Ministerial Statement: Transport recommendations in the fast lane

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Minister for Transport
The Honourable Rachel Nolan
23/06/2009

Transport recommendations in the fast lane

Transport Minister Rachel Nolan and Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace have welcomed the recommendations of an audit of the management of urban congestion tabled by the Auditor-General today.

Both Ministers acknowledged there was more work to be done in coordinating the numerous activities across all agencies with the ability to reduce congestion.

"The Auditor General has rightly said that congestion has an impact on our lifestyle and our environment and needs to be managed as efficiently as possible," Ms Nolan said.

"Everyone hates congestion, and the Auditor-General has confirmed what everyone knows - it's a problem. There's not a major city in the world which is not grappling with congestion and the challenges it presents.

"We're tackling that challenge and that's why we're rolling out Australia's biggest infrastructure program - $18.2 billion worth this year alone.

"The whole of south east Queensland is a construction site at the moment and while that means short-term pain, it means long term-gain.

"Everywhere you look we're building better roads and public transport to battle congestion - the Pacific Motorway upgrade, the Gold Coast rail line extension, the second Gateway Bridge, the Eastern Busway, Airport Link, the Northern Busway, the Ipswich Motorway upgrade, the new rail line to Richlands, the second Houghton Highway, the Bruce Highway upgrade.

"There's always more to be done, but our record building program will deliver more capacity and cut travel time.

"The list of activities and initiatives being rolled out by this government to address congestion is a long one but we know there is always more work to be done.

"The Main Roads Minister and I are here today to say we intend to work harder to tie together all our initiatives into one comprehensive model."

Minister Wallace said the audit recommended a more highly coordinated approach between all Government agencies.

"The Premier has already amalgamated the Department of Transport and the Department of Main Roads into one entity," he said.

"And at a Ministerial level we are working together to tackle this problem - the Transport Minister and I have each other on speed dial."

Both Ministers said their co-ordinated approach would follow the five-point strategy to address congestion which was announced last year.

"We have been working hard to align projects and initiatives across various agencies under these common themes," said Minister Nolan.

?Land use and planning - creating the right development patterns across south east Queensland to reduce the need for travel, through integrated corridor planning of major arterials and providing support for transit oriented developments.

?Pricing and travel demand - creating incentives for more efficient use of the existing network through travel demand management measures to encourage less private vehicle travel, particularly during peak congestion periods.

?Travel options - creating a public transport and active transport network that has greater accessibility, frequency and reliability through more cycling facilities and more public transport, including buses, rail and ferry.

?Efficiency - maximising the efficiency of existing infrastructure investments through active traffic management and advanced incident management, including the development of intelligent transport systems and quick road clearance.

?Capacity - additional infrastructure investment through major and arterial road construction projects, new tunnels and more public transport infrastructure.

Minister Nolan said the Government would release a comprehensive congestion management plan based on these five planks this year.

"This Government has been working hard to tackle congestion and now it is time to tie it all together," she said.

The Queensland Government's wide range of programs and initiatives designed to combat congestion, include:

?Traffic Management Centres - The Brisbane Metropolitan Traffic Management Centre is the principal transport management centre for South East Queensland. Approximately 200 CCTV and 14 web cameras cover the network 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The centre dispatches and coordinates all traffic/incident response services. Traffic management centres also based at Mooloolaba and Nerang.

?Open Roads legislation - Effective from 30 April 2009, strengthening of the legislation gives authorised officers from the Department of Transport and Main Roads the power to remove abandoned vehicles, loads or other hazards from all roads across the state. The aim of these powers is to reduce delays and improve safety for road users by clearing roads quickly.

?TravelSmart - $22.6 million over four years to expand the very successful TravelSmart Communities program, which has been shown nationally and internationally to achieve significant mode shifts, and to reduce travel demand. The program encourages people to use sustainable travel modes such as public transport, walking, cycling and carpooling in preference to single occupancy vehicle travel. The project on Brisbane's Northside created voluntary behaviour change which resulted in a 13% decrease in vehicle kilometres travelled in private cars.

?Flexible Workplace Program - $624,000 for the Flexible Workplace Program which promotes the uptake of flexible hours, compressed work weeks and telecommuting, with the aim of changing travel behaviour and helping to manage congestion.

?Public transport services - A record $1.2 billion allocated for TransLink's bus, rail and ferry services for 2009/2010. TransLink has introduced 60 new bus routes and the bus fleet has increased by 44 per cent to more than 2100 vehicles since 2004. Patronage across all modes is estimated to reach 180-185 million for the full 2008/9 financial year, an increase of almost 50 per cent in five years.

?Rollingstock - Since May 2007, 28 new trains have been added to train services and the State Government is currently rolling out one new three-car train each month.

?Go card - In less than a year since the roll out of the smart card system was completed, the go card has exceeded all its short term benchmarks with approximately 365,000 cards issued.

?Cycle Network Program - A vast system of linked bikeways stretching from Noosa to the Gold Coast and west to Toowoomba. The program provides $556 million to 2026 to accelerate the development of the south east Queensland cycle network. This government has invested over $87 million in cycle infrastructure projects over the last three years.

?Fast Incident Response Plan - $12.3 million to implement a to speed-up responses to incidents on the SEQ network, and includes two new heavy vehicle response units; new incident response depots located on major arterials; and police presence in the Brisbane Metropolitan Traffic Management Centre.

