#FutureSEQ What will Queensland look like in 2043?

[verbatim9]

Was talking to a 'futurist' the other day and he said we are about five years away from being offered 'transport packages', in much the same way as we buy telecommunications packages, or private health insurance.  The bog standard safety net is what we have now by way of public transport, but if you are stuck at Nambour station and want to get to Caboolture more quickly than the next train (which might depart in an hour or so), you call up a service similar to Uber to drive you there, maybe picking up a couple of more passengers on the way.  Or, if the train drops you off at the station at 11pm and there is no connecting bus home, you dial up your package provider (or pre-arrange) and get a ride home in a taxi within the envelope of the transport package you might purchase three or four times a year.  The fare would be cheaper than a taxi fare, because the service provider would have the use of your money before you drew down on the sum invested over time.

What about congestion? Surely more personalised transport will lead to further congestion and the need to widen freeways. The focus on fast rail to Nambour and Maroochydore Coolangatta and Toowoomba seems more plausible.

[Fares_Fair]

G'day Verbatim,
I concur.
Indeed, more congestion in that idea right there.
Lets hope that futurist is wrong, unless of course the cars are flying. 

[James]

I think that broadly, all this 'futurist' stuff is rubbish and technology will evolve far more slowly.

Transport is an industry which is heavily regulated by the government and has a lot of government interference. In addition, as transport is used by everybody at every stage of life (even pre-life and post-life!), you need a system which can bring everybody along with it, not just the CBD workers - who are still a large minority.

It would also require packaging PT, something which would involve paying TransLink and taking a % margin on top of that - unlikely to be popular.

[Fares_Fair]

This is a brilliant series of hard-hitting stories by the Courier-Mail - highlighting transport and infrastructure plans, predictions and deficiencies in the context of the extraordinary growth the state is experiencing.
Kudos to them 

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> Population dilemma: Will Brisbane boom or burst?

SIXTY per cent of Brisbane residents believe the city is growing too quickly, new research reveals.

And two-thirds of people say politicians are guilty of blaming increased migration to cover their own lack of planning, which has resulted in congestion and crowding.

"Concern about growth is real, and we should dig a little deeper to think about its root cause and take steps to address it," Property Council Queensland executive director Chris Mountford said.

The Property Council commissioned the poll in seven state capitals ahead of next week's COAG meeting, where Prime Minister Scott Morrison and premiers will discuss the impact of rising population and migration on the country's biggest cities.

"There is not the high negativity around growth that we might expect," Mr Mountford said. "There's a deeper understanding that growth, done well and managed well, can deliver good outcomes.



Three-quarters of Brisbane respondents said population increase was good if properly planned. And 79 per cent think the problems faced by cities come down to governments having failed to plan well.

The results reflect many of the issues highlighted in The Courier-Mail's Future SEQ series investigating the challenges and opportunities for the region to 2043.

"With the population of SEQ expected to boom by a further 1.8 million over the next 25 years, we must take steps now to build public confidence in the management of future growth," Mr Mountford said.

The Prime Minister plans to cut Australia's annual migrant intake cap by 30,000, and the Federal Government has flagged a policy of encouraging new arrivals to locate in regional areas.

Mr Morrison has asked state and territory leaders to bring their own population strategies to next week's COAG meeting — and wants them to nominate population targets by the end of January.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is expected to tell the COAG gathering that the Sunshine State is prepared for population rises, but needs federal investment in infrastructure to do so and take some of the burden off the southern capitals.

While Sydney had secured $9.8 billion, and Melbourne $7.2 billion, from the Coalition Government in the past five years for infrastructure projects, Brisbane got only $300 million towards the $1 billion Metro public transport initiative — and no contribution to the $5.4 billion Cross River Rail network.

The State Government and SEQ Council of Mayors have agreed to draw up a City Deal, setting infrastructure priorities and funding models for the next 15 to 20 years, but the Federal Government has not yet committed.

Acting State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said it was no surprise people were attracted to Queensland, and the state was investing in growing the economy, creating jobs and delivering services but was being starved by Canberra.

