criteria;

 It would generate safety and operational problems;

 It would not pass a competent road safety audit;

 We are at a loss to understand why the “standard” cannot be met;

 We point out that the ‘standard’ may be a desirable objective but not being able to meet it is not sufficient in itself to cut off the “limb”;

Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd 4 Ref : 4105 Connecteast Highway Interchange.doc – 5 December 2005 Ringwood Traffic Study, Phase 2 Connecteast Highway Interchange

 The freeway, its interchanges and their critical connections will have far greater utility outside the peak period that will have been used to condition the consortium’s decision;

 We see no need why the 70 per cent of road traffic movements that occur outside peak morning and evening two-hour peak periods when many high-value trips are normally made, should be denied the direct access service;

 We do not see that provision of the right turn need jeopardise the functioning of the interchange nor threaten the performance of the tollway;

 The broader context of access to the RBC that the Ringwood Traffic Study Phase 2 has been considering.

Aside from the above, in any metropolitan context, even with effective pricing mechanisms, peak period congestion will be inevitable.1 This is not to say that its potential is ignored. The issue for the road system managers is how to manage that congestion. It is an absurdity and a disservice to road users and the area it serves to expect that a freeway-standard facility should have its essential elements “frightened off” through strict adherence to meet an analysis standard based on a traffic model’s estimate of future peak period traffic.

The functioning of the metropolitan area, the life-style characteristics and behavioural patterns of its people and the area’s economic activity, with its consequential transport patterns, constitute a more dynamic entity than what is reflected in this bid design that omits the right turn movement.

3.3 The Context of The Ringwood Business Centre and its Development

Work carried out for the Ringwood Traffic Study Phase 2 has demonstrated the difficulty in providing quality access for the levels of development that have been put forward in the Study. The intersection of Ringwood Street and the Ringwood Bypass will be the most critical intersection in the regional road network, not only for its role in servicing the RBC but in the potential to congest traffic back into the critical MFF tunnels.

We see no merit in having a restriction on access to Ringwood at the Maroondah Highway that would transfer traffic to critical right-turn movements at that intersection.

Aside from the arguments presented in this report refuting the Connecteast proposal, we have no means of knowing what level of land use activity was used for the Connecteast traffic modelling.

Figure 2 shows the extensive western area of the RBC that would experience a degraded level of access if the right turn is not provided.

1 In any large city, the peak period demand for transport will exceed system supply. It would be economic folly to be otherwise. Therefore, there will always be, and should always be, peak period congestion.

Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd 5 Ref : 4105 Connecteast Highway Interchange.doc – 5 December 2005 Ringwood Traffic Study, Phase 2 Connecteast Highway Interchange

To Lilydale To

To Belgrave To

Great Ryrie St

Mt Mt Dandenong Rd

Scale in metres in Scale

0 100 200 0 100

ROAD ROAD NETWORK

Bedford Rd Bedford

Warrandyte Rd

FUTURE RDC FUTURE RINGWOOD TRAFFIC STUDY PHASE 2

Ringwood Station St Station

Ringwood St Wantirna Rd

Market St Albert St Albert

Area of Major

Ringwood Bypass Ringwood

Degradation in

Accessibility

Bond St Bond

Charter St Charter Nelson St Nelson

New St Maroondah Hwy Maroondah

Sherbrooke Av

No Right Turn:

MFF St Molan to

Maroondah

- Highway

Heatherdale Rd

Freeway Freeway

itcham

M Frankston

To Melbourne To Heatherdale

Figure 2: Area of Degraded Accessibility With No Right Turn From MFF to Maroondah Highway

Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd 6 Ref : 4105 Connecteast Highway Interchange.doc – 5 December 2005 Ringwood Traffic Study, Phase 2 Connecteast Highway Interchange

3.4 Microsimulation Test

We have tested the Ringwood Traffic Study Phase 2 (limited) model and detected only a small increase in congestion on the Ringwood Bypass. The test showed that without the right turn at Maroondah Highway the system broke down earlier into the evening peak period than when the movement is available. There was a negligible gain to Maroondah Highway.

Apart from this comparison, we did not consider that the right turn movement onto Maroondah Highway constituted a problem anyway.

We consider that a lot more work would be needed to be categorical about the level and consequence of change to the traffic impact. For reasons given above we do not consider that effort to be warranted nor do we see any merit in resolving this issue on the basis of the difference between models of future traffic.

Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd 7 Ref : 4105 Connecteast Highway Interchange.doc – 5 December 2005 Ringwood Traffic Study, Phase 2 Connecteast Highway Interchange

4. SUMMARY

Fundamentally, we consider the proposition of not providing the right turn movement from the MFF (south) to the Maroondah Highway (east) to be:

 Trivial;

 Irrationally-based;

 Insensitive, poorly-founded and unsafe design;

 A poor approach to servicing users expectations; and

 Without adequate regard for the needs of the development of the Ringwood Business Centre.

We see the consequences of such a design would be to:

 Confuse motorists;

 Create chaos through U-turn movements at the Heatherdale Road intersection to the west;

 Seriously degrade the level of access, including commercial vehicle access, for all of the RBC’s intended development east of the freeway through to around Market Street;

 Further overload the right turn movement from the Ringwood Bypass into Ringwood Street, threatening the build-up of queuing back into the freeway tunnels;

 Add significantly to highway user costs and reduce the utility of the investment in the MFF, particularly in off-peak periods;

 Create a very poor precedent for urban freeway design and operation; and

 Create an unnecessarily second-rate outcome from an interchange expenditure well in excess of $100 million.

