Article: Congestion stalls small business

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Congestion stalls small business

Congestion stalls small business
TONY MOORE
September 2, 2009 - 5:21AM

Small businesses feel helpless to tackle Brisbane's $3 billion traffic congestion costs, one of Brisbane's leading courier company's believes.

Yellow Couriers, a division of Yellow Cabs, runs 80 courier vans and utes around Brisbane's metropolitan area.

General manager Bill Logie said he did not know how a small business could do anything to counter rising traffic congestion costs.

"If it can be tackled, it has to be tackled on a large scale," Mr Logie said.

"It can't be tackled by individual businesses such as us, or by small business," he said.

"It can't be. We're helpless in these areas. It will be the (Brisbane City) Council, State Government and the Federal Government."

He said Yellow Couriers had been forced to change its promises to customers.

"For instance, in years gone by if you got a job from Acacia Ridge to go to Northgate the chances are you could say that we would do that within the hour," he said.

"Nowadays you can't say that with any degree of certainty. Depending on the time of day it could take an hour and a half."

Mr Logie said big infrastructure projects like the Gateway Bridge duplications and the new Clem 7 tunnel would only help businesses using those routes.

"Obviously they are going to help in the overall scheme of things but let's face it: If you are hanging around the industrial areas where you don't have to use the tunnels or the bridges it is not going to make any difference," he said.

Other courier firms in Brisbane said their costs were increased by businesses fighting to use the loading zones in Brisbane's CBD.

Engineering consultancy Infrastructure Partnerships Australia's latest report says that "by 2020 it is expected that congestion will cost the Brisbane economy around $3 billion per annum."

"These costs are for Brisbane alone, the figure is substantially higher if congestion for the whole of South-East Queensland is taken into account," says the report.

"Ninety per cent of freight movements within Brisbane are road-based, with freight expected to grow in Brisbane slightly faster (3.8 per cent) than in Sydney and Melbourne (3 per cent)."

The report strongly suggests one new organisation should be responsible for all transport planning in the same way that the Queensland Water Commission was formed to coordinate water planning.