"The Federal Government has got to quit treating Brisbane as a second-class city and back Queensland infrastructure," he said.

[verbatim9]

TOP 20 INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS PROPOSED FOR SEQ

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/fast-rail-road-tunnels-to-be-built-under-60bn-infrastructure-plan/news-story/5cf648e1c0c0468511ffdff7b84a5d1b

TOP 20 INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS PROPOSED FOR SEQ
Project | Cost | Proposed completion
- North-West Transport Corridor (Urban passenger rail and four-lane motorway from Bald Hills to Stafford Rd and Alderley Station) | $6.35b | 2028
- Cross River Rail | $5.4b | 2022
- Faster Rail (Brisbane to Sunshine Coast) | $4.57b | 2030
- Faster Rail (Brisbane to the Gold Coast) | $3.4b | 2031
- Faster Rail (Ipswich to Toowoomba | $3.4b | 2039
- Centenary Motorway Bypass (Sumners Rd interchange to Legacy Way at Toowong, and linking to N-S ink at Everton Park) | $3b | 2040
- Pacific Motorway upgrade (includes 8 lanes Gateway Motorway to Logan Motorway) | $2.8b | 2028
- Brisbane Metro $2.7b | Stage 1 | 2021 | Stage2 2029
- Mass Transit Corridor Extensions | $1.95b | 2036
- Ipswich Motorway upgrade (Darra to Rocklea) | $1.9b | 2027
- Warrego Highway (includes six lanes Dinmore to Brisbane Valley) | $1.88b | 2028
- East-West Link (Legacy Way at Toowong to South East Freeway Tunnel) | $1.8b | 2035
- North-South Link (Inner Western Bypass) | $1.8b | 2031
- Faster Rail (Brisbane to Ipswich Central) | $1.7b | 2031
- Gold Coast Light Rail extension (Broadbeach to Cooloongatta Airport) | $1.68b | 2027
- Logan Motorway upgrade (Ipswich Motorway to Mt Lindesay Highway and Wembley Rd to Pacific Mwy) | $1.2b | 2028
- Caboolture to Maroochydore urban passenger rail | $1.2b | 2029
- Centenary Motorway Upgrade Projects (includes Sumners Rd interchange 6 lanes) | $1.1b | 2025
- Inter-Regional Transport Corridor (4 lanes Coomera to Nerang-Broadbeach Rd) | $1.1b | 2024
- Sunshine Coast Light Rail (Kawana to Marrochydore via Mooloolaba) | $1.1b | 2026
Total proposed infrastructure plan: 47 projects, costing $62b, over 23 years

[ozbob]

TOP 20 INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS PROPOSED FOR SEQ

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/fast-rail-road-tunnels-to-be-built-under-60bn-infrastructure-plan/news-story/5cf648e1c0c0468511ffdff7b84a5d1b

TOP 20 INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS PROPOSED FOR SEQ
Project | Cost | Proposed completion
- North-West Transport Corridor (Urban passenger rail and four-lane motorway from Bald Hills to Stafford Rd and Alderley Station) | $6.35b | 2028
- Cross River Rail | $5.4b | 2022
- Faster Rail (Brisbane to Sunshine Coast) | $4.57b | 2030
- Faster Rail (Brisbane to the Gold Coast) | $3.4b | 2031
- Faster Rail (Ipswich to Toowoomba | $3.4b | 2039
- Centenary Motorway Bypass (Sumners Rd interchange to Legacy Way at Toowong, and linking to N-S ink at Everton Park) | $3b | 2040
- Pacific Motorway upgrade (includes 8 lanes Gateway Motorway to Logan Motorway) | $2.8b | 2028
- Brisbane Metro $2.7b | Stage 1 | 2021 | Stage2 2029
- Mass Transit Corridor Extensions | $1.95b | 2036
- Ipswich Motorway upgrade (Darra to Rocklea) | $1.9b | 2027
- Warrego Highway (includes six lanes Dinmore to Brisbane Valley) | $1.88b | 2028
- East-West Link (Legacy Way at Toowong to South East Freeway Tunnel) | $1.8b | 2035
- North-South Link (Inner Western Bypass) | $1.8b | 2031
- Faster Rail (Brisbane to Ipswich Central) | $1.7b | 2031
- Gold Coast Light Rail extension (Broadbeach to Cooloongatta Airport) | $1.68b | 2027
- Logan Motorway upgrade (Ipswich Motorway to Mt Lindesay Highway and Wembley Rd to Pacific Mwy) | $1.2b | 2028
- Caboolture to Maroochydore urban passenger rail | $1.2b | 2029
- Centenary Motorway Upgrade Projects (includes Sumners Rd interchange 6 lanes) | $1.1b | 2025
- Inter-Regional Transport Corridor (4 lanes Coomera to Nerang-Broadbeach Rd) | $1.1b | 2024
- Sunshine Coast Light Rail (Kawana to Marrochydore via Mooloolaba) | $1.1b | 2026
Total proposed infrastructure plan: 47 projects, costing $62b, over 23 years

