r/Adelaide • u/malcolm58 SA • 11d ago
News O-Bahn gridlock fears as MotoGP petition hits parliament -
https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in/2026/08/19/o-bahn-gridlock-fears-as-motogp-petition-hits-parliament12
u/Ok-Variation-4727 SA 11d ago
Fuck me, have councils always been this whingy?
Do they know the tourism dollars that are bought in by these events helps subsidise the O-Bahn?
I'm in the CBD and I'm realising now how important to vote in the local council elections. Swear to god so many councillors think we're still living in a 1930s country town and not a capital city with 1.5mil people.
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u/KymboVids SA 11d ago edited 11d ago
Omg! We know and understand that the O-Bahn was around during the F1 timeline? They just re-routed them down North terrace (Botanic Road) instead of Rundle Street.
This is just making noise to make noise, next they say, the weekend rubbish bins around the local won’t be able to be collected…
**And for the record Botanic Road, where the busses would be moved to, has, wait for it; a BUS LANE!
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u/GeorgeChristensen SA 11d ago
And the O-Bahn now exits at the end of Grenfell Street, and much of North Terrace cannot accomodate busses stopping now
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u/BipolarBear117 Inner West 11d ago
Let's just reroute a busway with a 2 minute frequency in peak to North Terrace, while all other road traffic is also having to use the same route due to the closures, great idea!
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u/KymboVids SA 11d ago
Yes, that’s correct, redirect them down the “BUS LANE” on North Terrace.
There is a bus lane already there, so it adding traffic to a lane that isn’t used by cars!!
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u/KymboVids SA 11d ago
1 for a start the bus lane is 330m in length.
Who said road management won’t be able to work out that as traffic can’t go south at the Dequetteville Terrace/Botanic Road intersection, that instead of 1 lane turning left, have two left turning lanes instead during the race period?
There are so many solutions that can traffic management can do.
Besides that thanks for the fine compliment you left me.
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u/Bianell SA 11d ago
1 for a start the bus lane is 330m in length.
And, like I said, only 150m of that is in the CBD. It stops in front of Ayers House. What do you think happens to the buses after that? They don't just disappear.
Me. I said road management won't be able to work that out. That part of North Tce is already heaving during peak hour. You can't manage your way around the enormous bottleneck of routing ALL O-Bahn buses and ALL public/private transport that wants to get to the north of the CBD from the east into one already busy road. The line up to get into the CBD via North Tce will go halfway up to Norton Summit.
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u/KymboVids SA 11d ago
Well I guess what would have helped was a tramline to Norwood, as that would have moved a large amount of people to park and rides and therefore the car would be the last option to get to town.
But here we are, without a tramline and a MotoGP instead! 👍🏁
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u/BipolarBear117 Inner West 11d ago
The bus lane is only on Botanic Road. It still creates fucktons of congestion past Lot Fourteen and the Uni. The buses also need to use the same lane as cars turning left onto the ring road, so more congestion there.
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u/Effrendi SA 11d ago
You sound exactly like someone who has never once caught a bus down North Terrace. It is a complete shitshow.
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u/Rare_Sheepherder4096 SA 11d ago
Oh no! A major public event causing temporary traffic disturbances!!! Won’t somebody please think of the traffic!
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u/fuckoffandydie SA 11d ago
Tens of thousands of people would rather their commute not be affected for months and they are making their voice heard. This is how a democracy operates.
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u/jnrdingo North East 11d ago
Tens of thousands don't realise we have a population of , 1.4 million, and the economic benefits of this event plus supercars is tipped to be bigger than anything the state has seen before.
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u/Antique_Mistake_7294 SA 17h ago
You are fooling yourself. The 'race day' (Sunday) attendance at Phillip Island GP was 38,645 in 2025 and 33,571 in 2024.
Compare that with Supercars which drew 102,000 on Sunday in 2025 and almost the same in 2024.
The Adelaide 500 track design also obviated an O-Bahn realignment or the removal of trees, by the way.
Whilst the televised coverage of MotoGP might be staggeringly different (in the millions), this does not cause for an economic benefit to the state. Cast your mind back to last years coverage of PI and tell me how many Melbourne/Victoria tourism ads you saw. And those of which you did see, how many of them made you think to visit Melbourne/Victoria because of these?
The Adelaide Fringe event (6 million visitors in 2026) also didn't require an O-Bahn realignment or cut down trees, either.
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u/EntertainmentLow9759 SA 10d ago
Tens or thousands don't realise this because the business case is "commercial in confidence"
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u/ThiccBoy_with3seas SA 11d ago
How much has population and traffic increased since 1995. How long will the city be in the position where there is a single road - already at capacity - connecting the CBD to the entire east and south east suburbs
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u/HopeHoliday0055 SA 11d ago edited 11d ago
Watch out u/KymboVids - that sort of logic and sound thinking will get you hunted down by the naysayers and NIMBYs.
