Kuranda range road: KUR-World rejection do-nothing contradicts highway report

KUR-World was killed because the Kuranda range road could not handle extra traffic but we are now being asked to believe the route will not hit capacity for 30 years. It does not match up.

REMEMBER KUR-World, that $650m integrated eco-resort that was supposed to be built up the hill near Kuranda?

If I were the developer, I would be on the phone to my lawyer about whether I could sue the Queensland government for damages.

We have all been struck by disbelief after the release of the Northern Tablelands Access Study which found, basically, that no major upgrades were needed on the Kuranda range road for 30 years.

The report cost $1.6m, was delivered six months late and seemed to be fluffed out with an inordinate number of massive scenic photos where raw data could have been.

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Putting all of that aside, the real sting was in its findings.

The Kuranda range road was not operating at capacity, it said, and would be able to cope for three decades to come – as long as Main Roads plonked a few “traffic response” tow trucks at the bottom for quick post-crash deployment.

That may be true, but the state government was whistling a very different tune a couple of years ago.

KUR-World had plenty of detractors but it was a traffic report that was used to knock it on the head. Picture: Paul Curtis

KUR-World was killed off because the extra traffic movements it would entail – a daily count of 55 heavy vehicle and 460 passenger cars in the first stage – were deemed too great for the road to handle.

This new report states traffic flow can grow by more than 20 per cent before there are significant capacity issues.

A long awaited state government report into the future of the road has found that no major upgrades or alternatives to the Kuranda Range Road will be needed until 2051. Picture: Brendan Radke

The road already has up to 10,000 daily traffic movements. Twenty per cent of that would be an extra 2000 vehicles – a far cry from the figures used to write off KUR-World.

This report and the one used to knock KUR-World on the head were both politically expedient, but surely they cannot both be true.

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Originally published as Kuranda range road: KUR-World rejection do-nothing contradicts highway report