Cross River Rail Project

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/tennewsqld/status/890111350894194688

[ozbob]

Time to #FleeQLD  ... 

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/RACQOfficial/status/890075486273097730

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/9NewsQueensland/status/890121834703835136

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/ABCNewsBrisbane/status/890123183810064384

[Stillwater]

The IA position plays into the LNP hands doesn't it?  The LNP will now have confidence in carving up the $2.8b in the forward estimates for funding of pet projects all over Qld for a state election that the pundits say will be held in early November.

However, Jackie Trad is right on one point -- Queensland is due a bucket of money from the feds for infrastructure (what she calls Queensland's 'fair share') and if that is not to go to CRR, where should it be applied?  Sunshine Coast Line perhaps?

Or is the LNP looking at something a bit more ambitious, such as rail to Beaudesert.  Who knows.

Jackie Trad should call upon the feds to come clean as to where they will spend their transport infrastructure money in Qld, if not CRR.  Or will she continue to flog a dead horse as far as the feds are concerned?

A part of me believes that Qld 'cooked the CRR books' to show a business in the best possible light.

Clearly, IA is saying that CRR doesn't stack up, so does the SCL duplication and upgrade (with a good business case) stack up?

http://buildingqueensland.qld.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Cross-River-Rail-Cost-Benefit-Analysis-Summary.pdf

(BCR: 1.21)

The 'price year' for CRR evaluation purposes was 2015.  What would it be in 2017?

[ozbob]

All stage managed to give Tim a ' get out of jail card ' has been all along by the Feds.

The LNP do support another heavy rail crossing just not this one that has a 10 year pedigree and former number one high priority IA project.

Politics fuks it all yet again.

[Mr X]

As usual the media is putting out cheap soundbites and trying to discredit crr. Its so cringeworthy reading it. No wonder people get confused with all these misconceptions.

[#Metro]

Infrastructure Australia is an independent statutory body with a mandate to prioritise and progress nationally significant infrastructure.

http://infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/


Infrastructure Australia is a public, but independent body. They gain nothing electorally or financially from approving or rejecting projects.

They do not take direction from ministers. Just because a body like this gives people a result that people do not like does not automatically mean

that there exists some conspiracy with Turnbull et al.

Infrastructure Australia was established in July 2008 to provide advice to the Australian Government under the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008.

In 2014, the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008 was amended to give Infrastructure Australia new powers, and to create an independent board with the right to appoint its own Chief Executive Officer. The amended Act came into effect on 1 September 2014.

The new Infrastructure Australia Board was formed in September 2014. Led by Chairman Mark Birrell, the 12 members bring experience from business, academia, the public and private sectors.

Under the Act, Infrastructure Australia has responsibility to strategically audit Australia's nationally significant infrastructure, and develop 15-year rolling Infrastructure Plans that specify national and state level priorities.

The Act also states that the Minister must not give directions about the content of any audit, list, evaluation, plan or advice provided by Infrastructure Australia.

Members of the board
http://infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/about/board.aspx


We must get a copy of their report and look into the reasons why they arrived at this conclusion.

[Stillwater]

Analogy Metro.  'Independent' journos working for Rupert Murdoch do not need a direction from the top to deliver the sort of news stories that would benefit News Corp. or the big man who owns the lion's share of Australia's media.

[#Metro]

You have failed to demonstrate that is the case here.

Everyone was very happy when IA was announced as they hoped that an independent body would take the politics out of the equation and deliver objective assessment.

It has done a draft assessment now, and people do not like the result. So now they want to discount whatever IA had to say.

It is fact that the benefits of CRR have fallen drastically with each iteration. CRR1 remains the best project to fund, even with its higher price tag.

If infrastructure Australia has made an error, which public agencies do make from time to time, then that error needs to be identified and corrected.

I still would like to know why CRR1 delivers about 2x more benefit than CRR 3 does. They must have cut something really important in the engineering to make the benefits fall so much. The question is, what was it they cut??

[Gazza]

It's more that CRR1 had benefits in terms of freight segregation, and the freight forecasts haven't eventuated, and hence the reason for doing the Yeerongpilly portal, and hence the freight benefits don't show up in the BCR of CRR3.

