We are writing to provide you with an update on the St Kilda Road Bike Lanes project, on behalf of Major Road Projects Victoria (MRPV).

Overview

The Victorian Government has committed $30.5 million to build new kerbside bike lanes that physically separate drivers and cyclists to make St Kilda Road safer.

The St Kilda Road Bike Lanes project will deliver separated kerbside bike lanes from Linlithgow Avenue to Dorcas Street, Toorak Road to Union Street, and Union Street to Charnwood Road (St Kilda Junction).

MRPV is undertaking further planning and development work for the section of St Kilda Road between the Junction and Carlisle Street, investigating the safest and most cost-effective solution for this complex section.

Benefits

St Kilda Road is recognised as one of the world’s grandest boulevards, but it’s also one of the most dangerous for cyclists. Cyclists are more likely to be seriously injured by a car-dooring on St Kilda Road than anywhere else in Melbourne.

Building better, safer bike lanes on St Kilda Road will:

• improve safety for the 3,500 cyclists who currently use St Kilda Road each day

·         encourage more people to take up cycling, thereby easing congestion on busy St Kilda Road, reducing vehicle emissions and freeing up capacity on public transport

·         create stronger connections between major activity centres in Melbourne’s inner south and the CBD

·         create an estimated 134 direct and 182 indirect jobs during construction.

What MRPV is doing

The St Kilda Road Bike Lanes project involves:

·         building separated kerbside bike lanes with bike markings along St Kilda Road

·         installing coloured bike lane surfacing at conflict points, and bike boxes and bike lanterns at traffic light intersections to provide better visibility and priority movement for cyclists

·         modifying traffic signals to provide additional priority for cyclists

·         removing kerb outstands to allow for continuous bike lanes

·         resurfacing existing bike lanes to improve safety and comfort

·         construction of DDA-compliant pedestrian crossings at some key intersections.

What to expect

MRPV is starting works on the St Kilda Road Bike Lanes in late September 2022. They are building the project in stages to minimise impacts on all road users, businesses and the local community.

Works are starting on Stage 1 between Linlithgow Avenue and Dorcas Street on Tuesday 27 September 2022 and are expected to be complete by December.

During this time, MRPV will:

• set up work areas, which will involve installation of safety fencing, barriers, bollards and site offices
• remove the old road surface, install kerb separators and lay new asphalt
• install new line marking and surface treatments.

All works during this stage will take place between 7am and 6pm, Monday to Friday and 7am to 5pm, Saturdays.

Traffic changes
So that MRPV can complete these works safely, they’ll need to temporarily close a section of the outer traffic lanes in each direction on St Kilda Road, between Linlithgow Avenue and Dorcas Steet. There will be temporary bike lanes, reduced speed limits, reduced parking and restricted access to loading zones while these works take place. They will let you know ahead of time if these changes are expected to affect you directly.

There will be no access to Government House Drive from St Kilda Road during this time, however a detour will be in place via Linlithgow Avenue.

Please refer to the map below of the works area for more information.

You can keep up to date on any upcoming traffic changes by visiting bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/mrpv/st-kilda-road-bike-lanes.

Construction impacts
Construction activities for the St Kilda Road Bike Lanes may generate low levels of noise, dust and vibration at times. MRPV will be monitoring to ensure any impacts are kept to a minimum.

Please phone MRPV on 1800 105 105 and select option 5 if you have any questions while the works are taking place.

The timing for works on Stage 2 between Toorak Road and Union Street and Stage 3 between Union Street and Charnwood Road (St Kilda Junction) will be confirmed as the project progresses.

All of the new protected bike lanes being built by MRPV, as part of the St Kilda Road Bike Lanes project, are expected to be open by late 2023.

More information

For more information on the St Kilda Road Bike Lanes, please visit https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/mrpv/st-kilda-road-bike-lanes or contact:

• Christine Lo Iudice – Manager, Communications and Stakeholder Engagement on 0436 524 408 or christine.loIudice@roadprojects.vic.gov.au
• Dave Kristy – Head of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement on 0436 640 473 or dave.kristy@roadprojects.vic.gov.au. 

For languages other than English, please call 03 9209 0147.

