Government will need both trams and trains as southern transport solution
The Crisafulli Government is promising a public transport solution from Burleigh to the airport. Is it trams, trains or buses? Transport sources have a surprising answer.
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The Crisafulli Government is promising a public transport solution from Burleigh to the airport which Gold Coasters can “embrace, use and cherish”. What is the real solution?
Talk to senior transport sources, remove the politics, and the answer will shock.
No one mode of transport or route will save the southern Coast from traffic gridlock.
On Burleigh MP Hermann Vorster’s Facebook page, anti-tram resident Karen Rowles asked him if he noticed “how many people commenting on your post want Heavy Rail”.
The obvious options being publicly debated are replace trams with buses, put the trams on a western route to the M1, or make the heavy rail the airport connection.
Here are three key and blunt takeaways from my transport sources:
* One suggests “heavy rail will not be viable for at least the next few decades” because there is no political appetite either with the LNP or Labor for it.
* The trams going west to the heavy rail corridor prevents having separate light and heavy rail systems.
* Given M1 upgrades finish in the next nine months, we need heavy rail and light rail.
The last piece of advice is a bombshell. Remove “populist politics” and the real solution emerges as bigger than just completing a tram set or extending a train line south.
“You are going to need heavy rail a lot sooner than a few decades,” a transport source said.
“It is expensive. You are not going to get much change from $2.5 billion to the airport. You will have to service Elanora. It will be necessary to manage the traffic growth.
“In 15 years you are going to need both (trams and trains). Otherwise the southern Gold Coast is going to choke itself.”
Every piece of reliable research shows one truism – the Deep South will grow.
The preliminary evaluation for light rail Stage Four forecasts the population from Burleigh to Coolangatta will increase from 34,200 to 47,500 – a boost of 39 per cent – by 2041. The airport numbers will grow to 16.6 million by 2037.
These are not just about 12 million visitors arriving here but the thousands working at the airport and Southern Cross University as this economic catchment takes off.
This is challenging because there exists a much loved two creek catchment at Currumbin and Tallebudgera touching on Burleigh protected by generations of families.
Newer arrivals, like Ms Rowles, buying into the beachfront, are vocal about trams and towers.
“People living down the southern end, it’s been a sleepy node. The reality is those days are going to fade,” my transport source says.
“The challenge is how to move people around. The growth is not all going to be at Coomera.”
The best political road ahead is perhaps not to be so fast – there is a school of thought about waiting for construction costs to ease.
Then choose one, with light rail once Stage 3 to Burleigh finishes likely to prove popular. But the train track must be built as well. The alternative is life stalled in traffic forever.
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Originally published as Government will need both trams and trains as southern transport solution
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