[ozbob]

Analogy Metro.  'Independent' journos working for Rupert Murdoch do not need a direction from the top to deliver the sort of news stories that would benefit News Corp. or the big man who owns the lion's share of Australia's media.

Yo.  Some incredibly naive folk around hey?

[Stillwater]

CRR has been strangled by the twisted intrigue of politics.  Ms Trad plays hardball politics, and it has rebounded on her.  But let's not forget that CRR will go ahead.  It's doubtful whether ANOTHER CRR business case will be prepared and submitted to IA.  The state has said the tunnel will proceed, just without federal funds.  Using state funds for this project means that money is sucked in, making it not available for other things, such as the Springfield Line extension or SCL.

If the art of the state-fed interplay is for the states to extract the maximum amount of funding from Commonwealth coffers, then Ms Trad and Co. need to start thinking about Plan B.  The flow of business cases to IA must continue, so that Queensland has projects on the federal infrastructure priority list, with a chance for funding.

[#Metro]

It's more that CRR1 had benefits in terms of freight segregation, and the freight forecasts haven't eventuated, and hence the reason for doing the Yeerongpilly portal, and hence the freight benefits don't show up in the BCR of CRR3.

Thank you - this sounds like a very good explanation. Is there some scope to recapture some of these benefits?

CRR has been strangled by the twisted intrigue of politics.  Ms Trad plays hardball politics, and it has rebounded on her.  But let's not forget that CRR will go ahead.  It's doubtful whether ANOTHER CRR business case will be prepared and submitted to IA.  The state has said the tunnel will proceed, just without federal funds.  Using state funds for this project means that money is sucked in, making it not available for other things, such as the Springfield Line extension or SCL.

If the art of the state-fed interplay is for the states to extract the maximum amount of funding from Commonwealth coffers, then Ms Trad and Co. need to start thinking about Plan B.  The flow of business cases to IA must continue, so that Queensland has projects on the federal infrastructure priority list, with a chance for funding.

Well, there is a similar case in Auckland NZ where the conservative government did not want to fund public transport. NZ is one of the most pro-car jurisdictions there are. One of the sticking points was the patronage forecasting. Auckland Council forecast high growth as the most likely scenario, whereas the national transport agency forecast low growth as the scenario.

After a lot of negotiation, the national government and Auckland Council cut a deal. The tunnel would be funded but only if the patronage hit a pre-set trigger level by a specified deadline. The national government thought they had set an impossible task and that was all there was to it.

The first thing Auckland Council did was ring up Jarrett Walker and immediately call in a bus review. The entire bus network from 2013 onwards was then reorganised to flood the rail system with patronage. The train network was aggressively upgraded with new trains, new timetabling and more services. The ticketing system and contracting were all overhauled.

The result was massive patronage growth on trains and buses year on year. They reached their goal, so the NZ government had to concede and pay up.

If you want to make a case for patronage, you can bury yourself in modelling and assumptions and argue all day and night. Or you could look at ways to demonstrate that the latent patronage really is there.

What trad should do is introduce two new peak hour train services to the Gold Coast line, leaving a single slot available. They will easily be filled is my guess.

[#Metro]

ASSESSMENT PROCESS

Infrastructure Australia follows the same process for every initiative or project we assess.

This is as follows:

* A proponent provides a submission to Infrastructure Australia for assessment;

* Infrastructure Australia undertakes an initial review of the submission and seeks clarification and/or further information from the proponent;

* Infrastructure Australia assesses the submission and any additional information the proponent provides. If necessary, Infrastructure Australia will request further information from the proponent;

* Infrastructure Australia's Chief Executive Officer prepares a recommendation for consideration by the Infrastructure Australia Board ;

* The Infrastructure Australia Board evaluates the submission and makes a determination;

* For project submissions (submissions with a full business case), a project evaluation summary is provided to the project proponent for a fact and commercial-in-confidence check. After this process is complete, the project evaluation summary is published on the Project Evaluations page of our website; and

The Infrastructure Priority List is updated to reflect Infrastructure Australia's decision.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information on making submissions and the assessment process, please contact us.

http://infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/projects/make-a-project-assessment.aspx

[ozbob]

^ no guarantee they do though..

