"Queenslanders can have a high level of confidence that Cross River Rail’s design and planning is robust"
Really? We do not!19th November 2020
“Queenslanders can have a high level of confidence that the project’s design and planning is robust”. This is the simple line Queenslanders are given if they have any concerns about Cross River Rail (CRR) planning.
In other words: “Just trust us”.
However, RAIL Back on Track Members have very real concerns about the project, with an abnormal level of non-engagement not seen before and the apparent deliberate actions by the Minister and the CRR Delivery Authority to avoid openly sharing meaningful information, things are not right.
Simply put, we feel like we have been here before.
When voices inside Queensland Rail raised concerns about the ability to have enough staff to drive every train with the opening of the Redcliffe line, they were ignored and told everything was okay. What followed was 20 months of timetable cuts in order to try and stretch staff across the network, and finally the Queensland Rail Train Crewing Practices Commission of Inquiry to work out where it all went wrong.
When disability advocates were able to demonstrate on multiple occasions that the NGR trains were not compliant with accessibility regulations, they were ignored, and told everything was okay. What followed was a $335m repair bill and the Commission of inquiry into New Generation Rollingstock Trains led by Judge Michael Forde to work out where it all went wrong.
This is happening again for a third time.
Despite the governments claims of robustness, both casual observers and industry experts are seeing a growing list of red flags which include:
The redesign of the Dutton Park tunnel portal to fix a design that trains would not be able to negotiate. Despite Minister Bailey’s claims that changes like this are “normal” in a project of this scale, they are absolutely not. Anybody involved in construction would tell you that a radical change to the construction methodology after the contract has been let and work is underway constitutes a major blunder. Why wasn’t this picked up in the dawdling design stage the government claimed they needed to “get it right”?
Lack of a service plan, with claims by the CRR Delivery Authority that they will take a wait and see approach before deciding on train routings and service levels. This is also refutable. Infrastructure is designed to support the transport needs of the next 30+ years, so why use a short period over the next year or two to model this, instead of robust long term data? Simply put, the infrastructure you build must support the operations, so if they have not determined the operations, they cannot have decided what they are building. This will lead to cost blowouts to try and adapt it through contract variations, or “cost lens” solutions that don’t work well.
Track designs that create bottlenecks. Independent Rail experts and observers alike have pointed out that the current designs published are not fit for purpose, and will lead to wasted track capacity through both the city and tunnel. Simply put, “conflicting movements” will result, where trains will block each other from day one due to flat junctions, meaning we are not getting all the extra capacity we were promised.
Immunity from Right To Information (Freedom Of Information) is a major concern. As we have seen in recent times on infrastructure projects interstate, lack of Freedom of Information has led to massive wastes of money. Interested parties have honest questions about the project they want answers for, which is fully reasonable on Queensland’s biggest infrastructure project. But we just do not have a means to ask these questions, which creates a hostile environment. There is no justification for the government to behave like this.
A 3rd Minister on the project and a sacking of the board. Four Project Directors in the past decade, with seemingly no accountability for decisions made under their watch. A revolving door of people in charge and a board with only existing public servants is a recipe for failure. Recall that the CRR Delivery Authority was established to “take the politics out of it”, which has not happened.
A lack of rail strategy, with no view for the long-term evolution of the network. Major rail infrastructure should set up a reconfiguration of the network, yet there is no rail strategy for SEQ. This vacuum of direction is one of the reasons CRR has been able to be designed so poorly, as it is not being viewed as the basis of a transformation of the network, rather just a project to be “gotten up”.
We want the Government, the CRR Delivery Authority to ’walk the walk’ and start listening and engaging with people outside their bubble so we can make this project work, not be fixing it up for years after.
Contact:
Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track
https://backontrack.org
