Sturt Street’s beautiful past and safer future

STURT Street’s new intersection upgrades are aiming to keep the boulevard’s heritage appeal while building a safer future for the city’s residents.

As part of upgrades at the intersection of Sturt and Talbot streets, Member for Wendouree Juliana Addison said construction crews have been busy building bluestone kerbing to retain the heritage feel of Sturt Street’s iconic median gardens.

“As the main thoroughfare of our city, it is vital that we make Sturt Street intersections safer for all road users, cyclists and pedestrians,” she said.

“Sturt Street is also home to many important monuments and statues, so we have taken this into consideration for the design and build of our safer road network.”

The project is also helping to support a regional Victorian business as Port Fairy-based company, Bamstone is set to continue supplying bluestone for this project as it has previously for Ballarat’s heritage kerbing.

Blocks of bluestone have been used to create the new kerb by cutting them to fit cut to fit and individually installed them onto a bed of crushed rock by hand, as opposed to traditional concrete guttering.

Regional Roads Victoria has worked with the City of Ballarat and Ballarat Heritage Watch to ensure the new works are in keeping with the area’s history.

The new configuration will also hope to eliminate potential conflict points in the high risk area and reduce the severity of crashes if they do happen.

Included in a larger package of works, six other high-risk intersections along Sturt Street are set to be upgraded, including Raglan, Ascot, Talbot, Errard, Windermere and Lyons streets.