If you haven’t yet read our first blog, you can check it out here for the background and overview of the project.
The primary design tool of this project, or what we like to call the ‘rock star’ is Civil Site Design, using BricsCAD as the CAD platform. To find out more about Civil Site Design, click here.
The route adjacent to the railway within railway land had already been identified as the preferred route by Whangarei District Council. It was then up to Bruce and the project team to firm up the design detail.
Many decisions had to be made in relation to the side of the railway to use, the grade of the path, landscaping treatments, crime prevention through engineering design (CPTED), and interaction with various nodes along the route. The safety of the path user was of utmost importance.
Civil Site Design allowed the user to trial various options and prepare concept drawings to confirm in accordance with design criteria. Once a design had been decided, final drawings, visualisations and quantity take-offs were easy to prepare.
Of course, all projects have their problems, and this one was no exception, especially when dealing with a railway track! To cross the railway, you would encounter such challenges as changing direction to get around an obstruction. It could be a street to go underneath or around. You might need to design a bridge if you had to go over a ravine or gully.
Civil Site Design capability when it comes to the challenges of obstructions is dynamic. For example, the drawing of the general path could start at four metres wide all along and then drop down to three metres. This project started with the basics, and Bruce continued to refine from there. So, for example, the path would narrow, and the direction change because of the railway crossing. The process was a basic conceptual design, which was refined through iteration.
Once Bruce had a functional concept, he dropped it out to visualisation for the stakeholders to review. Whangarei District Council and the MBIE could then view a video of the Kamo shared pathway, showing the concept of accessible pedestrian crossings and pathways, accommodating users of mobility scooters and the visually impaired.
Finally, Civil Site Design produced a video of the model, a realistic design showing in detail the shared pathway. The benefit of the video is it allows the stakeholders to visualise the material. This is particularly valuable for stakeholders who may not have experience in the design area to understand how the technical drawings work.
The video below shows an excellent example of the capability of Civil Site Design in the design process, and was generated directly from Civil Site Design.