Ministerial Statement: Southern option for Beerwah rail crossing

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Minister for Transport and Main Roads
The Honourable Paul Lucas
05/09/2007

Southern option for Beerwah rail crossing

The State Government will build a new southern road crossing of the rail line at Beerwah, following overwhelming local support for the option.

Announcing the option today, Minister for Transport and Main Roads Paul Lucas and Member for Glass House Carolyn Male said residents in the area had made it clear that was the option they preferred.

"Our community consultation showed Beerwah residents clearly preferred the option for a new road crossing of the rail line south of the current central business district crossing," Mr Lucas said.

"There was strong support for the preferred southern connection with 1195 written responses from people and organisations," he said.

"Of those who responded, 86% supported the southern connection as the preferred option.

"Community feedback has been invaluable and has led to significant improvements to the original proposal, such as maintaining Turner Street as a no-through road and extending the new road link to Peachester Road.

"These key recommendations have been incorporated into the final design."

Ms Male said the project would address community concern about delays and congestion in the local road network.

"The new road will include pedestrian and cycle facilities to link with existing routes, and improvements to disabled, pedestrian, and cyclist access at the Beerwah railway station," Ms Male said.

"It's a big win for motorists who can sometimes experience delays of up to 15 minutes in peak congestion periods."

Features of the project include:

    * the new 1.2km connection will join Steve Irwin Way to Peachester Rd with links at Beerwah Pde and Roberts Rd;
    *
      a new road to be constructed on undeveloped land away from the town centre to limit the visual impact;
    *
      no existing commercial buildings will be demolished;
    *
      new embankments and structures will be visually screened by existing vegetation or new landscaping;
    *
      new road includes pedestrian and cycle link;
    *
      the ability to construct much of the new road without significant disruption to passengers, motorists, pedestrians, or cyclists;
    *
      the ability to increase future capacity on the new road by adding new lanes; and
    *
      direct road links to Steve Irwin Way and to the Roys Road connection through to the Bruce Highway.

Mr Lucas said construction was expected to begin by the end of this year. Preliminary cost estimates for the upgrade is at least $70 million. Final costings will be confirmed next month.

Ms Male said she was pleased with the level of the response received from the community following the four public information sessions from May to June.

"This is a great response considering that the Glass House Mountains, Beerwah, Peachester, and Landsborough areas that provided the greatest proportion of the feedback contain approximately 4900 households," Ms Male said.

"We often received requests to avoid a link to Turner Street and provide a direct link to Roberts Road and Simpson Street as an alternative, while many also requested a link to Peachester Road. These changes were considered by the project team in their technical reports and the final decision supports the changes most often requested in community feedback.

"Another good example of this is the reduced visual impact of the new road where it will begin to rise steadily from Steve Irwin Way, cross at its maximum height above the railway line, and will now meet Roberts Road instead of crossing high above it."

Mr Lucas said the upgrade was on top of the State Government's $298 million Caboolture to Beerburrum upgrade. Stage one of the project involves constructing 14km of new track and realigning the existing corridor and is scheduled for completion in mid 2009. Construction started in March 2007 and is currently continuing with earthworks, road works and bridge construction underway.

The 17km stage two upgrade from Beerburrum to Landsborough is in its preliminary planning stage.

Mr Lucas said the lowering of rail line option was not selected for further consideration as preliminary costings showed it would have cost around twice the cost of the option the community preferred and would be more difficult to construct and impose constraints on future development of the rail and road network.