Perth: Cable Car from Elizabeth Quay to King’s Park proposal

[ozbob]

WA Today --> Perth cable car with $30m tourism boost potential back on the radar

Talking points

    A Perth Cable Car was voted the most popular option for improving the city in a WAtoday survey on Perth's "missing pieces".
    More than 2000 people responded to the survey.
    Asked to name their favourite spaces, most said Kings Park or Elizabeth Quay, but many wrote the Quay needed to be "finished" with more activities.

The popular plan for a Perth Cable Car from Elizabeth Quay to King's Park is back on the government's radar, with West Australian Planning Minister Rita Saffioti signalling her intention to discuss it in cabinet.

Ms Saffioti told WAtoday this week she would speak with her ministerial colleagues regarding a formal response to the cable car report created during planning for Elizabeth Quay.

Potential cable car start points were identified in the Quay master plan and the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority had hired a Swiss cable car consultancy to complete a "pre-feasibility" study.

The firm, which has worked on projects in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, provided a 190-page report in 2015 recommending four stations for the car, with three locations suggested for Kings Park stations, but the former government never actioned the next steps recommended in the report.

WAtoday has obtained a copy of the report, which said the project would be attractive to private investors but could not be tendered without a full feasibility analysis, given the need for the government to dictate the optimal route around sensitive locations in Kings Park.

It recommended the government do four things: distribute the report to stakeholders for feedback, engage with stakeholders, determine finalised station locations and conduct a full feasibility study.

The state could "more than offset" the costs of this study through annual royalties or an upfront licence fee, already included in the economic model presented, the report said.

In 2016, while in opposition, WA's now-Tourism Minister Paul Papalia said government needed to "make Elizabeth Quay work" and stop "sitting on" the Swiss report. He said Labor, if elected, would "be open to looking at things such as this proposal".

"We are desperately in need of more jobs and businesses in WA. The tourism sector is one of the few sectors that can, in the near term, generate business opportunities and jobs in a hurry," Mr Papalia had said on the subject.

Tourism Council WA chief executive Evan Hall told WAtoday last month that since the Swiss report, he was aware that one international, one interstate and two West Australian companies with access to the necessary funds and experience had expressed interest, but were waiting for the government to set the parameters.

He said Cabinet would need to make a single whole-of-government decision and appoint a lead agency to direct the multiple agencies involved to assess the issues, examine the options and recommend a route. Until then, a private investor would not even know which agency to apply to.

The Swiss report said while Perth was geographically positioned to capture wealthy tourists from nearby Asia-Pacific countries, it would struggle to reach visitor targets with the existing experiences on offer.

The cable car could be a "flagship" "unique urban to nature experience"; Australia had only a few gondola-style fully enclosed cable cars and these were mostly in recreational settings in New South Wales and Victoria. None gave a comparable experience of "flying" from an urban waterfront redevelopment, over a river, to a world-class botanical garden.

The report said the Quay and Kings Park could become the state's two most visited places, and improving the connection between while adding to the overall experience could catalyse "sizeable economic spinoffs".

Kings Park staff told the consultants that while the park had no trouble attracting visitors, most tended to hover around the 'front', resulting in overcrowding around the war memorial and car parks, and a lack of dispersion throughout the park.

This sparked the consultants' idea to go beyond connecting just the Quay and the park and expand the experience to maximise Perth's natural features through stops at Synergy Parkland, the concert ground, the entry of Kings Park and the Quay.

Stations located in Wadjuk carpark, near the DNA Tower, and at the western end of the Broadwalk just east of the parkland could minimise impact on bushland and avoid the war memorial, but more detailed studies on route optimisation would be required to choose the best locations.

This would also leverage Kings Park's Broadwalk, "a very rare natural feature in a natural heritage setting" and provide panoramic views of Perth's greatest assets: the skyline, waterfront, Elizabeth Quay and Kings Park.

The cable car's conical towers would have low to moderate impact, the report said. About 19 towers, 0.6-1.5 metres in diameter at the base, could be set 100-280 metres apart and placed to minimise disturbance.

"No other transport technology can directly connect EQ and KPBG as lightly and as efficiently as a cable car," the report said.

"Many cable car systems around the world have proven their viability by greatly enhancing green transportation to existing tourist attractions and/or previously inaccessible terrain."

Ms Saffioti confirmed that while the government was considering the pre-feasibility study, there was no barrier to unsolicited bids and the government would look at any proposal from the private sector.

While the economic information was redacted in WAtoday's copy of the report, Tourism Council WA has seen the full report and says it showed potentially ¾ million riders each year, a $30 million annual boost to tourism and 340 jobs created.

[BrizCommuter]

Would be good if it ran at night. The buses stop quite early in the evening.