[Gazza]

Or any line really.... Give Cleveland a few extra peak hour expresses.

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

27th July 2017

Please release Cross River Rail Business Case and IA Evaluation Report

Greetings,

RAIL Back on Track supports the construction of Cross River Rail (CRR). We are deeply disappointed that Infrastructure Australia (IA) has decided not to include the project on its Infrastructure Priority List.

We want to better understand how Infrastructure Australia has arrived as its conclusions.

RAIL Back on Track requests a copy of the CRR business case (the full business case, minus any necessary redaction, not the summary).

RAIL Back on Track requests the list of the "23 mistakes, errors, omissions" or similar identified by the Queensland Government in the IA CRR Evaluation Report.

Further, RAIL Back on Track requests a copy of the full IA CRR Evaluation Report (we understand that a summary will be published 'soon' on the IA website but we do not how long 'soon' is).  A summary lacks detail.

The public wants to see the reasons behind these decisions and they also want to see what was contained in the business case that was submitted to Infrastructure Australia.

These documents should be released promptly, ideally, we would like to see them before Friday 4th August 2017.

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

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/jackietrad/status/890339263308484609

https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/890357521000550400

https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/890358804088463360

https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/890359369820274688

https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/890359857072570368

Nicholls is hopelessly wedged now ... 

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/stevenwardill/status/890364307803848705

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/InfraAust/status/890381009622937600

[kram0]

Sent the below to a member I use to campaign for Re CRR. We should all look to email our local LNP members.


Good morning Andrew

As someone who I think is a great asset to the Federal LNP, I wanted to forward my disgust at the Federal LNP for playing politics with Brisbane's number one infrastructure project, Cross River Rail. It is very clear to me and many in the general community that the federal LNP are working with the state LNP to discredit the Queensland Labor party at the expense of a project that was only a few years ago the number one project on Infrastructure Australia's priority list. How can it go from the number one ranked project to no longer being needed? Even Queensland's peak motoring body RACQ and many other key business leaders (who I know vote LNP) have publically stated this project should go ahead immediately without delay.

Why not work together with the state government and get this project started? Should Queensland Labor win at the next state election, I for one am very pleased they are willing to fund this entirely on their own, while also being disappointed the federal government have not contributed.

When you look at the support other major railway projects are receiving from the federal government, it is clear to see that the benefits of South East Queensland are not top of mind for the federal government. While I am not the biggest fan of the Queensland Labor party, I will give them credit for a project that ticks boxes in fixing some major issues within Brisbane's metropolitan rail network. While it pains me to say this, unless I see the state LNP publically supporting this project, I will not be supporting the state LNP or donating to them moving forward as they have shown little to no initiative for Queensland.

When you consider the population growth that is planned for South East Qld in the next 10-20 years, and the amount of major development projects under construction or planned within the southern part of the CBD (Queens Wharf Casino, Brisbane Sky Tower to name a few), this just demonstrates that Cross River Rail will provide desperately needed access and options to the public transport users. In addition to this, it will also complement the LNP Brisbane City Council's Metro Bus Project while also providing many desperately needed jobs to keep the economy of Brisbane and Queensland moving forward.

When you consider the rail networks in other cities the size of Brisbane have around the world, and you compare this to our aging network it is almost a joke. I strongly believe the Federal LNP and Queensland State Governments (Labor or LNP) need to work together for the benefit of South East Queensland and STOP playing politics. We need leaders with vision that are not interested in playing games.

Kind Regards

[ozbob]

Well done. 

[#Metro]

EVALUATION OF THE CURRENT BUSINESS CASE FOR CROSS RIVER RAIL
http://infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/2017/2017_07_27.aspx

27 July 2017

Infrastructure Australia has concluded its independent evaluation of the Queensland Government's current business case for Cross River Rail, following a rigorous assessment process.

Chief Executive Philip Davies said: "we have reached the conclusion that the benefits of the proposed project, as set out in the business case, are significantly overstated, and that the costs of the project as currently presented are likely to exceed its benefits.

"Based on a thorough evidence-based analysis of the business case, we have found that the rail patronage growth projections and the estimation of project benefits are unrealistically high."