Andrew O’Brien & Associates Pty Ltd 8 Ref : 4105 Connecteast Highway Interchange.doc – 5 December 2005

Tamarra Sanders

From: Steven O'Brien Sent: Tuesday, 10 April 2018 11:02 AM To: [email protected] Cc: Andrew Taylor; Phil Turner Subject: North Eastlink - Maroondah Council concerns regarding the Ringwood Bypass Attachments: Maroondah Corridor Study Final Report 2009 - VicRoads - Northern Arterial & Healesville Freeway Route Alignments.pdf; OBrien Traffic (OBT) Advice on potential Ringwood impacts of North East Link options Sep 2017.pdf; 13803_Ringwood Bypass SIDRA Assessment v6.pdf; OBT report on decision to remove the Eastlink right turn exit ramp from th south onto Maroondah Highway - Decemeber 2005.pdf; 17967 T&M Priorities DRAFT Report_NEL_EXTRACT.pdf

Bill

Thank you for your time meeting with Council officers on Friday.

As discussed, Maroondah’s concern with the project relates more to Ringwood and the ability of the Ringwood Bypass to cope with the project once completed. The main concern being the Ringwood Bypass failing to the point of impacting on Eastlink, which would cause the Eastern Freeway and Eastlink to suffer freeway breakdown.

As promised, please find attached the previously submitted technical paper prepared for Council by O’Brien Traffic (OBT). Please note that OBT have extensive history and awareness of Ringwood from a traffic perspective, and have been involved for both Council and VicRoads in critically assessing traffic in the precinct over the last 20 years or so. This time span covered Ringwood being designated as a Major Activity Centre, the construction of Eastlink, the major redevelopment of Eastland, the introduction of a narrowed boulevard along Maroondah Highway, and the upgrade of the Ringwood Station / Bus Interchange.

Further to OBT’s report, some considerations / questions for NELA to consider are:

1. Does the micro sim modelling include the Ringwood Bypass and ingress / egress from Eastlink? 2. Does the micro sim modelling and growth modelling consider the recent major redevelopments in Ringwood (namely Eastland), as well the predicted growth of Ringwood as an activity centre? 3. Further to point 2, does the modelling consider Maroondah Highway as a 2-lane each way Boulevard, and what is the road shown in red between Warrandyte Road / Ringwood Street on page 31 of the North East Link Corridor Assessment (Dec 2017) – this road doesn’t actually to exist? 4. Has the VicRoads South East Region traffic signals experts (Tony Fitz / Trent Robinson) seen the model and considered it in the context of Ringwood? 5. The OBT report highlights a potentially larger travel catchment than what exits for the M1 & M3. Does this align with NELA’s thinking?

Council considers that additional ancillary works to North East Link will be essential to ensure that the Ringwood Bypass does not fail post project. Some options discussed within Council as potential ancillary works include the Northern Arterial and the Healesville Freeway. Further to this, I have also attached a strategic report from VicRoads from 2009, which shows the benefits of these projects in reducing traffic through Ringwood.

I have also attached a report from OBT on the Ringwood Bypass from 2013. Some of these initiatives have been implemented and have helped, such as new lane markings on the Bypass, split phase signalisation at Maroondah Highway and 2nd cycle right turn lanes off the Bypass at Ringwood Street and Warrandyte Road. There are other improvements not yet done that squeeze a bit more capacity, (as well as the need to introduce a right turn off Eastlink onto Maroondah Highway - OBT report attached), however the point is that the Ringwood Bypass is only just coping now, despite a heap of work being done to combat the increased traffic load post Eastlink and Ringwood

1 Activity Centre redevelopment, but there is not much more that can be done to get more capacity. If the Bypass fails, then Eastlink and the North East Link will also fail, which would be a horrendous outcome.

Finally, I have extracted and attached a section of a report (again by OBT) currently being developed in relation to a Masterplan exercise underway for Ringwood Activity Centre. This report (Transport & Movement Priorities Ringwood Activity Centre) is yet to be finalised, however, the section on NEL is relevant as it summarises all of the information above.

We look forward to catching up again in a few weeks to go through the technical modelling info in relation to Ringwood.

Regards

Steven O'Brien Team Leader Engineering Services

Maroondah City Council | Braeside Ave Ringwood T 03 9298 4247 | M 0419 881 605 [email protected] www.maroondah.vic.gov.au

2 S18/8853 NORTH ‘ET, LINK AUT

CM Ref: DOC/18/151966

Cr Nora Lamont Mayor unri 1n 0yThorTi - a City of Maroondah Braeside Avenue RINGWOOD VIC 3134

Dear Cr Lamont

Thank you for your letter dated 28 February 2018 regarding Maroondah City Council's submission — North East Link.

As you know, the alignment for North East Link was announced in November 2017, connecting an upgraded Eastern Freeway from Springvale Road to the M80 Ring Road in Greensborough.

The North East Link Authority (NELA) is working with all interested councils to develop the project through this vital planning stage. We appreciate your Council's input and support to date and we hope to continue to develop a close working relationship with you, your fellow councillors and council officers as the project develops.

To address Council's specific interests in traffic considerations and ancillary works noted in your submission, I have asked Sebastian Motta, Director — Technical, to contact Phil Turner to arrange an initial coordination meeting. We hope this will provide the forum to discuss key aspects of the project during its development.

The team is keen to continue ongoing engagement opportunities through representation from Maroondah Council at the NELA Community Liaison Groups, Technical Reference Group and ongoing Council Communications Working Group. We recently wrote to Maroondah CEO Steve Kozlowski about representation on the Community Working Group and will provide details of other groups in the coming weeks.

We look forward to working closely with you and the team at Maroondah to help shape planning and delivery of this important city shaping project.

Yours sincerely

DUNCAN ELLIOTT CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

14 / 3 /2018

cc Steve Kozlowski

*tate North East Link Authority ORIA Lev,e114, 121 Exhibition St, Melbourne 300011800 941 191 1 northeastlink.vic.gov.au Government