Community Engagement in Heavily Congested Road Upgrade
Leighton Contractors and its alliance partners were contracted to design and construct 5.6 kilometres of Windsor Road, one of Sydney’s most congested arteries. Two sections of Windsor Road were widened to improve traffic flow and safety – Roxborough Road to Norwest Boulevarde and Acres Road to Old Windsor Road. Community engagement was an important part of this process.
The $105m project was delivered under and alliance arrangement involving Leighton Contractors, Roads and Traffic Authority NSW, Maunsell Australia and Coffey Geotechnics. Other members of the delivery team included Jackson Teece, Tract Consultants, Heggies and the Phillips Group.
Leighton Contractors and its alliance partners completed the upgrading of Windsor Road, 4.5 months ahead of schedule.
Challenges and Achievements
The project involved complex relocations of utilities, significant traffic management of major construction works adjacent to high live traffic flows.
Windsor Road, the second oldest road in Australia, features heritage issues from both Indigenous and European interest as well as complex services relocation and exception peak traffic loads.
The upgrade has provided a facelift to this heavily congested corridor on Windsor Road significantly reducing travel times for up to 60,000 motorists every day.
Key result areas for this project included:
- Time—proactive planning of design and utilities management planning ensured the project was completed 4.5 months ahead of required delivery time.
- Traffic management – safe construction access was evident at all times and traffic planning and works sequencing minimising impact on local communities’.
- Pavement integrity and services – innovation in pavement construction and innovative identification methods of locating and relocating overhead and underground utility services added significantly to meeting aesthetic, amenity and sustainability objectives’.
- Safety- an impressive safety result was achieved with nil lost time injuries on 750,000 hours worked.
- Quality- the project was delivered 100 per cent defect free.
- Environment – the project was delivered with nil level 1 / level 2 environmental incidents and breaches. Major environmental mitigation measures included native screen planting, light penetration measures and noise attenuation across 100 properties.
Outstanding Community Engagement Outcomes
Outstanding engagement outcomes were achieved through a highly proactive community – stakeholder communications process directly geared to the large number of residences, local businesses and community facilities directly front the works.
Darzin stakeholder management software assisted in coordinating the complex range of communications with a large number of residences, local businesses and community facilities directly fronting the works.