Schrinner’s Metro achieves rare milestone – backing from the Greens

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner’s $1.8 billion Metro megabus project won support from the Greens, but not Labor, during the Brisbane City Council mayoral debate.

The first two stages of the Metro – an electric, three-car rapid bus service running through 18 stations along 22 kilometres of busways – are due to finally take passengers in late 2024.

The first Metro line will run from Eight Mile Plains to Roma Street Station, while the second will connect the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital to the University of Queensland and all stops in between.

The Brisbane Metro has been designed to carry more passengers at one time, in a bid to ease congestion and improve public transport efficiency.Credit: Matt Dennien

Future Metro links on Brisbane’s northside have been proposed by the LNP; to a proposed northern electric bus charging station at Fitzgibbon, to Brisbane Airport and to Capalaba.

At the debate on Thursday, the Greens’ mayoral candidate, Jonathan Sriranganathan, threw his support to an extension of the Metro network.

“The Greens certainly support extending the Metro to the northside,” Sriranganathan told the Queensland Media Club.

Brisbane’s leading mayoral candidates, from left: the Greens’ Jonathan Sriranganathan, Labor’s Tracey Price, and the incumbent, Adrian Schrinner from the LNP. The moderator for the debate was Marlina Whop from the Seven Network (right).Credit: Tony Moore

But when asked to nominate his public transport priority, Sriranganathan argued it was not “big, flashy, high-cost” projects, despite the Greens’ recent promise of a $10 million light rail study.

“The priority is in improving our suburban bus routes,” he said and referred to the Greens proposal to introduce 15 new high-frequency bus routes.

Schrinner insisted the Metro project was a necessary “step change” between public transport and mass transit to service Brisbane’s growing population.

The Brisbane Metro network in 2024, with proposed future extensions marked in yellow.

“I think the Brisbane Metro rapid transit solution is the one which is most suitable to Brisbane,” Schrinner said.

However, Labor candidate Tracey Price questioned the value of the Metro project and said she would prioritise suburban bus connections if elected lord mayor on March 16.

“Metro has been eight years in the making and is almost a billion dollars over budget – and we still do not know when it is going to finish,” Price said.

“What we want to do – with immediate effect – is roll out extra buses, increasing the routes in and out of our city. We want to increase frequency and that is something we can do right now.

“We don’t have to wait for a whole new lot infrastructure and a huge over-budget [project].”

Price said Labor did not support the council’s new northside bus charging station, questioning where the buses would come from.

Schrinner said the state government provided buses which council leased to provide services under an agreement with Translink that keeps the fares.

Labor has promised to halve the cost of bus fares for all zone one and two trips. Like the Greens, it would also look to extend dedicated bus lanes, and Price has vowed to work closer with the Labor government.

But Schrinner, reflecting on previous state Labor inaction, recalled a 1997 government transport plan for south-east Queensland that forecast 75 kilometres of busways.

“Only 25 kilometres were ever built,” Schrinner said.

“And those 25 kilometres carry the lion’s share, two-thirds, of all bus trips on the [public transport] network.”

Schrinner said the Metro could, over time, be extended more effectively than the Greens’ light rail project, which he described as a “fantasy” that would cost $6 billion.

The LNP expects the Metro to free up buses to allow further network improvements.

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