Article: State's road pain almost over

[ozbob]

From Sunday Mail click here!

State's road pain almost over

State's road pain almost over
Article from: The Sunday Mail (Qld)

Steve Connolly

May 04, 2008 12:00am

ROAD projects worth more than $6 billion have left Queensland looking like a giant building site ? and frustrated motorists looking for the nearest exit.
The end is in sight though, with many projects ahead of schedule and expected to make significant improvements to traffic.

Brisbane City Council's North-South Tunnel project, the Gateway Bridge duplication and the Ipswich Motorway upgrade are the state's Top 3 road projects, collectively costing more than $4.5 billion. All should be completed by mid-2011.

Premier Anna Bligh said it was an historic period for infrastructure investment. "Congestion is a massive issue for Queenslanders and our message is ? we have been working on it and we are going to deliver.

"These projects will bust congestion and there is much more to follow, with projects progressing well across the state," she said.

The Sunday Mail progress report on the Top 10 projects:

North-South Bypass Tunnel

More than half the 4.8km tunnel, from Bowen Hills in Brisbane's inner-north under the Brisbane River to southside Woolloongabba, has been completed. Contract completion is October 2010 but contractors hope to finish the tunnel at the end of 2009.

Gateway Bridge Duplication

Queensland's largest-ever road and bridge project, worth $1.9 billion, is on track, with foundations of the second bridge complete and two main river piers rising. The new bridge will open mid-2010, with refurbishment of the existing bridge by mid-2011. A link to a new northern access to Brisbane Airport will be completed next year.

Ipswich Motorway ? Wacol to Darra

Construction to remove a key bottleneck at the Ipswich Motorway and Centenary Highway interchange began in April. The upgrade to the motorway's Wacol-Darra section joins work begun on the Ipswich Motorway at the Logan Motorway interchange, and work is due to start next year on the motorway between Dinmore and Goodna.

Tugun Bypass

The $543 million Tugun bypass is due to open on June 2, more than six months ahead of schedule. The four-lane, 7km bypass is expected to save motorists up to 20 minutes.

Pacific Motorway ? Nerang to Tugun upgrades

Construction on the Nerang South interchange has started and is due for completion by mid-next year. It's the first in a series of interchange upgrades, including a rail extension and high-voltage powerlines.

Houghton Highway

Work on the $315 million Houghton Highway bridge duplication at Redcliffe started in February.

Sunshine Motorway

Good progress is being made on a $255 million upgrade of the motorway on the Sunshine Coast from Sippy Downs to Kawana Way, Maroochydore Rd to David Low Way, and at Pacific Paradise.

Bruce Highway (Uhlmann Rd to Caboolture)

Work has started on the federally funded $183 million six-laning of the Bruce Highway between Uhlmann Rd and Caboolture to reduce congestion and improve safety.

Bruce Highway at Tully

A new 175m "flood-free" bridge over the Tully River to benefit local motorists and long-haul freight is due to be completed in late 2009..

SQARRP

The Southern Queensland Accelerated Roads Rehabilitation Project is replacing 31 timber bridges ? three completed so far.

[ozbob]

 

I think the State's road pain has really not begun yet!

Rising fuel costs, environmental costs, and sheer congestion will mean that this massive funding imbalance with respect for roads against sustainable public transport will hurt, and hurt for a long time.

No doubt future generations will look back on the period where 'Brisbane burned and they fiddled' with contempt as they struggle to equip the state with sustainable transport solutions.

[stephenk]

Many European cities are now almost exclusively building new public transport infrastructure, not road infrastructure. This is because they have the foresight to see that cars pollute, and eventually they will be too expensive for many people to use.

Meanwhile in the "Smart State" the State Government is obsessed with building roads, particularly ones that they can charge a toll, whilst public transport infrastructure heads towards meltdown. We need more new trains, and a new rail tunnel under the city, and associated infrastructure changes to cope with more regular train services (e.g remove some level crossings, less single track sections, more reversing/turnback sidings) . This would allow metro like frequencies to run on most rail lines. The increased capacity of the rail lines would allow stations to be fed by local feeder bus services, helping to reduce the areas with poor public transport between the rail lines and busways.

The State Government needs to look at high quality suburban rail systems such as the Berlin, Munich, & Hamburg S-Bahns, and Paris RER to see how it should be done.

[Mozz]

Do these journalists even read the spin put out in press releases, I mean really, the pain is almost over.

It's a bit similar to the investment of $7.0B into public transport infrastructure but we can't get a single new train service on the heavily overcrowded Ipswich/caboolture lines and haven't been able to for the past 5 plus years.

Or the purchase of the new trains in 2004 which should see delivery (hopefully) by the end of 2010, we are still waiting.