11 Jun 2024: Call for Cancellation of Gympie Road Toll Tunnel Project

[ozbob]

Call for Cancellation of Gympie Road Toll Tunnel Project

11th June 2024

RAIL Back On Track (https://backontrack.org) calls for the next Queensland Government to independently review and cancel the Gympie Road Toll Tunnel project.

"The Gympie Road Toll Tunnel is the wrong mode for a Growing South East Queensland." RAIL Back On Track spokesperson Robert Dow said.

The first tactic in pushing a road project is to run what we call a 'one horse race' where only the feasibility of a road option is studied, and competing public transport options are excluded. A proper study would allow competing public transport options like a railway or a busway to be considered as well.

The second tactic in pushing a road project is to quote a daily traffic figure and not the 1-hour peak direction capacity of the tunnel. The effect of this is to conceal the tunnel's low peak hour capacity by omission. And its poor suitability for meeting the transport task compared against other transport modes such as busways or railways.

We request North Brisbane Infrastructure (NBI) and the Queensland Government to publicly release the 1-hour peak traffic figures from their traffic modelling this week to the media. Please confirm for us the tunnel's low peak hour and peak direction capacity.

If 40,000 vehicles use the Gympie Road Toll Tunnel per day, then the 1-hour peak direction capacity would only be about say 10% of this value, or 4,000 vehicles in the 1-hour peak direction.

This capacity increase is similar to adding just over four trains to the train network.

In our opinion, nobody in the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads would think spending $7 billion to add just four trains worth of peak hour capacity to the train network was good value, but apparently it makes sense when a road project does it?

Transport Minister Bart Mellish is quoted as saying that "traffic on Gympie Road was projected to increase from 80,000 vehicles a day to 111,000 a day by 2046." (1).

The problem for the minister selling this project is that the South East Busway carries about 150,000 passengers per day (equal to about 125,000 cars per day). This figure exceeds the entire quoted 2046 daily traffic volume for Gympie Road, with capacity to spare.

We think re-purposing the toll tunnel as an exclusive busway instead would see a peak hour capacity four times greater than using the tunnel for cars, and only require a tunnel half the size.

Can the Transport Minister Bart Mellish please explain, if the Queensland Government is so deeply concerned about northside traffic congestion, why is the lowest peak hour capacity option (compared against busways and railways) being chosen here?

The only thing this project is going to bust is the Queensland Government's credibility on being able to put together a sensible transport plan for South East Queensland.

We call for an independent review of the project against public transport options, and for the next Queensland Government to terminate the project.

References:

(1) Budget green light for Gympie Road bypass tunnel to move to next stage
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/budget-green-light-for-gympie-road-bypass-tunnel-to-move-to-next-stage-20240610-p5jkln.html

"Preliminary research by NBI has the support of Queensland Treasury. It estimates 40,000 vehicles would use the toll tunnel every day and there is a "strong rationale" for such a project in a growing city like Brisbane."

(2) South East Busway Extension - Rochedale to Springwood
https://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/~/media/Projects/S/South%20east%20busway%20extension/Pdf_sebx_project_guide_intro_overview.pdf

"The South East Busway between Brisbane City and Eight Mile Plains is a success story – it carries more than 150 000 passengers per day or 35 million trips per year. Sections of the busway carry 18,000 passengers per hour. To carry the same number of people by car, nine lanes would have to be built."

(3) Why the Gympie Road Tunnel Does Not Make Basic Sense!
https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=15505.0

(4) A Gympie Road Toll Tunnel will monetise congestion, not bust it
https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=15218.msg274205#msg274205

(5) Northern Busway - Archived Full Documents
https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=14786.msg261505#msg261505

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track https://backontrack.org

[ozbob]

Discussion --> https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?msg=284698