"Infrastructure Australia regularly assesses business cases for nationally significant projects as part of our role as an independent advisor to governments. The assumptions that have been used to justify the benefits in the Cross River Rail business case are well in excess of those we have seen for comparable projects.

"For example, the projected rail patronage growth in the business case is 7 times faster than actual growth in Brisbane over the last decade and 2.5 times that of comparable projects in larger Australian cities.

"Infrastructure Australia first raised concerns with the Queensland Government about the business case for Cross River Rail in July 2016. To date, the issues we raised have not been fully addressed", he said.

Infrastructure Australia has determined that Cross River Rail will remain on the Infrastructure Priority List, however the current proposal cannot be added to the list of projects with an approved business case at this time.

"We would welcome the opportunity to consider a revised business case from the Queensland Government addressing our concerns about the assumptions and projections used in the business case. A revised business case should also quantify potential benefits from land use change and urban renewal expected to result from the proposed project, and potential benefits from better integration of Brisbane's rail and bus networks.

"Infrastructure Australia has long supported the strategic need for improvements to public transport and additional capacity across the Brisbane River into the CBD. However, based on the assumptions and projections underpinning the current business case, the timeframe for this need remains unclear.

"We are committed to working with the Queensland Government to evaluate and prioritise proposals for nationally significant infrastructure." Mr Davies said.

Evaluation of the business case for Cross River Rail PDF: 143 KB ReadSpeaker is now available on the Infrastructure Australia website.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/InfraAust/status/890381009622937600

Note well. Only the summary has been made available by IA.

[Stillwater]

These words from IA are interesting:

"The 2016 business case does not include analysis, currently underway, of the potential land use change and urban renewal benefits likely to be generated by the project. It also does not include analysis of potential benefits likely to emerge from better integration of Brisbane's rail and bus networks, reflecting work undertaken in the first part of 2017.  The 2016 business case supersedes the earlier proposals, and has been assessed on its merits."

While Ms Trad spruiks the benefits of CRR for business development and land use changes that will 'transform Brisbane', but these benefits have not been quantified and included in the 2016 business case.  Why not?

Has the state government shot itself in the foot by not assessing and measuring these benefits so that a proper BCR can be validated?

[ozbob]

i think the situation is that IA has not included the additional information they requested from the Queensland Government over the last 12 months or so.  It is a slippery political con job sadly.  As I said, it is designed to give Nicholls et al. a ' get out of jail card ', however it has backfired now as Nicholls made some very dumb comments and now is effectively wedged ( see above ).

Just my opinion ....  la de da ... la de da .... 

[#Metro]

I had a glance at what IA wrote. Here are some initial thoughts and issues. Don't shoot the messenger.

The proponent's stated benefit-cost ratio for the project is 1.4, with a net present value of $1,877 million (2016
business case, $2015, 7% real discount rate, P50 cost estimate, excluding wider economic benefits). Infrastructure
Australia has material concerns with key aspects of the business case. These include concerns about:

For reference, here is the Building Queensland "summary" evaluation (full business case was not released)
http://buildingqueensland.qld.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Cross-River-Rail-Cost-Benefit-Analysis-Summary.pdf

There are a few issues here:

- The BCR is too low

- There is a real risk of cost overrun (i.e. the project is undercosted)

The BCR is too low

A low BCR indicates that the project is inefficient at converting cash invested into social benefits.

The classic example I like to use is of a railway that has a choice between using steel for the rails or gold for the rails.

In both cases, the social benefits, time savings, etc are identical. But using gold for rails is inefficient and as such the BCR should fall

for the gold rail scenario.


Firstly, the 1.4 BCR figure reported by Building Queensland is a P50 value. These P-values are created to get an idea of the ballpark of

where the final costs will lie. Projects almost never come in under budget, and there is a bias for large projects to have a cost overrun of

at least 50%.

For a quick explanation of what P10, P50 and P90 is:

* The value at which there is a 50% chance of the project coming in above this cost and a 50% chance of it coming in below this cost (known as the P50 estimate).
* The value at which there is only a 10% chance of the project coming in at a lower cost (known as the P10 estimate), i.e. the lower bound.
* The value at which there is a 90% chance of the project coming in at a lower cost (known as the P90 estimate), i.e. the upper bound.

