A Review of Access Management Practice

• Authored by:  R. Brindle

Brindle, R. A Review of Access Management Practice, AP-R227, Sydney, Australia: Austroads (2003)
Austroads is the association of Australian and New Zealand road transport and traffic authorities. This study for Austroads reviewed current Australasian access management practices of transportation and planning agencies in New Zealand and the Australian States and Territories. It included a review of policies and access decision processes, including perceptions of the adequacy of the processes and documentation of the extent the various practical access management ‘tools’ were being applied in the various jurisdictions. The primary focus was on methods of designation of access and other characteristics at the time of road planning and/or classification, and methods used to address access through the land development approvals process.
The report defines access management as follows:
Access management is the process of controlling the interface and interaction between a traffic carriageway and the adjacent land. It seeks to promote orderly integrated planning, by protecting the safety and efficiency (including capacity) of the traffic function of the road while acknowledging the needs and amenable use of adjacent land. The rationale and tools of access management are thus an important part of integrated land use-transport planning at the local level.
A key finding was that current practices vary widely across the various agencies and jurisdictions. Many of the agencies were in need of clear rules relative to access management, documentation of rationale for the various tools and requirements, and methods for better coordinating land development and access permitting decisions. One objective of the study was to evaluate ways to reduce the costs of access management. The author notes that this will require greater certainty for government and land owners in terms of rules and expectations relative to each road segment and the relative details of location and design that would apply in a given situation.
The author suggests “setting the rules and context for access management in advance” and taking the following specific steps:
• incorporation of access management requirements into planning schemes.
• definition of a road hierarchy with corresponding access conditions.
• special category of ‘limited access roads’
• preparation of corridor plans to designate permitted points of access.
• documented and agreed standards for access location and design.
• delegation of much of the routine decision-making by the State Road Authority to the local agency (accompanied by mutually agreed rules and plans, both for specific locations and for general requirements).
Also recommended in the study was the need for “specific legislation and policy that affirm access management alongside contemporary planning policies promoting ‘new urbanism’ and urban villages – and development techniques that support these policies.”
Other specific items of possible interest to the AMM2 are:
• As a requirement of its limited access road designation, Queensland prepares road-specific plans of sections of the network, which have statutory effect and show permitted locations for access and, by implication, indicate where access will not be permitted. The classification system for state-controlled roads was recently simplified to include only the following categories (the limited access designation can be added, as desired):
? National Highways (the former National Highway corridors as defined under Federal Government legislation)
? State Strategic Roads
? Regional Roads
? District Roads