Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Saturday 23 January 1965, page 3


Plans for huge

Woden

scheme unveiled

The National Capital Development Commission yester day unveiled plans for a series of high-speed expressways to link the Woden district to other sections of Canberra, and for a huge Woden district centre.

The expressways will be linked with Adelaide Avenue, which will be rebuilt as a six-lane highway, and with a third bridge crossing Lake

Burley Griffin.

The dislrict centre will provide employment for about 10,000 workers, and will be the retail, civic and cultural centre for the 60,000 people who will live in the Woden district.

The main expressway, passing from north to south through the centre of the Woden district, will be! known as the Woden Park-

way.

It will be built in two separate carriageways, divi ded by a median of at least 40 ft. along its full length.

Cross-traffic eliminated

l'arklands. plantations of trees, and recrcation areas will isolate the parkway from the residential districts in the valley.

Traffic using the parkway will be able to travel at speeds of 40 or 50 m.p.h.

All cross-traffic will be eliminated. Three major in terchanges will provide bridges across the parkway for traffic passing from one side of the valley to the

other.

At the southern end of the parkway, each carriage way will carry two lanes of traffic. Towards the district ccntrc this will increase to three lanes, with provision

for a fourth.

The National Capital De velopment Commissioner, Mr. J. W. Overall, who gave details of the scheme to a Press conference yes terday, said work on the parkway would begin in the

next financial vear.

The first stage of the parkway would be about 1 ½ miles long—from Adelaide Avenue to the Woden dis

trict centre.

It would take about a

year to build.

At the same time Ade laide Avenue would be to tally reconstructed for 1] miles from its junction with State Circle to make a six

lane avenue.

Mr. Overall described the parkway as a different type of highway, more advanced than any in Australia. It would he a pleasure to

travel on.

It would be linked with a system in the Woden dis trict, in which every road was designed to fill a par

ticular need.

Centre free of

traffic

The Woden district centre involved a concept com pletely different from any thing in Canberra.

It was intended to de velop a character as a dis tinct town centre. It would have us own office space,

commercial and shopping facilities, trades and ser-vices, hotels, clubs, a court house, police station, swim-ming pool, church and re-

creation centres.

Parking areas would sur round the main business and shopping area, and traffic would be eliminated from most areas inside the centre.

Most places within the centre would be within a few hundred yards of a car

park.

Access probably would be provided underneath the mam shopping centre for goods vehicles, allowing the entire shopping precinct to be restricted to pedestrians.)

First work on the district centre was scheduled to be-gin in about two years. De-velopment would begin around a central square.

To the north of the square, office buildings of three, six and nine storeys would be built, with a 12 storey building dominating

the centre.

To the south a shopping centre with about half the space of the present city shopping area would be de

veloped.

South of the shopping centre would be a trade and service area similar to the

development in Mort and Lonsdale streets, but far more attractive.

Scattered through and around ihe centre would be facilities for cultural and recreation activities.

£358,199 road

contract let

The National Capital De velopment Commission has let a £358,199 contract for Ihe construction of part of the main arterial link be tween Hughes and Curtin.

The section eventually will form part of one of the three interchanges along the Woden Parkway.

The contract includes the building of a concrete bridge over the future park way, and a large arch cul vert over Yarralumla Creek.

The road will extend

from Kent Street, Hughes, along Carruthers Street over

the creek.

A spokesman for the com mission said the interchange road would be of express way standard. From Kent Street to the end of the bridge over the parkway it would have two traffic lanes on each carriageway. From

there on it would have three

lanes on each.

The work was due to be completed in February 1966.