Source: http://www.coffey.com/en/ingenuity-coffey/poor-project-cost-estimates-are-more-than-embarrassing/

This is actually implicitly acknowledged by Building Queensland, because they report two BCR values - a P50 and P90 value.

The P90 value is razor thin with BCR value of just 1.12. The project generates net benefits, but only just. A small change in assumptions

would see the project fail the threshold. I consider the P90 value to be a truer representation of where final costs etc will arrive, given

the bias of projects to cost overrun.


The majority of the CRR benefits are not coming from travel time savings but WEBs

WEBs (wider economic benefits) are rubbery things. They are things like improvements in business competition due to the project opening up a wider area to people http://atrf.info/papers/2016/files/ATRF2016_Full_papers_resubmission_181.pdf

It is concerning that the bulk of the project's benefits comes from WEBs (i.e. indirect benefits vs direct benefits) rather than travel time savings as WEBs are not universally accepted.

IA probably considered a scenario where they excluded WEBs and saw that the .12 on the BCR fell off and got a negative BCR on this.

The 2016 business case does not include analysis, currently underway, of the potential land use change and urban
renewal benefits likely to be generated by the project. It also does not include analysis of potential benefits likely to
emerge from better integration of Brisbane's rail and bus networks, reflecting work undertaken in the first part of
2017.

I consider this section by IA to not be entirely relevant. CRR is mainly for the benefit of Gold Coast and Logan residents. Wooloongabba already has a busway station and a link to the CBD so the presence of a train station there will not significantly improve transport access there except for passengers to the Gold Coast. In a strange way, both Jackie Trad and Tim Nicholls are both making the same mistake of thinking that CRR is an "inner city project". It is not, inner city people are the least to benefit from CRR.

The more relevant land use changes are regional - in Logan and Gold Coast. I actually think that more benefits could be created if the train service pattern was changed such that all Beenleigh and Gold Coast trains used the new tunnel and only Cleveland and Doomben trains (Doomben trains terminated at Park Road or Dutton Park) used the Merivale Bridge. Beenleigh line users should also get an all day express pattern (CBD-Kuraby all stops with stations beyond Kuraby to be served by CBD-EXP-Kuraby all stops to Beenleigh service).

The running of a split service pattern (i.e. run some Beenleigh trains through Dutton Park to make up for the fact that Jackie Trad blocked the demolition of Dutton Park station) is likely to have reduced benefits for this project. Benefits are maximised when every GC and Beenleigh train makes that 10 minute saving by going via the tunnel.

I also consider the benefit to the Brisbane bus network to be minimal. Cross River Rail is for regional function and the Brisbane Metro is better placed to benefit the overall bus network. The only improved integration I can see from CRR for the Brisbane bus network is that some bus services need not enter the Brisbane CBD because they can now be terminated at Woolooongabba CRR. But the number of such bus routes can probably be counted on one or two hands.

The introduction of ECTS and NGR trains will also act to reduce the benefits of CRR, as these two changes both increase the capacity of the network without having to build CRR. For example, How many more trains can run across the Merivale bridge with ECTS installed? The current limit is 24 trains/hour, is it possible to get 30 trains per hour with improved signalling?

Other investments in network capacity would also delay the need for investment in new infrastructure to increase
capacity. For example, the implementation of ETCS in 2021 is expected to allow an additional eight trains per hour
through the CBD.

It is interesting that this is raised because the Wilbur Smith Plan (1965 and 1979) also proposed a CRR based on a capacity constraint occurring around the year 2000. This of course never eventuated because another tunnel was put through the core section of the network and because the busways were built, which siphoned away pax, particularly from the Sunnybank/Algester area.

[#Metro]

(continued)

Strategic options – this stage considered reform options, operational efficiency measures such as new
generation signalling, and infrastructure options. The proponent has indicated it has already investigated and
implemented some reform options including better planning processes, better project evaluation and
prioritisation practices, travel demand management and fare-pricing initiatives. The proponent considers that
these measures alone are not sufficient to meet the transport challenge. The business case does not include
quantitative evidence to support this conclusion. Infrastructure Australia notes that the November 2016 update
to the 2016 Cross River Rail business case included a fare decrease, which is projected to increase demand.

Actually, here I disagree with IA.