This is actually derived from the Council of Mayors (SEQ) SEQ People Mass Movement Study
see this thread > http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=13445.0

[techblitz]

Couriermail --> Thousands of people are fleeing Sydney each month as the city becomes unliveable

Each month, thousands of cash-strapped and disillusioned Sydneysiders are packing up and leaving the city in search of a better way of life.

New South Wales had the highest rate of exodus of any state or territory in the September 2018 quarter, with most departing locals heading north to Queensland.

Alysha Sladden and her family joined the cohort of leavers in January, bidding farewell to their hometown to move to Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast, driven by housing affordability.

Ms Sladden said when she fell pregnant with her and husband Michael's second child, it turned out they were having twins.

"Our two-bedroom unit in Dee Why wasn't going to be sufficient anymore, so we started looking for somewhere else to live," Ms Sladden told news.com.au.

While house prices in Sydney have slid sharply over the past 18 months, the cost of a home large enough for their growing family was still going to be prohibitive.

Photos on Facebook shared by friends who had moved to Queensland sparked an idea, and the couple began looking at properties in the Sunshine State.

"We realised we could get so much more bang for our buck," Ms Sladden said.

"If we stayed and bought a house in Sydney, we would've had this huge mortgage hanging over our heads. I would've had to return to full-time work straight away too. You only get one shot at the early years with kids, and it's nice to be able to spend time with them."

For one-third of the cost of a comparable property on Sydney's northern beaches, the Sladdens snapped up a lovely four-bedroom house with a big yard and a pool in Burleigh Heads

Alysha and Michael moved north to Queensland from Sydney to be able to afford a family home.
"It was beautiful on the northern beaches but this is something else. It wouldn't have been as much fun in Sydney with so much debt and far less money," she said.

"I was a bit sad to leave family, especially when we have young children. I was a bit nervous too. But the fun of it and the huge benefits have surpassed our expectations. It's such an adventure.

"Of course, we're not working as much, and so I think we're not as stressed as we were in Sydney. The kids probably benefit from that."

Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed 11,490 people moved from NSW to the Sunshine State in the three months to September, with another 7239 residents relocating to Victoria.

It mirrors results from the July quarter, where 12,802 people moved from NSW to Queensland and 8126 south to Victoria.


ABS data shows thousands of people are leaving Sydney each month, with most heading north to Queensland. Picture: AAP
A new survey has found 23 per cent of Millennials would move interstate in order to be able to buy their first home or upgrade to a bigger one.

Financial comparison website RateCity.com.au polled a range of Australians and also found 20 per cent of gen Xers would relocate due to housing affordability.

"The entry level prices are lower, so it takes less time to save for the all-important deposit," RateCity.com.au researcher director Sally Tindall said.

"It takes almost double the time to save a deposit in Sydney as it does in Brisbane, and it's a similar story in Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Darwin."

The time taken to save a deposit in each capital city.
The median dwelling price in Sydney of $782,473 would require a deposit of $128,034, which would take someone putting away $400 a week a whopping five years and nine months to save.

