Bruce Highway Upgrade, Adies Road, Booyal

Safety improvement works on the Bruce Highway

Adies Road intersection with the Bruce Highway at Isis in the Burnett region has recently been upgraded. Safety improvement works on the Bruce Highway between North South Road and Ringwood Road at Isis and Booyal have included a right-turn lane into Adies Road, a wide centre line treatment and two new heavy vehicle rest areas .

The works were funded under the Bruce Highway Upgrade Program, with $12.84 million allocated.

The heavy vehicle rest areas are funded as part of a $6.08 million allocation by the Australian Government to upgrade rest areas along the Bruce Highway between Gympie and Benaraby.

The project will improve road safety along the Bruce Highway with the addition of the right turn lane and the widening of the road to accommodate a one metre wide centre line treatment.

In early 2022, the construction of the project was awarded to Hazell Bros and the project was completed late in 2022.

Solution

Hazell Bros entrusted Global Synthetics with the supply of geosynthetic materials to the project including geotextiles, geogrids and subsoil drains as below:

• Geofirma nonwoven geotextiles for filtration, separation and drainage on site under the roadway and around subsoil drains. These geotextiles comply with the Qld TMR MRTS27 Specification.

• Secugrid® and Combigrid® geogrid and geocomposite reinforcement products for use under the roadway improving the bearing capacity of the insitu material underlying the roadway ensuring more economical and longer lasting roadways for Queensland. The Secugrid® (geogrid) and Combigrid® (Secugrid with integral nonwoven geotextiles for added separation benefits in a one layer product) comply with the Qld TMR MRTS58 Specification.

• Prodrain PD40 SD150 and SD300, geocomposite strip filter drains were supplied for the subsoil drainage required for the project. These Prodrain materials are a 40mm thick drain formed by a cuspated HDPE core wrapped completely with a geotextile filter creating a ‘high infiltration’ structured drainage path to allow rapid drainage of the roadway. Whilst other drain styles use a corrugated pipe, either oval or round in shape, slowly allow water to enter the subsoil drain through their small slots, the Prodrain strip filter has a massive advantage of being able to take water in from the surrounding pavement over 95% of the surface area of the drain. Prodrain strip filter drains comply with the Qld TMR MRTS03 specification for a Type D Subsoil drain. A full range of fittings are available and used on the project to provide flushout points and outlets.

The project has been successfully completed.