Firstly, the Queensland Government can make a simple table showing the capacity that would be freed up by NGR trains and enhanced ECTS signalling. It could then demonstrate that even with these two options exhausted, that they would not be sufficient to meet travel demand from the Gold Coast and Logan regions.

Secondly, IA has pointed to a fare decrease as something that would artificially (implied here) raise demand. It is true that cheaper fares would be expected to increase demand, however from Deb Frecklington (LNP) and The Courier Mail making claims that patronage is not much higher now than in 2011, I was able to show that the reduction in patronage only amounts to half of one train.

In other words, the travel demand at peak hours is not greatly affected by fare levels. The fare decrease is not some hidden attempt to boost patronage artificially, but the scrapping of a failed fares policy of incendiary fare increases that was destroying patronage across all modes in Brisbane and leading to a boost in car traffic.

Demonstrating this 'evidence' should be fairly easy for the Queensland Government by making the table with ECTS and NGR trains and showing that they do not meet future demand.

Rail infrastructure options – various heavy rail alternative options were examined, including the 2011 Cross
River Rail configuration, the 2013 core Cross River Rail configuration, the 'Bus and Train tunnel', duplication of
the Merivale Bridge, conversion of the Cleveland and Ferny Grove railway lines to light rail, and heavy rail turnback
options. This analysis concluded that Cross River Rail is the preferred option. Neither the business case
nor the Cross River Rail Options Report provide quantitative evidence to support this conclusion.

Don't agree with IA here, but this is more a lack of information submitted to IA.

The 2011 Cross River Rail configuration (CRR1) was the best project to build in terms of BCR and NPV. But as Gazza pointed out the freight benefits from that probably cannot be realised now, it entails higher cost and thus it is unnecessary to build the portal out at Yeerongpilly (or wherever).

The Bus and Train tunnel is no longer necessary as Brisbane Metro will run via the existing busway network so it is not necessary to combine the two projects.

The conversion of Cleveland and Ferny Grove lines to light rail (The Cleveland Solution) should be easy to knock over. Mode conversion would actually increase the number of services as trams have a smaller vehicle capacity. Sharing with the QR network would cause chaos in the core. Additionally, as the alignment ran beside the Brisbane River, it would have to physically run through a number of Bridges such as the Goodwill bridge, the Victoria Bridge and the Kurilpa Bridge and somehow jump up over the Riverside expressway and into a tunnel. That is not going to happen. I had to laugh here. 

The rest of it can be knocked over by digging up the ICRCS report from 2008 and the CRR1 route analysis which exhaustively went through and ruled out the other options. In fact, I am surprised that IA would even have to ask for this - it suggests that the business case submitted to IA by the Queensland Government (you know the full one we cannot see because our eyes might fall out if we read it) was lacking and not comprehensive enough.

QLD Government should be able to knock down these IA criticisms quite easily.

[Gazza]

WEBs (wider economic benefits) are rubbery things. They are things like improvements in business competition due to the project opening up a wider area to people

Not really, much of the reason for building CRR is to allow new lines to built, so its not at all rubbery to count these benefits, since the long term vision is a well connected SEQ with rail access to Maroochydore, Trouts Rd, Beadesert etc.

When viewed alone, CRR may look skinny in the CBR, but the whole rail vision would be much stronger.

How has the assessment process quantified the benefits of a part versus a whole?

Its like the cost benefit ratio of a train station building out in a paddock with no track or trains, versus a station that is actually on a line.

Both cost the same, but the CBR of the former is zero.

It is entirely reasonable to say that future lines will be built that benefit bfrom CRR, but will built beyond the 20 year discounting period.

[#Metro]

Reccomendations

Now that I have seen the IA material, I have formed the view that it is not as bad as I had initially thought. The Queensland Government

should resubmit the business case with adjustment. I don't know how long that would take, but perhaps around 6 - 9 months is

reasonable.

Firstly, they should phone up Jarrett Walker or another consultant firm to deal with the knockback. Jarrett has previously looked at the limitations of models and that would be invaluable here.

