Sustainable Transport Outcomes for the Sunshine Coast Community – A Risk Based Approach

Sunshine Coast Council manages over 2500 km of sealed roads and over 500 km of unsealed roads. With an ever-increasing demand on the local transport network, it has become critical to core business operations to identify innovative ways of delivering value for the Sunshine Coast community. This article explores one example of an innovative approach that is being taken by Sunshine Coast Council’s capital program delivery team in order to maximise value in relation to Council’s road network management and most importantly, minimise the impact on the natural environment to ensure the natural resources we enjoy now are there for generations to come.

Lead Authors:

• Victor Mantilla – Coordinator

Engineering Design Services; and • Paul Rickert – Transport Capital

Works Manager

Co-Contributors:

• Donald Pitt – Manager

Transport Infrastructure

Management • Karl Sinnamon – Design

Engineer • Tony Gallagher (HIG) -

Consultant • Rod Leach (HIG) - Consultant

Victor Mantilla

Victor is a Civil Engineer with varied experience in road design, bulk earthworks construction, stormwater management and design for mine sites and railway corridor design. Victor has worked with Sunshine Coast Council since 2015 and has been working as a Design Engineer and is now Coordinator of the Engineering Design Services unit. Victor’s experience prior to joining Council involved working for major consultancies with a focus on EPCM of major projects.

Paul Rickert

Paul holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) and has worked with Sunshine Coast Council since 2009 (11.5 years). During this time Paul has been fortunate to have worked across a variety of roles including project delivery, asset management, capital works planning, PMO Coordinator as well as his current role of Transport Capital Works Manager. Prior to joining Council, Paul worked in the private construction sector for multiple Tier 1 contractors on medium to large scale ($100M+) construction projects. Paul also holds a Diploma in Sustainability and has a keen interest in ensuring the outcomes of Council’s Transport Capital Program are sustainable and deliver value for the community.

Karl Sinnamon

Karl is a Design Engineer who has been with the Sunshine Coast Council since 2007 (14 years) within the Engineering Design Services unit. Prior to finishing his Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and obtaining the position of Design Engineer, Karl was a Civil Designer. Karl’s experience includes managing and designing major corridor upgrades, urban road upgrades, intersection upgrades, stormwater upgrades, separated cycleways and streetscapes.

Tony Gallagher

Tony Gallagher is the Design Manager for Harrison Infrastructure Group, overseeing design teams in Toowoomba, Brisbane, Bundaberg and Rockhampton. Tony is a civil engineer with over 38 years of design experience. Prior to the establishment of Harrison Infrastructure Group, Tony was the Managing Director for Highland Infrastructure Group. He spent 27 years with the Department of Transport and Main Roads (DTMR) in both the Roma and Toowoomba districts and in his previous position as Principal Advisor (Design) he was responsible for the management of the design office. Tony was also the Technical Director and founder of the Road Design Training Centre for DTMR in Toowoomba.

Rod Leach

Rod is Senior Project Manager who has been with Harrison Infrastructure Group (HIG) since 2009 (12 years) and formally with Department of Transport and Main Roads (DTMR) for 37 years in the Planning and Design area. Rod has worked as Design Office Manager in both HIG and DTMR. Rod is a Senior Registered Road Safety Auditor and has recently presented training sessions in the Lower Order Roads Design Guidelines through IPWEAQ. He has worked with several councils assessing and developing design philosophies to allow upgrading of sub-standard roads.

Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Steep terrain of Brandenburg Road.

Sunshine Coast Council’s Vision: Australia’s most sustainable region. Healthy. Smart. Creative

To support Sunshine Coast Council’s vision, the Transport Capital Program Management team maintain a focus on road user safety, delivering value for money and sustainable transport infrastructure outcomes for the Sunshine Coast community.

A common challenge for all local government program managers and designers is being able to develop engineering solutions to transport problems that deliver ongoing benefits and a fit for purpose outcome for the community while keeping cost, environmental and social impacts to an absolute minimum.

For the Sunshine Coast Council, the roadside environment is particularly challenging in rural and hinterland areas where the terrain is steep and traffic volumes are often relatively low in comparison to the urban transport network. One project the Sunshine Coast Council is currently working on that has presented a variety of challenges to the design team due to steep terrain and limited road widths is the Brandenburg Road gravel road sealing project.

Brandenburg Road is located in the hinterland region of the Sunshine Coast and is part of an important link for the community between Mooloolah Valley Township and Landsborough Maleny Road. As this section of the road network runs east / west up the local escarpment it is quite steep for much of the 4.8km and has severe drop offs for much of the length as well.

During the initiation phase of this project, it was recognised that the application of engineering design standards typically applied for sealing of Council’s gravel road network based on initial concepts would result in a project cost that would run in excess of $10M. This is many times the available budget for the project.

Existing speed humps.

Existing cattle grids.

Sealed narrow section.

Gravel narrow section.

Gravel narrow winding section with blind corners.

Gravel narrow winding section with steep drop offs.

