Karel Avenue Upgrade
Karel Avenue was widened to four lanes between Berrigan Drive and Farrington Road to reduce congestion and improve access to the local area.
Significant growth in traffic over recent years resulted in congestion and bottlenecking for local traffic along Karel Avenue in the Leeming, Bull Creek and Jandakot area.
Used by almost 20,000 motorists a day, the upgrade will help relieve traffic and ease congestion along the route, which has seen more than 250 crashes between January 2014 and December 2018.
Completed in July 2021, Karel Avenue was widened to four lanes between Farrington Road and Berrigan Drive, including the bridge over Roe Highway.
Other upgrades included:- Interchange upgrades
- Karel Avenue Bridge extended across the freight line to facilitate construction of the Thornlie-Cockburn Link as part of METRONET.
- Training Place intersection modified with full access
- Training Place intersection pavement and median kerb
- Shared path underpass extended under Karel Avenue
- Modifications to the roundabout approaches
- Median kerb and brick paving between Berrigan Drive and Training Place
- Permanent line marking and landscaping to Karel Avenue
- Anti-graffiti painting to remaining structures
- Stone pitching to northern abutment walls
- Fencing works along newly constructed Principal Shared Path
Sustainability
The project applied sustainable construction concepts including:
- Utilising crushed recycled concrete in some of the Roe Highway ramps and shotcrete on the rail bridge abutment
- Sustainable, low maintenance and water wise landscaping was used at the busy roundabout intersection of Berrigan Drive and Karel Avenue
- Landscaping includes Grass Trees and a feature native eucalypt planted within a bed of stone and organic mulch arranged in a pattern that provides a striking aesthetic and visual cue for aircraft using the adjacent Jandakot Airport. A similar design has been implemented at the two other roundabouts either side of the Roe Highway bridge.
- The project reduced water usage by 19 million litres, which is enough to fill over seven Olympic swimming pools. This saving was made through the use of a 20,000 litre water storage tank kept on site instead of a Turkeys nest.
Funding
The $28.7 million project was funded by the Australian and State Governments with contributions from Jandakot Airport and the City of Cockburn.
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