Secondly, the Queensland Government should prepare a single page detailing the previous proposals (CRR1, CRR2/BaT, The Cleveland solution) and why they are refuted and inappropriate now. Something like that should be quick to put together. The alignment via Woolloongabba need to be explicitly justified and as such the relevant sections of the 2008 ICRCS report should be extracted.

Thirdly, in relation to land use, I am not convinced that Cross River Rail will enable new development around stations such as Woolloongabba, Roma Street and the CBD. Development will occur anyway at those sites in the presence or absence of Cross River Rail simply because they are inner city locations. Woolloongabba already has a busway station. In the case of Boggo Road, there are already a busway station and a train station. Adding a third station will not do much in terms of activating land use.

The primary purpose of transport is to move people. Urban renewal is a benefit but not a purpose. The only place where I can see CRR making an impact on land uses are in two areas:

- Exhibition / Showgrounds which has no rail transport options as the Exhibition station is inactive for most of the year.

- Changes to land use patterns in the Logan and Gold Coast LGA. Too much focus has been put on the sexy inner city sites such that they have overlooked the other end of the rail line where the commuters actually originate from.

Fourthly, they should look at maximising the use of the tunnel. ALL TRAINS from Beenleigh and the Gold Coast should use the tunnel,
There should be no direct trains to Beenleigh or Gold Coast via the Merivale Bridge. Passengers at South Bank, South Brisbane should change at Park Road.

Fifthly, the patronage demand can be demonstrated by adding two additional peak hour am and pm Gold Coast train services. The Queensland Government should monitor what that does to overall passenger demand.

Sixthly, the Queensland Government should prepare a table showing alternative measures (NGR trains, improved signalling) and listing the extra capacity this would add. It then should, on the same table, show that these two measures taken together are not sufficient to meet future demand for trips over the Merivale Bridge.

Seventhly, reorganise the Brisbane bus network ASAP. This can be done within 12-18 months. That will boost patronage on the rail network generally thus demonstrating that the latent demand and growth is there and achievable.

Eightly, IA is questioning the travel growth rate. It has chosen to use data from 2011 onwards. Go back to 2000 - 2004 period. After TransLink was created in 2004, I recall that patronage grew very strongly overall. I can't recall if that was also true of the rail network but have a look. If the Queensland Government can demonstrate that patronage growth has previously been at 6% or higher during the time immediately after the creation of TransLink, it would set a precedent.

[#Metro]

Not really, much of the reason for building CRR is to allow new lines to built, so its not at all rubbery to count these benefits, since the long term vision is a well connected SEQ with rail access to Maroochydore, Trouts Rd, Beadesert etc.

When viewed alone, CRR may look skinny in the CBR, but the whole rail vision would be much stronger.

Disagree. A new line and major development out to Flagstone is speculation at the moment and not at all a certainty (unlike say, Springfield or Sunshine Coast).

I would also consider that money would or should be allocated to the Sunshine Coast before a spur line to Flagstone etc.

The second person on this paper is from Brisbane City Council

http://atrf.info/papers/2016/files/ATRF2016_Full_papers_resubmission_181.pdf

In the early-mid 2000s, the CrossRail project in London demonstrated the increase in project
net worth from adding Wider Economic Benefits (WEBs), in particular the benefits from
agglomeration, as derived from the application of new economic geography.
Since CrossRail and with the adoption of United Kingdom (UK) Treasury style 'Business
Case' evaluations in Australia and New Zealand (NZ), the augmentation of benefits for
WEBs in major transport evaluations has become the norm. Nevertheless, despite
approaching ten years of 'practice', WEBs remain poorly understood and not universally
accepted.

The criticisms of WEBs largely concern the validity of the assumptions and their estimation
and application in specific evaluations. For agglomeration benefits, there is confusion over
'static' versus 'dynamic' agglomeration, the concept of effective density, the direction of
causality between transport interventions and agglomeration, the agglomeration elasticities
and the measurement of transport cost. There is also insufficient understanding of the
vertical structure of industries and the inter-relationships between economic activities
including government. Dynamic agglomeration has, for modelling convenience, largely been
assumed away. However the relationship between land use and density and constraints on
land use can be argued to decouple the relationship between transport and the
agglomeration.

