Article: Transport shake-up tip

[Sunbus610]

Transport shake-up tip
Bill Hoffman | 19th January 2012

A MAJOR shake-up of multi-billion dollar transport planning for the Sunshine Coast is likely if the LNP wins government at elections due soon.

Member for Kawana Jarrod Bleijie said yesterday the election of the LNP and the return to parliament of sitting Coast LNP members would trigger a summit with the new council that emerges from local government polls due in March.

On the table would be the contentious $331 million CoastConnect bus link between Caloundra and Maroochydore and the long-mooted but unfunded multi-billion road-rail corridor.

A full examination of the light rail project being pushed by council should also be part of the discussion.

Mr Bleijie said current, unfunded planning had the potential to result in as many as 16 lanes of traffic within a band of a few kilometres.

He said the reality was that the several billions needed to fund the projects were not available and the same discussion could still be being held in 2060. "We need to find an affordable, staged way forward," he said.

In the interim, to get people moving, he proposed more buses, particularly to suburbs not presently being serviced.

Responding to calls from council finance chief Chris Thompson for the LNP to outline its transport infrastructure commitments, Mr Bleijie said essential elements of the existing CoastConnect strategy should be treated as separate projects and funded accordingly.

Mr Bleijie said the State Government's announcement this week that the $26 million first stage of the bus link would be delayed a year to 2015, ignored the fact that there was no forward estimates provision for the rest of the project.

Cr Thompson said he had no problem with contentious elements of the bus link including Aerodrome Rd and Nicklin Way resumptions and six-laning of Alexandra Pde being axed.

However, Brisbane Rd land resumptions, the Maroochydore bus interchange and stops at Kawana Shopping World needed to go ahead.

The LNP needed to give businesses certainty by stating its policy and funding it appropriately.

"The council has designed parts of its capital works program around Coast Connect," Cr Thompson said.

"It has contributed to bus interchanges and bridge duplication and will do bridges on Brisbane Rd.

"If the LNP is now saying that is not going to happen, it needs to tell us."

Mr Bleijie said the Coast needed a business case on public transport.

http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2012/01/19/transport-shake-up-tip/

[Stillwater]

"The reality is that several billion dollars needed to fund projects are not available and the same discussion could still be be held in 2060."

There are some mixed messages here.  The story opens with the news that there will be a multi-million shake-up of transport planning on the Sunshine Coast should the LNP get elected to government, but we find that what's planned is a 'summit'.  It's a meeting, but calling it a summit sounds grander, more important.

A meeting will be held between state government and council.  That's hardly a 'shake-up'.  It would also appear that the LNP will have no transport plan for the region, if not the state, when the poll is held.  It will push the line that there will be a major summit where everyone will wear 10-gallon hats and long faces to stress the significance of the event, so no policy can be finalised before then.

LNP stunts, such as sympathy tours of the Coast's network by Mr Emerson, petitions, false promises of a LNP 'transport plan' just don't wash anymore from a party that sees it would inherit in government the same problems it highlights by pointing the finger at the ALP.  It's likely that the people of the Sunshine Coast will use the edges of their go-cards to inflict the death of a thousand cuts on an LNP government.

Well, steel yourself, Mr Bleijie.

Meanwhile, transport chaos still looms for the Coast.

The ALP has said what's needed, and has documented it ... and probably will go on doing so until Connecting SEQ 2060 is published.  In that respect, Mr Bleijie is correct.

The 'reality' that any summit should address, but won't, is that the billions of dollars for transport need to be found.  Governments find those billions from the community.  Most probably that would be a congestion tax for SEQ (not the entire state), but neither political party will put that prospect on the table before an election.  An alternative would be a 2-3 cent levy on every litre of fuel sold to pay for public transport, but that pain would be inflicted across the state, where people who have no prospect of public transport will be forced to pay.  Or the state will require local government in SEQ to impose a transport levy on ratepayers.  Some councils do already, including the Sunshine Coast Council.