By comparison, Brisbane's median price of $489,832 would need $66,770, which would take three years and one month to build up, Ms Tindall said.

"You can afford a nice family home without having nothing left over. It gives people breathing space and financial options that you might not get in Sydney and Melbourne."

Of Australians who decided to move interstate in the September quarter, most came from Sydney and the majority ended up in Queensland. Picture: Dilvin Yasa

People from Sydney were the most likely to consider moving for the sake of housing affordability, with 32 per cent of Harbour City residents open to uprooting their lives, she said.

"Prices have come down in Sydney, but even with that, it's still hard to get on the ladder," Ms Tindall said.

While Ms Sladden was initially sad about leaving behind her family and nervous about making such a big move, her family "couldn't love it more".

"You look at the numbers and the lifestyle, and it's a no-brainer," she said.

Plenty of her Sydney friends are following suit too, she said. They've inspired others to contemplate the change, just as her state-changer mates did for her.

"The mothers' group I joined in Sydney (five years ago) when I had my first child, all but one have moved on," Ms Sladden said.

Most were living along the stretch of southeast Queensland's coast in either the Gold Coast, Brisbane or the Sunshine Coast, she said.

Originally published as Why people are fleeing this city

This was very easily predictable going by the annual ABS stats that came out last year...
In terms of the gold coast.....vehicle traffic is becoming a festering mess along the highway everywhere south of broadbeach.....construction trucks/tradies adding to the mess as a lot of towers go up.....traffic was that bad down at kirra on the weeked they had to plant a human traffic light between kirra/coolie just to control the flow of traffic....there are simply too many cars down there for holidays/events.....LRT cannot come soon enough..

Some holiday period southbound 760`s are also filling up completely including standees.....with most getting off @ the airport...not overly concerning yet... but still a sign of where things are going...

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> Pimpama is the epicentre of growth and the urban sprawl that links Brisbane and the Gold Coast

THE final green break along the M1 corridor is vanishing fast as the stretch between Brisbane and the Gold Coast becomes one continuous sprawl of urban development.

Latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that Pimpama on the northern Gold Coast has the biggest growth of any suburb in Queensland and is the fastest-growing outside a capital city anywhere in Australia.

The arrival of an extra 3674 residents saw the population grow 29.5 per cent between 2017 and 2018 to hit 16,134 – the level it was forecast to reach in 2026.

The adjoining suburbs of Coomera and Upper Coomera-Willow Vale also feature in the 10 largest growth areas in the state.

Ranked seventh, Coomera's population climbed 10 per cent to 16,611 as 1498 extra people arrived.

On the other side of the highway, Upper Coomera-Willow Vale was one spot behind. Its population swelled by 1,376 people – 4.1 per cent – to 34,892 in a year.

Google aerial images show clearly how new residential communities and shopping centres are quickly swallowing up the expanse of green space which separated the industrial zone at Yatala and Ormeau from Dreamworld, which traditionally marked the start of the Gold Coast.

ShapingSEQ, the State Government's regional plan for the next 25 years, indicates an "interurban break" around the Pimpama-Hotham Creek area will be retained for open space, rural production and outdoor recreation. It is largely low-lying sugar cane land which would be uneconomic to develop for housing.

The only other remaining undeveloped breaks along the motorway are on flood plains alongside the Logan and Albert Rivers.

URBAN expert professor Peter Spearrit says Pimpama's expansion is the realisation of his grim prediction 15 years ago that southeast Queensland would become a single 200km city sprawl.

"The Gold Coast is now merging with Greater Brisbane. It's just going to be part of Australia's longest linear conurbation which will stretch from Noosa to the Tweed.

"The Gold Coast started as a collection of fairly distinct villages. The trouble with this incredibly rapid suburban growth is you end up with settlements that have no real core or sense that they are special. They just blur into one another.

"A sign over the highway saying you have just passed from Brisbane into Logan into the Gold Coast gives no sense of being in a distinct place," says Prof Spearritt, a former president of the Brisbane Institute think-tank.