In NZ, static agglomeration WEBs have been accepted into the 'official' evaluation
framework. In Australia, Infrastructure Australia's framework requires the exclusion of WEBs
in the central case evaluation with their inclusion as sensitivity tests to add 'texture'.
This paper reviews the basis and application of WEBs and summarises some of the major
studies in Australia and NZ where they have been applied. The aim of the paper is to
stimulate a debate on whether or not WEBs should be used, and help guide where further
research could be undertaken to improve their accuracy and applicability.

[SurfRail]

My view is they should abandon any hope of getting money out of Canberra for this and focus on the NCL, GCLR extensions and other projects where we are more likely to get meaningful sums of money that the Cth Govt won't baulk at handing over.

[James]

I think IA has made some very valid points. I'd echo #Metro's comments here.

The main thing I'd like to say is this - while the IA case review and the CRR Business Case remain under wraps, it is all smoke and mirrors really. No point making arguments when both sides are hiding half of the arguments against what they're saying. Personally, I think having the tunnel surface at Dutton Park, rather than Yeerongpilly, would have really hit the business case quite hard.

[#Metro]

The main thing I'd like to say is this - while the IA case review and the CRR Business Case remain under wraps, it is all smoke and mirrors really. No point making arguments when both sides are hiding half of the arguments against what they're saying. Personally, I think having the tunnel surface at Dutton Park, rather than Yeerongpilly, would have really hit the business case quite hard.

Freight would generally be high value I would imagine. Good money is paid to transport freight around, rather than passengers paying $3.20 or whatever.

If the portal was put at Dutton Park because Trad wanted to 'save Dutton Park Station' and that messed up the freight benefits, then she has really shot herself in the foot.

On the other hand, are the freight benefits recoverable in any way?

[Stillwater]

I am with you SurfRail.  Clearly there is a bucket of money due or 'owed' Queensland.  The state government should get on with things - play politics if they like during an election (saying the Coalition/LNP didn't put a cent towards CRR blah blah), but whacking in business cases for projects such as SCL (all the planning done and ready to go) that cost less.  About a cool $1 billion for SCL.

However, there is a problem here.  If for example, Canberra said they would go 50:50 on $1 billion, the state government probably would not have $500m spare, because all its spare cash has gone to CRR.  Ms Trad would not want to see largess from Canberra benefitting the LNP seats of the Sunshine Coast, so would frustrate the process by picking a fight around an 80:20 split etc.

[ozbob]

My view is they should abandon any hope of getting money out of Canberra for this and focus on the NCL, GCLR extensions and other projects where we are more likely to get meaningful sums of money that the Cth Govt won't baulk at handing over.

Yep.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/890441638786482176

[ozbob]

http://anthonyalbanese.com.au/cheap-excuses-wont-solve-traffic-congestion

Shadow Ministerial Media Release  Anthony Albanese MP

Cheap excuses won't solve traffic congestion

The Turnbull Government should stop the excuses and get behind the much-needed Cross River Rail project in Brisbane.

News yesterday that Infrastructure Australia has refused to back this important project is extremely disappointing given the same organisation approved its business case in 2012 and declared it "ready to go''.

On the basis of that approval, the former Federal Labor Government and the former LNP Queensland Government reached a deal to deliver Cross River Rail in 2013 – a fact former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman confirmed on Sky News on May 29 this year.

Indeed, the project would be nearing completion today if incoming Prime Minister Tony Abbott had not scrapped it later in 2013 and transferred the funding to toll road projects in Sydney and Melbourne. Those road projects were funded without business cases, no questions asked.

Since ousting Mr Abbott, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has claimed he wants to invest in public transport but failed to provide a dollar of new investment.

Mr Turnbull likes to take selfies on trains, trams and buses. He should invest in trains, trams and buses.

Failure to deliver a second rail crossing of the Brisbane River in Brisbane CBD soon will act as a hand brake on economic and jobs growth, not just in Brisbane, but right across South East Queensland.

The Queensland Government understands this and is going it alone on the project, which will create 8000 jobs during construction and take 19,500 cars a day off the city's roads.

While Mr Turnbull is happy to hand out money to projects in southern states with no evidence of their value for money, he is stonewalling on Brisbane's infrastructure needs.

The only thing stopping Commonwealth investment in the vital Cross River Rail project is politics. Queenslanders deserve better than that.