Good afternoon everyone,

We hope you all have had a great week and getting ready for a great weekend ahead.

Below is an overview of works that have been occurring onsite over the past week and lookahead for the week to come.

Pit Lid Repair

For those of you who are close to the southern end of site, you will be pleased to hear that despite inclement weather this afternoon, works to repair a loose pit lid on St Kilda Road are still scheduled for this evening.

These works are scheduled to begin at 11:30pm when hopefully the rain will subside however this may still by weather dependant.  

As previously notified, there will be a temporary closure of the southbound lane of St Kilda Road between Park Street and Toorak Road while we undertake these works with traffic detours in place.

The works will take about an hour to resolve and not generate too much noise.

Anzac Station entrance construction – Tram Interchange

Next week the team will be continuing to completion the canopy’s surrounding fascia, applying caulking and waterproofing elements to the newly installed skylights.

Around the western side of the tram platform, trenching and conduit installation will continue before installation and termination of the electrical services to the platform.

With next week being a short week, some of these works on the fascia and at surface level around the platform may occur outside of normal construction hours until 10pm, with a scissor lift, excavator and hand tools in use.

Station box construction

Next week, the team will finish building blockwork at the southern end of the station box on the platform level and will move towards the northern end of the station box. 

The team will begin installing the back of house lift that travels between B1 and B2 and the back of house lift that has been installed over the past month will be tested and commissioned over the next two weeks.

Throughout the station box, fitout works are ongoing with sections of precast for the platform over track exhaust continuing to be installed.

At track level, the team will be busy pouring track slabs westbound and will begin pouring track slabs eastbound after the long weekend.

Shrine Entrance

Starting Monday, the team will commence the initial excavation of the top-down works for the station entrance near the Shrine.

Initial excavation of the capping beams will also begin in this zone following the build for the retaining wall with the main excavation works at this entrance to occur during over the coming month.

Surface Works

At the northern end of site, roadworks are continuing to build the sub base, permanent pavement, kerb and drainage which will become the future southbound lane of St Kilda Road.

Some of the site perimeter fencing may change again in this location to ensure the continuity of the asphalt works.

Installation of tram infrastructure footings for future overhead lines will continue within site to the south in preparation for tram alignment works in November and December.

Around the northern ventilation shaft, a crane will mobilise over the next few days to begin installing precast panels for the northern ventilation services shaft.

As next week is a short week, works to crane these panels and fix them into site will occur outside of normal construction hours until 10pm with some noise expected as the teams use hand tools to fix these panels into position.

After the long weekend, these works will occur in the southern end of site at the southern ventilation shaft.

On top of the southern end of the station box, the team will be waterproofing, screeding and backfilling in preparation of these precast panels to be installed.

Over the coming week, there will be a small team from Yarra Trams installing footings and poles for tram infrastructure on St Kilda Road near the corner of Toorak Road.

These works will be undertaken by Yarra Trams and as we receive more information about these works we will be sure to keep you up to date.

Southern Civil Works Lookahead
Monday19/9	Tuesday20/9	Wednesday21/9	Thursday22/9	Friday23/9	Saturday24/9
Southern SectionWaterproofingD-Wall PrepMiddle SectionWorks Complete	Southern SectionWaterproofingD-Wall Prep	Southern SectionWaterproofingScreed placement	Public Holiday	Public Holiday	Shutdown Weekend

All the best for a great weekend.

Regards, Rob and Christian

Just a quick heads up the Committee decided that we should move from Civium to Bluestone. Owners should receive notification from Bluestone.

Good afternoon everyone,

We hope everyone has had a great week – Spring is in the air and I’m sure we’re all looking forward to the weather starting to fine up

Below is a snapshot of the works coming up on site next week.

Just a reminder that next Monday is an RDO, so no works on site.

Anzac Station entrance construction – Tram Interchange

The works on new tram canopy are nearing completion, with the just the works on the fascia continuing around the permitter of the canopy. Next week, the installation of the fascia is expected to continue up until 10pm. This will involve workers in elevated work platforms (cherry pickers) attaching fascia with hand tools. These works aren’t expected to generate significant noise.

