The M80 Upgrade between Sydney Road and Edgars Road involved the upgrade of approximately four kilometres of the freeway. The project included widening the freeway to three through lanes in each direction as well as improving the interchanges at Sydney Road and Edgars Road and providing a system interchange with connections in each direction to M31 Hume Freeway.
Project summary
The project included the upgrade of existing ramps by increasing the ramp lengths and providing ramp metering and braided ramps between the M31 Hume freeway and Edgars Road. It also included improvements for right-turning traffic from Edgars Road to M80 Greensborough-bound by adding an additional right-turn lane.
Services
AECOM was responsible for the detailed design and documentation of the following:
- Two new super T bridges and strengthening of two existing super T bridges;
- Extension to the existing cable-stay pedestrian bridge at Blaxland Avenue;
- Retaining walls and gantries;
- Geometric road widening and associated road furniture and barriers; and
- Road drainage and pavement details.
Achievements
- AECOM’s detailed design delivery contributed to the project being completed a year ahead of schedule. This was enabled by the retention of existing road and drainage infrastructure and noise attenuating walls.
- Developing an innovative solution that supported offline construction.
- Retaining existing infrastructure also minimised impacts on the local community and road users.
- Understanding our clients and the transport industry, AECOM optioneered concept designs for this section of the M80 Upgrade and engaged with our contracting client early for constructability feedback. Therefore, when the tender documentation was released, AECOM was able to quickly set to work and develop a more mature and innovative alternate solution. This alternative solution provided significant operational benefits for MRPV and construction benefits for our contracting client.
- AECOM design presented an alternate engineering solution to retain the existing Blaxland Avenue pedestrian bridge, an architecturally pleasing cable-stay bridge. This solution mitigated the reference design solution to provide a truss pedestrian bridge.
- Early survey input of the existing drainage network enabled AECOM to develop a drainage design solution that retained significant lengths of the existing pipe, mitigating the need to trench through existing pavement to install the new pipe. This solution also supported project sustainability outcomes.