Shopping centres had become the equivalent of traditional village squares as the centre of communities but, with the rise online shopping retail, they too could have a finite future.

"The thing that's bothered me for decades about the Gold Coast is that it's had so little interest in green space. It's really becoming Australia's biggest suburb."

The growth in the Pimpama/Coomera area so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

Official population projections prepared by the State Statistician's Office – and revealed in The Courier-Mail's recent Future SEQ series – show they will explode over the next quarter of a century.

By 2043, the combined total residents of Pimpama/Coomera will have ballooned from 18,610 in 2016 to a massive 104,347.

Upper Coomera will take the total for the three suburbs to 151,523 – equivalent to a city the size of Cairns today.

State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Minister Cameron Dick says the Government's land supply and development monitoring report, launched in December, "indicates

there is enough land in the region, including Pimpama, Coomera and Upper Coomera, to accommodate expected growth.

"However, we will continue monitoring land supply and development across south-east Queensland, and delivering the infrastructure the region needs, to ensure growth is best managed."

Leading demographer Bernard Salt says: "Its destiny was set 20 years ago.

"There's an almost irresistible level of demand for housing along that corridor for access to Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

"It is arguably among the most in-demand places in Australia given its position. It's still green and pleasant – unlike some of the broadacre development zones around other cities – and offers high lifestyle values.

"It's attractive to young families – people in their late 20s and 30s setting up home – and lifestylers in their 30s and 40s trading up. They might have a boat and enjoy an active lifestyle. It's a location offering options."

Gradually, from the early years of this century, local farms have been bought up and land-banked by developers.

The first – and still biggest – major player was Mirvac, which began developing its $504 million Gainsborough Greens masterplanned community around a golf course of the same name in 2011.

"We saw the significant opportunity the area presented due to its strategic location at the northern end of the Gold Coast," Mirvac Queensland residential general manager Warwick Bible says.

"We have a lot of professionals and tradies who either split their time between the Gold Coast and Brisbane, or who have members in their household who work in both cities."

"As a major growth centre for the city, with the planned infrastructure and amenity — such as new schools, shops and parks — to match, we knew the area would be popular with homebuyers."

Malwina Manley, who moved to Gainsborough Greens from Brisbane with husband Mischa and their daughter Kalina two years ago, said: "Here, you can work in Brisbane and still have the Gold Coast lifestyle."

Mrs Manley drives to Tugun to work while her husband catches the train to Brisbane CBD.

"It's a good place for families — lots of kindys and schools."

The 2000th home was recently sold at Gainsborough Greens, with plans for 350 more to be built.

The median house price in the suburb has risen from $399,000 to $475,000 in five years but remains relatively affordable.

Mr Bible said more than two-thirds of the Gainsborough Greens development was dedicated to green open space and seven parks had already been incorporated.

Other developments include the 53-hectare Pimpama Village housing estate on the former Coulters' dairy and strawberry farm.

It is a two-minute drive from the new $100 million Pimpama Junction Shopping Centre, one of four in the area including the $1 billion Coomera Westfield mall. There are four public and private schools.

The City Council this week released tender documents for the construction of a $80 million sports hub including a 50-metre swimming pool, nine tennis courts, eight netball courts and a community centre.

Gold Coast Deputy Mayor Donna Gates, local councillor for the area for the past 12 years, says the change from the ''sleepy little one coffee shop, one store village'' has been ''simply incredible"

She says with a clean slate, she would like to have seen a wider mix of housing development including larger lots. But there was no doubting he appeal of the area, nor the impact of additional traffic on congested feeder roads to the motorway.

It is a remarkable transition for what, until now, has remained the last rural township remaining along the motorway route snaking its way between the country's third and sixth biggest cities.

From the late 1860s, Pimpama was the terminus for Cobb & Co coaches from Brisbane, leading to two hotels opening either side of Hotham Creek.

German settlers developed sugar plantations and the school opened in 1872. With the opening of a railway station in 1889, dairy farming became the predominant activity in the first half of the 20th Century.

