Brisbane City Council budget: Kangaroo Point pedestrian bridge plans scrapped

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• Fountains and lights in Brisbane City Council budget short of surprises
• Lord Mayor Graham Quirk's 2015-16 Brisbane City Council budget speech

Brisbane City Council has scrapped plans to build a pedestrian and cycling bridge connecting Kangaroo Point to the CBD.

The project was left out of the 2015-16 annual budget, with Lord Mayor Graham Quirk saying the estimated $120 million cost was too expensive.

Artist impression the proposed Kangaroo Point pedestrian bridge.Credit: Richard Kirk Architect

It comes after the Lord Mayor declared in 2013 that the council would go it alone and build the bridge if it failed to secure funding from state and federal governments.

"We will fund it wholly as a council," he said at the time.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk delivers his budget speech.Credit: Chris Hyde

Previously, the LNP council had allocated about $32 million towards the bridge in forward estimates but finance chairman Julian Simmonds said the money was not spent.

The only outlay was on an investigation to determine the viability of the project, he said.

On Wednesday, Cr Quirk said the Kangaroo Point pedestrian bridge was still "a worthy initiative" and an idea the council would continue to explore.

But he said building the bridge could cost up to $120 million.

"Unashamedly my priorities have in the short term led me to move away from such a large-spending inner city project and focus instead on the suburban projects we need to undertake to continue to tackle traffic congestion and improve our suburbs," he said.

"This project was of course originally proposed some years ago by a previous Labor state government and given that pedestrian river crossings have traditionally been undertaken at that level of government, I will continue to explore partnership opportunities with them."

The highly-anticipated river connection was one of six priority projects the council identified in its 20-year vision for CBD development, the City Master Plan 2014.

In May, Labor's lord mayoral candidate Rod Harding vowed to build the bridge by 2018 if he was able to defeat Cr Quirk at the polls next year.

However Mr Harding's pledge seemed to contradict that of the current sitting Labor Opposition Leader Milton Dick, who declared in 2014: "Brisbane City Council can't afford these projects without accruing more debt or increasing rates and charges".

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