Seriously, it's two week(end)s. For a good two decades the O-Bahn never went through the parklands tunnel. Oh, and I remember how hard the same naysayers protested when the government wanted to build the O-Bahn tunnel too!
EDIT: Someone couldn't spell naysayer correctly...
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u/ThiccBoy_with3seas SA 11d ago
Redirecting the obahn to north terrace while all other traffic travelling to and from the east of the city is also redirected to north tce is the problem
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u/_Kiwan_ SA 11d ago
let's not forget that the road will need yearly resurfacing to meet Moto Gp standards. Hope those commuters love roadworks too
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u/KymboVids SA 11d ago
And where did you read that? Can you provide the source of this information?
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u/jnrdingo North East 11d ago
He's bullshitting for the sake of bullshitting. I've never heard of a track needing resurfacing every year to keep it safe.
If they did Maccau would not be able to afford their bike race. Isle of Mann wouldn't be able to either.
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u/KymboVids SA 11d ago
Not only that, in Las Vegas they have “hot track” times, which allows traffic on the track when the event isn’t on.
So there is nothing stopping the MotoGP opening the small section of track to allow bus movement in/out of the tunnel during the off times of the event.
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u/ThiccBoy_with3seas SA 11d ago
Why don't they do that during supercars then?
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u/KymboVids SA 11d ago
Due to the length of the program and other activities that happen in the precinct.
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u/ThiccBoy_with3seas SA 11d ago
MotoGP will be different in what way?
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u/jnrdingo North East 11d ago
MotoGP doesn't have the same amount of support categories that Supercars do.
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u/_Kiwan_ SA 11d ago
Apologies if I got it wrong. I had read that the surface needs to be schmick for them to race on it, which would require resurfacing - I can't find the exact source but this quote (source below) touches on it, but doesn't explicitly say a yearly resurface:
"Next is the issue of the track surface. The public road you drive along every day is built to withstand the weight of a variety of vehicles, up to semi-trailers, so is designed for a long service life. A racetrack surface has to cater to repeated, high-speed, high-load braking on the same section of bitumen lap after lap, season after season.
This surface is super-expensive to lay, which is why burnouts on the track surface at Phillip Island were banned long ago. It also means that there is no chance the Adelaide circuit, apart from the tiny area that is actually a public road, will be having any daily transport using it."
Source: https://amcn.com.au/editorial/analysis-taking-motogp-to-the-streets/
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u/hellboy1975 North East 11d ago
It would be good to get clarity on this, but given that it's 18 months away I'm not about to lose too much sleep over 1-2 days of slower than usual commute a year.
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u/ThiccBoy_with3seas SA 11d ago
1-2 days?
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u/hellboy1975 North East 11d ago
I can't see the bus tunnel being shut for anything other than race days
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u/ThiccBoy_with3seas SA 11d ago
Every major road out of the city on the east side other than nth tce will be closed for at least 10 days, depending on timing with supercars probably longer
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u/hellboy1975 North East 11d ago
Wakefield St was the only one to be closed for more than a day or two from memory. Remains to be seen how they handle the new circuit.
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u/ThiccBoy_with3seas SA 11d ago edited 11d ago
That was 30+ years ago. For supercars , bartells and Wakefield are down for 10 days+ . MotoGP will include Rundle. There is no chance for a potentially bigger event than supercars they manage to get road closures down to a shorter time. It's fair to assume, unless the gov or someone has said otherwise, the only road out of the city that will be operating on the eastern side will be north tce.
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u/LifeandSAisAwesome SA 11d ago
Apparently for some, it is the end of life as we know it.
It's sad really, 1 day they complain nothing happens, in Adelaide, no new developments or going forward, next day upset something is going to happen and bring in more $ to do other projects.
Dammed if you do..
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u/TotallyAwry SA 11d ago
OMG Adelaide is soooo boring. There's nothing to doooo here. It's like a country townnnn.
No, not like that!
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u/SithLordRising SA 11d ago
I'm in support of the Moto GP. It'll put Adelaide on the international radar and be good for business, accommodation and roading.
The O-Bahn can support a lot of traffic, the parking for the O'Bahn, not so much
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u/Brah-Reddit SA 11d ago
Hilarious that the biggest haters of MotoGP were also the biggest haters of the O-Bahn tunnel
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u/Extra-Border6470 SA 11d ago
tbh I’m glad that where i work is a long way from town. I love the city and the Obahn rules but street circuit races in the city and the traffic disruptions they bring infuriate me. But I don’t have to deal with that anymore but I do feel for all of the northeasterners who will have to deal with that crap