But growth was slow. The 37 village residents recorded at the 1881 Census only grew to 100 by 1901 and half a century on in 1954, had reached only 232.

Even in 2006, barely 1000 people called Pimpama home.

For decades, its most famous figure was the statue of a nameless soldier standing, head bowed, in the grounds of the Uniting Church alongside the old Pacific Highway.

He was known as "Halfway Harry'' by generations of day-trippers, who used the spot as a handy place to stop for a sandwich and a cuppa to break the journey midway between the capital city and what was still known as the South Coast rather than the Gold Coast.

The new highway bypassed Pimpama in the 1960s and a duplication of the Coomera River crossing made the road four lanes in each direction from 1970.

Today, around 180,000 vehicles a day travel that section of the M1 and the explosion of people living in Pimpama and Coomera will pour tens of thousands of extra commuters onto the already-gridlocked Pacific Motorway which is straddled by the suburbs.

The Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads has gazetted a footprint for a route it's calling the Coomera Connector which would dissect both suburbs.

Effectively a second M1, the six-lane highway would run almost parallel to the east of the existing motorway for 45 kilometres from Nerang in the south, through Coomera, Pimpama and Stapylton to link with the Pacific and Logan Motorways at Loganholme.

The plan for the eastern corridor alternative has been around since 1990 when it was proposed as a tollway.

The ''koala highway'' plan as it was later dubbed provoked outrage as it ran through sensitive wildlife habit in Daisy Hill and Redlands, helping to bring down the Goss Labor Government.

The new version avoids the problem by merging with the existing motorway south of that area. But while the estimated cost of the route in the early 1990s was $250 million, today it would run into billions.

Cr Gates says she is ''a bit of a doubting Thomas" that the Coomera Connector will ever be built given the extreme cost and says the emphasis should be on upgrading the existing highway and interchanges.

Transport and main Roads Minister Mark Bailey says that is what the State Government is doing, spending $74 million on an upgrade of Exit 54 at Coomera and planning a $25 million improvement at Exit 57 at Oxenford.

"We're planning for the Coomera Connector, but there remains a lot of work to do before this project could come to life, including further consultation with the community," he said.

Salt speculates that technology could solve the problem for the government, with the advent of autonomous vehicles in a decade or so enabling traffic to travel much more closely, boosting efficiency of the existing motorway and negating the need for a duplication.

Spearritt, meanwhile, says the one plus of enormous population growth in the area is that traffic congestion is no so extreme, governments have no choice but to look to public transport as the solution.

Pimpama is located between the Ormeau and Coomera train stations. Reflecting the population growth, the Palaszczuk Government has committed to giving the suburb its own station by 2023 — the first time it will have had one since the old station was closed in the 1960s.

The heavy rail line connects to the popular and successful Gold Coast Light Rail system just a couple of stops away at Helensvale.

A proposal by the Southeast Queensland Council of Mayors for a rapid rail network enabling passengers to travel to Brisbane from the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast or Toowoomba within 45 minutes was a key point of the action plan to emerge from The Courier-Mail's recent FutureSEQ series examining the impacts and opportunities of the region's massive growth over the next quarter-century.

The logic is that with efficient transport connectivity, southeast Queensland can thrive as a collection of individual cities rather than becoming one enormous metropolis like Sydney or Melbourne.

This week's federal Budget included funding for a business case on a rapid rail system between the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Similar studies are already underway on the routes from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba.

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> Huge risk to our future mini-cities


Rail Back on Track's Robert Dow

Southeast Queensland will experience an explosion of satellite cities in the coming decades, as the region's population surges. But there are warnings not to repeat the mistakes of current new suburbs.

A NUMBER of masterplanned cities designed to soak up southeast Queensland's population boom will fall short of expectations if the mistakes of recent made-to-measure suburbs across the region are repeated.

That's the warning of Griffith University urban and environmental planning lecturer Dr Tony Matthews, who fears the proposed purpose-built cities from Logan through to the Sunshine Coast need more than just bike paths, schools, retail stores and small businesses.