?Heavy Vehicle Response Unit - Bligh Government gave an election commitment to deliver two specially designed heavy vehicle response units to service the Greater Brisbane network. The first of their kind in Australia, the Government will soon take delivery of these vehicles that are capable of repositioning and/or moving rolled or damaged heavy trucks and semi-trailers and/or their loads.

?Traffic Response Units - An "on road" roaming service providing quick clearance solutions and traffic control for road incidents such as breakdowns, road crashes and spillages. Six vehicles are based in Brisbane, three on the South Coast and two on the North Coast.

?Motorway Breakdown Response Service - 12 tow trucks and three safety vehicles patrol seven motorways to provide assistance free of charge for vehicles that need to be quickly and safely removed from motorways and most major arterials.

?Heavy Vehicle Breakdown Response Service - This service provides assistance for larger vehicles and trucks over 2.5 tonne to be removed from motorways and most major arterials free of charge.

?Free-flow tolling - Free-flow tolling comes into effect on the Gateway and Logan motorways from 1 July and when fully implemented will reduce travel times as capacity through free-flow tolling points is three to five times faster than travelling through cash lanes. It will also be far safer with no need for weaving, accelerating and merging at toll plazas.

?Operation Quick Clear - Launched in late 2008, additional funding was provided for police to carry out extra motorcycle patrols across the road network. Motorcycle patrols are more easily and quickly able to access traffic incidents and crashes. The average duration of traffic crash incidents has reduced by 30%, meaning traffic incidents are cleared more quickly for traffic to start flowing again.

?Darra to Springfield Transport Corridor - $800 million has been committed to stage one of this project that is building a four-lane road and rail transport corridor from Darra to Springfield - the first integrated road and rail project for South East Queensland.

?Airport Link - $3.4 billion project schedule for completion by mid-2011. A 6.7 km toll road that will allow motorists to bypass 18 sets of traffic lights between Bowen Hills and the airport, cutting travel time by as much as 17 minutes.

?South Eastern Busway - Was the first busway completed in 2001 and currently carries 150,000 passenger journeys every day.

?Inner Northern Busway - Was completed in May 2008 at a cost of $333 million and carries up to 40,000 passengers a day.

?Boggo Road Busway and Eastern Busway (from PA Hospital to South East Busway) - Project is nearing completion cost $367m will take up to 600 buses off the road every day or more than 13,000 passengers.

?Northern Busway (Royal Children's Hospital to Windsor) - This busway will cost $198 million and the Northern Busway (Windsor to Kedron) will cost $579M. When the two sections of the Northern Busway are completed, travel between Herston and Kedron will be reduced from 13 minutes to 7 minutes in the morning peak and from 19 minutes to 7 minutes in the evening peak. By 2016, the Northern busways will cater for 47,000 trips per day, rising to 78,000 trips per day in 2026.

?Eastern Busway project (Buranda to Main Avenue, Coorparoo) - will cost $466 million beginning mid-year and will carry 7000 passengers each morning peak by 2016. The second stage of the Eastern Busway (Buranda to Main Ave, Coorparoo) is expected to carry more than 350 services per day or more than 8000 passengers.

?The SEQIPRail Program - The program has completed four rail infrastructure projects costing about $420 million with another $1.7 billion of rail and road projects underway, received around $360 million in the 2009-2010 Queensland State Budget. Since its establishment in 2006, the program has delivered 63.3 kilometres of track, upgrades to nine metropolitan stations, two new stations and 27 new three-car sets for the South East Queensland passenger network.

?Gateway Upgrade Project - $1.88 billion is being invested by the Bligh Government to duplicate the Gateway Bridge, upgrade 12 km of the motorway from Mt Gravatt-Capalaba Road to the Gateway bridges and 7 km of new motorway north of the Gateway Bridge to just south of Nudgee Road. Combined with free-flow tolling, the upgrade is expected to take 25 minutes off a journey across the Gateway and Logan motorway network.

?Houghton Highway Duplication - The $315 million project involves construction of a new 2.7 km bridge between Brisbane and Redcliffe to ease traffic congestion. The new bridge will feature three lanes, a pedestrian/cycle path and transit lanes to reduce public transport travel times.

?Pacific Motorway Upgrade - State and Federal governments have committed $910 million to upgrade the Pacific Motorway between the Gateway and Tugun. Major interchange improvements currently underway at Nerang South and Mudgeeraba.

For more information on these and other projects, please visit http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/congestion

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[mufreight]

The Transport Minister stated 1.2 billion for Translink, what a waste a considerable saving could be made by shutting down this ever expanding usless creature of bureaucracy, the same could also be said of the equally disfunctional SEQIP.
The Spin doctors also once again can not even get their figures right in the one statement, under the heading of rollingstock it is claimed that since 2007 there have been 28 new train sets delivered at the rate of one train set per month, one would note the use of the word delivered rather than in service, yet further on in the media statement under the heading of the SEQIPrail heading only 27 train sets have been delivered, again one must note the use of the term delivered not in service.
Reading the entire statement it becomes obvious that the central thrust is on road construction and provision of bus services to be placed on a road system already in gridlock without addressing in any meaningful manner the savings that could be more readily achieved much more quickly by expanding rail infrastructure capacity and the benefits that more focus on rail could have on congestion, safety and the environment.