Location

Far North Coast Region, New South Wales

Client

Transport for NSW

Sector

Transport

Bridges & structures

Duration

2009 – 2012

Contract value

$300 – 350 million

Back to projects

Pacific Highway: Banora Point Upgrade

Fast facts

50,000 vpd

on this extremely high profile, densely urbanised, brownfield corridor upgrade

2 months

ahead of contract completion

$2.6 m

in savings through redesign of 330m viaduct and Minjungbal Drive Bridge

400 no.

of employees working onsite

3 no.

major traffic stages – reduced from 6 through optioneering

221 no.

super-t girders on the project’s seven permanent bridges

9,600 lm

of soil nails up to 22m long

10,000 m2

of reinforced earth walls

5 no.

of piling rigs on site concurrently, creating 274 bored piles on the upgrade

About

The Banora Point Upgrade was a complex, largely structural project in a highly constrained urban setting, through one of the highest trafficked sections of the Pacific Highway.

Delivered under an Alliance model, the upgrade increased capacity from four lanes to six lanes over 2.5 kilometres.

The scope included:

a 150 m long, up to 23 m deep rock and soft soil cutting
seven single span permanent bridges
one 40 m temporary bridge
19 reinforced soil walls.

The new 330 long viaduct over the southern valley is a major feature of the project and includes a total of 140 precast super‐T girders across 10 spans, each girder being 1500 mm deep, 33 m long and weighing 60 t.

The girders sit on elastomeric bearings with Teflon sliding plates to allow for significant expansion and contraction in the bridge. The foundations consist of 1200 mm diameter bored piles approximately 20 m deep into siltstone, sandstone and basalt bedrock.

One of the most significant achievements was the Alliance’s approach to erosion and sediment control: an innovative ‘triple-stack’ design involving a clean water pipe located underneath a sediment basin, with an open vegetated bio-filtration channel on the surface. The system enabled adjacent road surface runoff to be treated within one-lane width and ensured that all urban, operational and construction runoff could be managed within restricted future access conditions.

Testament of the entire team’s ‘one team’ approach, the project received numerous industry awards, including the International Erosion Control (IECA) premier Environmental Achievement Award in 2012.

The project was delivered on budget and ahead of the contract program.

“The commitment of all alliance partners to a non-adversarial approach is evident on site. The alliance continues to work and collaborate with stakeholders to achieve good outcomes. A cooperative approach with subcontractors also continues and adoption of alliance KPIs by subcontractors is evidence of this approach.”