Local employment for thousands and an effective all-round public transport system are a must.

"They tend to underperform in providing local employment and that's in the design process," Matthews says.

"It's one thing to provide 30,000 houses, but it's much harder to provide 10,000 or 15,000 jobs for the employable adults within that community."

The satellite cities will help distribute Greater Brisbane's rapid population growth which is expected be the size that Sydneyis now by 2056, according to a Regional Australia Institute analysis.

Released this month, the RAI report shows without people moving to regional areas, Greater Brisbane's population would nearlydouble from 2.5 million to 4.8 million by 2056.

The outer suburbs would grow from 1.9 million to 3.8 million residents.

BIG NUMBERS

By 2060, up to seven masterplanned cities with more than 200,000 dwellings will be have been completed and house more than half a million residents.

They range from Caloundra South and Caboolture West in the north to Ripley Valley, Greater Flagstone, Yarrabilba and Redland Bay.

There's also Greater Springfield west of Brisbane, the first privately built city in Australia with five suburbs, which has been a work in progress since the '90s.

Its population hovers around 42,000, although by 2036 there will some 115,000 people calling Greater Springfield home and that'son the back of projects such as Springfield Lakes.

When completed, the Lakes alone would provide 10,000 new dwellings, and its 30,000 residents would be spoiled for choice, with a railway station at either end of the suburb.

Springfield City Group deputy chairman Bob Sharpless says that, since the land was purchased in 1992, there was always going to be a railway line, and its arrival made an immediate impact.

"Major infrastructure, including a well-connected transport system to and from the Greater Springfield city centre, was par tof that vision from day one," he says.

As with Greater Springfield, rail corridors and stations have been included within the masterplans to service several communities.

Ripley Valley will be a stop beyond Springfield, while Greater Flagstone is on the proposed Salisbury-to-Beaudesert line.

North of Brisbane, Caloundra South will be connected to Caboolture although there is currently only a single line north of Beerburrum.

Rail Back On Track spokesman Robert Dow predicts it would be well into in the 2030s before Caloundra South was connected to the rail network.

Caloundra South is but one stop on the proposed CAMCOS (Caboolture to Maroochydore Corridor Study) that incorporates a passenger rail service branching off at Beerwah.

"The problem with CAMCOS is that it's still a single line north of Beerburrum, and that has to be upgraded before they even build the proposed railway line through to Maroochydore," Dow says.

"You're looking at a minimum of four to five years to get the upgrade, and possibly another 10 to 15 years for CAMCOS, but they should be starting now."

WESTSIDE STORY

And Caboolture West has its own set of problems, caused by relying on existing stations to service a proposed a community of 70,000 by 2060.

Residents would have to patronise existing Morayfield and Caboolture stations and expanding park 'n' ride facilities is not a viable solution, Dow says.

"Caboolture West needs an electric bus rapid transit system, provided they make the roads wide enough and factor in priority lanes within the road network," he says.

But trains alone are not a silver bullet for easing peak-hour traffic congestion and making satellite cites liveable.

In fact, they can create more problems than they solve, and North Lakes and Upper Coomera, which are both serviced by rail, are prime examples, Matthews says.

"Where they often fall down is that there is very rarely enough outside or local employment, and you can see that with North Lakes because a fair bit of traffic comes out of there each morning," he says.

"And there is rarely enough sufficient public transport, and even if you build a railway station, you then have a lot of people within that community all driving to one destination, and that causes congestion as well."

Without an effective feeder system to rail stations and sufficient local employment opportunities, the masterplanned cities,with their parks, bike paths and eateries, are just idyllic weekend destinations, Matthews warns.

ON THE JOB

One way to make them proficient and ease pressure on public transport systems and local road networks was to have mass-scale employers on their doorsteps.

"Small businesses are not massive economic drivers, and they wouldn't have the same employment capacity as a major factory or a large hospital or university," Matthews says.

"When you a relying on a suburban service economy, it never provides enough jobs locally, and so people have to drive a distance to another place of employment.