The Transport Capital Management team and Engineering Design Services team had been in dialogue about fit for purpose designs with a particular consideration of a sitespecific risk-based approach and the development of an internal guideline was considered. However, the consensus of the group for the starting point for this journey was to supplement the recently developed Lower Order Roads Design Guide (LORDG) developed in 2016 and published by IPWEAQ.

As Harrison Infrastructure Group (HIG) played a lead role in the development of the LORDG, Council engaged HIG to work with them to develop a fit for purpose solution.

Council’s Transport Capital Program team includes: • Don Pitt – Branch Manager,

Transport Infrastructure

Management • Paul Rickert - Transport Capital

Works Manager • Victor Mantilla - Coordinator

Engineering Design Services and • Karl Sinnamon - Design

Engineer

Harrison Infrastructure Group (HIG) consultants include: • Tony Gallagher – Design

Manager/Executive Civil

Engineer • Rod Leach – Senior Project

Manager

Case Study Details

Brandenburg Road links Mooloolah Valley Township and Landsborough Maleny Road and does not have a consistent arrangement with gravel sections and some upgraded sealed sections address landslips and safety concerns. Rural residential properties access the site, some housing cattle that at times can be seen crossing the road.

The vehicular traffic is 201 AADT with 1.4%HV. The intent for the road has been to maintain the current function by not increasing vehicular traffic

or operating speeds, while conducting the upgrades to increase safety and reduce dust nuisance to local residents.

Upon review of the road link operation, consideration of the community’s expectations and initial concepts to continue the upgrades of sections along Brandenburg Road it was evident that any upgrade to the current guidelines and consistent with previous upgrades of the road would incur significant costs, amenity impacts due to significant tree removal and, if continued for the entire link, potentially undesirable consequences for the intent of the road link, potentially making it a more attractive route for vehicles travelling to Maleny. This would in fact be contrary to the Divisional Councillor’s view and community’s desire.

Council’s Engineering Design Services encouraged a review of the design philosophy that would consider the current operating condition of the road. This was based on the driver behaviour observed in relation to the existing features of the road which included drainage structures that acted more like traffic calming devices and slow points in the form of cattle grids. Donald Pitt (Transport Infrastructure Manager), Paul Rickert (Manager Transport Capital Management) and Victor Mantilla (Coordinator Engineering Design Services) had already been in discussions about potentially developing a guideline for roads with slow operating speeds and low traffic volumes. However, given the recent experiences on other projects with the application of the LORDG published by IPWEAQ and facilitated by HIG it was considered that its use could be extended to this scenario provided a risk-based approach was adopted. The concept was to use the existing constraints that reduce the speed environment and evaluate extending their use as part of the upgrades. It was then decided to engage HIG to re-evaluate the design philosophy of the road given Council’s vision for the link and how the operation of the road justified the review for a fit for purpose approach. Key tasks would be to independently evaluate the operation of the road, assess the opportunities to implement the principles from the LORDG and develop a risk-based design philosophy highlighting priority sections for upgrade along the road link.

Tony Gallagher (HIG - Design Manager/Executive Civil Engineer) and Rod Leach (HIG - Senior Project Manager) were the key HIG representatives that developed the design philosophy for the link with input from Donald Pitt, Paul Rickert, Karl Sinnamon (Design Engineer) & Victor Mantilla. The design philosophy provided a design speed to be supported with the inclusion of further traffic calming and indicated the sensitivities for sightlines that would dictate the roadway width requirements that would vary from single lane for good visibility sections to a two-lane carriageway for sections with substandard sightlines. Given the low-speed environment developed as a result, this would reduce the geometric requirements of the road and the treatment of roadside hazards would be able to be reassessed by retaining mature trees to maintain delineation of drop offs and provide a narrowing effect to maintain the slow speed environment.

The Divisional Councillor and local community have since been updated about the new intent and all parties have been supportive of the new intent to keep a low-speed road. The prioritisation of sections was conducted by HIG to guide the sequence of upgrades within limitations of available funding to inform priorities and avoid developing residual safety issues between upgrades. The development of the designs have proceeded (for high priority sections) and construction will be planned in accordance to the prioritisation of Council’s Transport Capex program. This process has now started to be followed on other roads and the intent is to share this approach to further the LORDG, be it in the form of a supplement or a practice note.

Conclusion

The result of taking a pragmatic approach to the development of a design solution for Brandenburg Road: 1. Reduced cost to the community 2. Reduced ongoing lifecycle costs 3. Reduced environmental impact 4. Community members and the

Divisional Councillor supportive of the proposed outcomes

Environmental impacts kept to a minimum include: • Tree clearing minimised • Ongoing dust issues reduced

Community impacts minimised include: • Land impacts and land acquisitions minimised • Amenity of the existing corridor retained.

The design process that was undertaken for the Brandenburg Road project has opened up discussion on the approach being taken on other rural road sealing projects in Council’s program.

The learnings from the practical risk-based approach taken in consultation with Harrison Infrastructure Group (HIG) are proposed to be taken forward for consideration during the consultation phase for the next revision of the IPWEAQ Lower Order Roads Design Guideline (LORDG).