The removal of the cranes working on the canopy has cleared the way underneath for works to commence on the installation of the services that will sit underneath the canopy. We’ve spoken about these works in previous weeks, it involves the digging of trenches and laying of conduits into the trenches. Next week the trenching and conduit laying isn’t expected to run into any extended hours, however there may be some waterproofing works that continue past 6pm next week. Like the fascia works, these only involve hand tools and aren’t expected to generate much noise.

Station box construction

The works in the station box haven’t changed course recently, it’s blockwork and room builds in the northern section of the concourse level, with some of the ventilation equipment now arriving on site. At the southern concourse end the finer fit-out details continue in the more completed rooms.

Down at the platform level the biggest development is the start of installation of the first of our elevators from concourse down to the platform, next month we’ll also land the new stairs from concourse level down to the platform. The fire escape stairs are complete, but this will be the first of the public access stairs to be installed in the station box. The works to prepare for the installation is underway, with the stairs expected to be installed later this month.  This month we’ve included a photo of a freshly poured section of the platform topping slab, where you can also see where the new stairs will be installed, flanked on either side by the escalators.

Shrine Entrance

The piling rig that was moving around the perimeter of the shrine entrance has now completed its task.
Now that it has left site, works will commence on the initial excavation. This initial excavation will only go down to around 2-3m, allowing the team to start of construction on the roof with the start of formwork and capping beam construction to begin on top the existing piles. The initial excavation is expected to start next week and finish the week after.

As evidenced by the short-lived stay of the piling rig, this section of the Shrine entrance is relatively small and we expect that the entire excavation of this area will take four weeks to complete (two weeks for initial and two weeks for base excavation). Though it will vary day to day – we’d expect an absolute maximum of 20 in/out truck movements per day to cart away excavated material. After the initial excavation, the excavation down to base is expected to start in early October. Due to the location of the Shrine entrance and the current site configuration, trucks will need to access the site via Domain Road for these works.

Surface Works

There is no shortage of activity on surface level at Anzac Station, it is peak-hour on top as the work crews prepare the site for the upcoming realignment of St Kilda Road tram tracks, which will also signal the commencement of 24/7 works to put the tram tracks into their final alignment and commission the new tram stop. These works are scheduled to commence on the 27November and will continue until around the 16 December. We’ll have more information on these works as the works program is finalised, but in the meantime the team are focussed on getting the site ready for this critical date. We’re expecting the first section of tram track to arrive on site and be installed later this month, so the final tram alignment will start to become very visible.

Elsewhere on site, at the southernmost section of the site, the delayed pour strip is nearing completion and steel tying is well underway at the site of the ventilation shafts. Next week we’ll see some clean up works on the broken back section d-wall to prepare it for a screed pour and waterproofing.

In the middle of site, the last sections of d-wall have been removed, signalling and end to one of the high impact activities on site. There are still some sections of the working surface that will need to be broken up to put in the final layer of fill, but this is non-reinforced concrete that won’t take any time at all to break out and remove from site.  This will allow us to continue the preparations for the new southbound section of St Kilda Road through the exiting site.

Pit Lid Repair

The pit lid repair at the southern end of St Kilda Road has had some false starts of late. We’ve managed to secure a new date for these works to take place Friday 16 September (next Friday)  We’ll confirm this in next week’s update, but as per the last booking we had, we will close the southbound lane of St Kilda Road while we carry out these works with the fix expected to take around about an hour to complete and is not expected to generate much noise at all.

Once again, we can only get the road shut from 11:30pm due to the football at the MCG where the Cats will be taking on the winner of the Dees vs the Lions (Who knew this pit-lid update would morph into an ongoing AFL finals series update)

Southern Civil Works Lookahead
Monday12/9	Tuesday13/9	Wednesday14/9	Thursday15/9	Friday16/9	Saturday17/9
RDO	Southern SectionFRP of Central Plinth – Concrete PourD-Wall cleanupMiddle SectionWaterproofing	Southern SectionD-Wall cleanupWaterproofingMiddle SectionWaterproofingScreed Pour	Southern SectionD-Wall cleanupWaterproofingMiddle Section:Backfill	Southern SectionD-Wall Screed PourWaterproofingMiddle Section:Backfill	Southern SectionWaterproofingMiddle Section:Backfill

Thanks, Rob and Christian

I have quite a lot of news covering the next 6 months.

