When people think ‘hook turns‘ they immediately think of Melbourne and it’s trams – but Adelaide also has hook turns.
King William Street and North Terrace northbound
The first example is at the intersection of King William Street and North Terrace in the CBD, and is used by northbound Adelaide Metro route buses headed for the eastern suburbs.
It’s also the key junction of Adelaide’s tram network.
Tram tracks leading in all four directions.
With trams able to turn in four of the eight possible directions.
But this hook turn is also intended to right turning buses clear of road traffic – it actually pre-dated the reintroduction of trams to the intersection.
King William Street and Currie Street eastbound
An even less known hook turn is a few blocks further south, at the intersection of King William Street and Currie Street, and again only applies Adelaide Metro buses – this time turning right for the southern suburbs.
King William Street has both trams and buses running north-south along it.
While Grenfell Street and Currie Street form Adelaide’s main east-west bus corridor.
Leading to the O-Bahn guided busway.
So the reason for the hook turn here doesn’t appear to be to separate trams and road vehicles, but to keep traffic moving along Currie Street – especially given the only turning movement for buses here appears to be empty movements out of the nearby Clarendon Street bus layover area.
Footnote – Adelaide’s ‘Grand Union’
The intersection of King William Street and North Terrace once used to be a full ‘Grand Union’ junction, allowing trams to turn in any direction – a situation that remained until the system was closed in 1958, leaving just the Glenelg tramway.
Trams returned to North Terrace in 2007, when a 1.2 kilometre extension of the Glenelg line north to Adelaide Railway Station. The intersection at King William Street then became a tramway junction once again in 2018, following the opening of a 900 metre extension east along North Terrace to the Botanic Garden, and a 350 metre extension north along King William Road to the Adelaide Festival Centre.
But one sticking point hit the news in October 2017 – the lack of a right-hand turn for trams from King William Street into North Terrace, thanks to the new junction layout only catering for four out of a possible eight turning movements.
The Liberal opposition seized on this, promising in March 2018 they would build it at a cost of $37 million, but then scrapped the whole idea in November that year, quoting an engineers report and stating constructions costs had escalated to $47 million, and that new trams costing $70 million would need to be purchased – so the interesection was left as it is today.
From Aurecon’s ‘King William & North Terrace Right Turn Feasibility Report’ for DPTI
Melbourne has hook turns for buses too, one such example is Hoddle Street southbound into Victoria Street for buses heading into the City. Done so the buses don’t have to weave across the traffic. It used to be part time, but is now full time.
It’s been a while since I last went down to Hoddle Street – will have to make a special trip now.
Recently a new bus-only hook turn was added at Exhibition and Lonsdale Street – part of the work that put a new separated bike lane along Exhibition Street.
It makes a lot of sense if the infrastructure can support it to avoid buses having to weave across traffic to do right turns. May well mean in some cases that the bus stop can be closer to the intersection.
There is a pseudo hook turn for buses in Footscray – near the intersection of Geelong Rd/Barkly St/Victoria St. Buses travelling east along Barkly can access a bus stop just after Geelong Rd (effectively at the end of the Geelong Rd service road reservation) and then turn into Victoria St with the change of lights. Often if the bus doesn’t need to stop at the bus stop, and traffic allows, it will just do a normal right turn from Barkly into Victoria. I’ve often wondered why that setup is there – basically means there’s bus stops on both sides of Geelong Rd for the 216, 220 & 410, although the 472 also uses it (after weaving across traffic to turn right from Geelong Rd!).
I’ve never understood that little pocket on Barkly Street –
https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.7988824,144.8928271,3a,49y,87.73h,88.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2xMPo1HJoHIL-3hkafqoiQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Maybe it with a time point, so early running buses could wait before arriving into Footscray?
Possibly – although I’ve never seen one waiting there. The driver change point is the next stop on Paisley St near the library for the 216 and on Nicholson St for the 220. The 472 would just use its main stop in Footscray. Outbound for the 216 & 220 the main stop on Paisley St must be a timing point, and you’d think a driver change point too, but no the following stop on Paisley St opposite the library is.
I just asked around, and route 216 and 220 don’t do changeovers there since Transdev moved their depot from Footscray to Sunshine West in 2016 – they can just swap buses over at Sunshine station.
Actually despite move of depot the 219 still did changes over at Footscray till 2018!
Also on account late running among 2018 roster changes mostly bus in.bus out rather than change overs at Sunshine station
The stop use be on Victoria St till 70 or 80s when was then moved to the current hook turn stop
I wonder if the relocated bus stop coincided with widening of Geelong Road, and the widened bridge at ‘Mount Mistake’.
https://wongm.com/2020/11/mount-mistake-geelong-road-west-footscray-railway-bridge/