"It makes a masterplanned community great for weekends, but from Monday to Friday it's a satellite community because everybody has to use their cars to get to work or a public transport hub."

Where some may fail in providing enough local jobs, Greater Springfield had succeeded, Sharpless says.

The area has among its businesses and service providers a Mater Private Hospital, aged and specialist suites and 11 schools.

"Our strategy has always aimed to create one job per three residents... and that is well on track," he says.

If there was one criticism of Greater Springfield, says Dow, it is that the bus network is restricted because of narrow roadsand cul-de-sacs.

He says a similar scenario could confront the Shoreline development at Redland Bay, which is a smaller but no less significant project with 3000 dwellings.

The 10,000 new residents will have to travel over 15km to reach the nearest railway station at Cleveland.

"It's only a single line between Manly and Cleveland, so that needs to be duplicated and they'll also need a bus rapid transit system because park 'n' ride is not the answer," he says.

"The more car parks you put in, the bigger the problem because it induces more local traffic and that's why you need a highly effective feeder bus service."

In the deep south of Greater Brisbane, a rail line will service Flagstone, although that's at least a decade away, while the first TransLink bus route through the area will commence operations in November.

Yarrabilba, which has already has 7600 residents, won't be so fortunate. No rail is planned there, and the closest rail station is at Loganlea.

EARLY DAYS

State Transport Minister Mark Bailey says a bus network is only the first step toward delivering efficient and affordable public transport for the southeast's new neighbourhoods. "Buses are already being rolled out in growth areas like Caloundra South and Ripley Valley to connect people to existing public transport hubs," he says.

"As these communities grow, so too will public transport services.

"We're already planning and preserving future rail corridors through areas like Flagstone and Ripley, to make sure high-frequency public transport can connect to these areas in the future."

In all, Dr Matthews says challenges confronting southeast Queensland's purpose-built cities were what all governments faced when they were trying to plan for the future.

He says masterplanned cities remain a necessity, and are the only way to adequately accommodate a booming population.

However the Government must be mindful of how the North Lakes and Upper Coomera communities unfolded, and how important local jobs are when planning for the future.

"Masterplanning developments are good in theory and can be good in practice, and often they do very well across certain lifestyle indicators, liveability and walkability," he says.

"There's a limit to the design process to deliver a functioning local area with a functioning local economy.

"You develop these massive communities to try and soak up as much of the population pressure as possible, and it's just a matter of getting it right."

[ozbob]

Huge risk to our future mini-cities https://t.co/0VPfNJ66AM #qldpol

— RAIL_BoT_Forum (@railbotforum) August 23, 2019

It is a consistent message everywhere hey @MarkBaileyMP @SteveMinnikinMP Improve feeder bus networks as a priority now. Park 'n' ride continued expansion is not the solution, it is only making matters a lot worse. Waste of $$$.
Time sound policy trumped politics!#qldpol
&#128653;<>&#128650; https://t.co/97RNaK79Sl

— RAIL_BoT_Forum (@railbotforum) August 23, 2019

[ozbob]

Couriermail 24th August 2019 pages 40 & 41

[#Metro]

Setting aside space for large employers is a must, and this means business districts with sufficient height being allowed. People should be allowed to live in the business districts too - do not just have offices there.

If we are going to have a multi-centric region with a massive tidal flow into and out of the Brisbane CBD, this is just not going to work.

Springfield is probably closest to this ideal. It has the beginnings of some large 'anchoring' employers - shopping centre, university, hospital plus private sector businesses.

[timh]

Is there a reason why rail corridors aren't being looked at for Caboolture West and Yarrabilba?

There are already corridors there. Caboolture West has the old Kilcoy line, Yarrabilba has the old Canungra line (spur off Bethania line from Logan Village). Both lines are obviously well out of service now but unlike with Ripley/Caloundra South there's no need to gazette land from developers, minimal need to resume properties or buy additional land. To me it seems a no brainer to keep these as long term ideas but smarter people than I can probably tell me why they're a bad idea 
I realise of course both would require additional capacity on the main lines...