Be aware that the dates are my best estimates, no guarantees….and some things may change

Let me start with the high level info

• The new tram stop under the green legs will be operational before Xmas
  • For this stop to be fully operational, they will be laying tram tracks in CYP’s current work areas over the next 10 weeks.
  • From November 27 for about 3 weeks, they will be working 24*7 to connect those new tracks into the current system. This will be VERY noisy. They call this the occupation work.
  • All the various sheds etc that are now in the middle of St Kilda Rd need to be moved. They will be moved into the Albert Rd Reserve before Xmas. The park will become a work site. In the new year they will commence building the station entrance inside the park.
  • From early January until late March (roughly), they will be working right on our doorstep again. This will only be during the day but will involve jackhammers and other very noisy gear (and yes the footpath will be dug up again)

A few details that surround each of these pieces of work

The Occupation prep work – Now until Nov 27

• The end date of the occupation cannot really slip – their entire focus between now and November 23 is getting ready for that work. We may see some work up until 10pm on some nights
• St Kilda Rd heading southwards is currently on our side of the new station, in about a month it will move across to the other side. From this time for about a year, there will be no right turn from Park St into St Kilda Rd.
• We will start seeing rail being delivered and installed in the CYP work areas.
• Installation of bike lanes has already commenced in front of the Shrine area. That will continue southwards.
• It is not part of the occupation prep but of great interest – the concrete precast panels for our vents will occur in late September. The external ‘cladding’ (Beautification??) will occur later.

The Occupation work (Nov27 – Dec 16)

• The first 5 nights will be the noisiest – jackhammers and concrete smashing.
• The tram stop on the city side of Park St will be removed during this time
• Yarra Trams have committed to minimise (not eliminate reversing beepers)
• For these 3 weeks, there will be no general traffic in St Kilda Rd northwards from Toorak Rd. Local traffic (us) will be able to get to our building. Be aware NO traffic will be able to get past Bowen Lane heading towards the city. I know that’s messy but it’s only 3 weeks.

Pre-Xmas work

• As part of moving the sheds across to the park and in preparation for the station entrance, a few trees may need to be removed. These were identified many months ago as likely to go. CYP have to go through a process but they are likely to go. There are also a two trees up near the Park St Tram Stop that will go.
• The parking immediately in front of The Domain will go.
• Once the tram tracks in front of us have moved towards Melbourne Grammar School, the lanes of St Kilda Rd towards the city will also move temporarily towards the school. This frees up an area between those traffic lanes and our building to enable CYP to work in January – March next year. It will look ugly and there will be fences and it will create hassles with drops offs, bins and dumb drivers again.

Another traffic matter to be aware of – from late November for many months, there will be no left turn from St Kilda Rd into Albert Rd, we will have to use Park St.

A few pictures to explain

Next closure will be on Friday 7am – 11am. And then again all day on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Driveway access will be maintained but may be a tad tricky again

Lots more info below

Good afternoon everyone,

Thought I’d send around an early heads up on some works tomorrow night.

We’ve got confirmation that we’ve secured a timeslot to fix a faulty pit lid in the middle of the southbound lane of St Kilda Road.
Those at the south of the site might have noticed it make a thudding sound as cars drive over it at night.

We’ve got a time slot booked for:

Friday 2 September 11:30pm – 6am

During this time we will close the southbound lane of St Kilda Road while we carry out these works.

Rest assured the works will not take that long.  The fix itself is expected to take around about an hour to complete and is not expected to generate much noise at all.

The timeslot reflects the road closure booking.

Unfortunately we can only get the road shut from 11:30pm due to the football at the MCG where the D’s are taking on the Swans.

Best of luck to any Demons or Swans fans on this list! (Or indeed anyone with a team in the finals)

Thanks, Rob and Christian

A number of you have noticed that there is a drain cover that goes ‘clunk clunk’ every time a vehicle goes over it. It is on the southbound side but seems to be getting worse.

Current plan is to close St Kilda Rd briefly on Friday night and fix it

Not yet confirmed

Great arvo to do it

We have only had one person on Level 5 – c’mon lift your game !!

Survey