Kirkham Bridge Roadworks Plans

The Northern District Times had an article on 31 October saying the Murray Farm/Kirkham Road bridge over the M2 in Beecroft "may be reduced to one lane of traffic for 20 months while it is lengthened" as part of the M2 widening.
Transurban and the RTA confirmed to the newspaper that this is one of the options being considered for when the project begins in January 2011, but the decision has not been finalised and a variety of measures are being considered. The residents of Beecroft and Cheltenham are entitled to know what the other options are. The latest report, from the BCCT, implied that they have heard the bridge might be demolished and not replaced for "at least six months".
Does it make any sense at all to be starting a Half a Billion Dollar project when such factors have not yet been decided? Before the NSW government signed the contract authorising this work to begin, the local residents should have been given full and open facts about their intentions, and where those intentions are not yet firm, the government, and the RTA, should have listed all possible options. And that list must be exclusive, so the contractor can't come up later with a new cheaper but more destructive, option. Nor should the contractor be able to charge the taxpayer for selecting a more expensive but less disruptive option.
An RTA spokesman apparently said "The impact of the proposed bridge closure on local traffic is still being assessed." This blogger can find no word on this in the earlier RTA and M2 Project documentation.
The spokesman went on, "Consultation with residents has not yet started and will be carried out before any decision is made."
The statements available so far are ambiguous, and could be read as meaning work on the bridge won't start for six months, and might be limited to minor lane closures. But the actual wording was that "it will be at least six months before a replacement bridge is constructed."