Mike O’Connor: Why Bruce Highway is a monument to Qld’s political ineptitude

While politicians trade insults, the people of Brisbane suffer for the harsh truth that no one will acknowledge our road system is at breaking point, writes Mike O’Connor.

When engaging in political debate, the best way of carrying the day and achieving the best result for taxpayers is to poke out your tongue, pull a face and start calling the other side names.

That, at least, is the way the game is played in the Sunshine State as evidenced by the recent spat between state Transport Minister Mark “Mangocube” Bailey and Lord Mayor Adrian “Rain Bomb” Schrinner.

In play was the political football known as the North West Transport Corridor, the plan to build a motorway that has been kicked from one end of the electoral field to the other for decades without anyone kicking a goal.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner condemns the state government’s failure to tackle traffic congestion in Brisbane’s north. Picture: Liam Kidston

On one side, we have Schrinner accusing the state government of “pinching” federal funding meant to go toward yet another study of the proposal, and at the other end, Bailey describing the Lord Mayor as “pathetic”.

“During my time as Minister for Transport, this is one of the most humiliating debacles I’ve seen,’’ he said after the federal Australian Infrastructure body knocked back a council proposal for a tunnel because it failed to also canvas an above-ground option.

Some might say that Bailey being caught out using a private Mangocube email account for government business and seemingly being told how to vote in cabinet by a union official was right up the in the humiliation stakes, but I digress.

“The LNP council, with the connivance of former prime minister Scott Morrison, wasted $10m of taxpayers’ money with this worthless study that cut the state government out of the process deliberately despite it being about our corridor,” fumed the Minister.

Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

While these two highly paid politicians trade insults, the people of Brisbane continue to suffer for the harsh truth that no one is prepared to acknowledge is that our road system is at breaking point.

It rained a few weeks ago, the weather gods unleashing one of those brief subtropical afternoon downpours that are a summer trademark of our city.

The result was traffic gridlock. I know this because it took me 45 minutes to travel from Newstead to the CBD, a distance of less than 4km.

Such is the fragile nature of the system that if rain slows the traffic flow, chaos ensues. Anyone forced to use Gympie Rd during peak periods that get longer every year will attest to its inability to cope.

A minor collision on the Story Bridge brings the city to a standstill.

I drove back from the Sunshine Coast one afternoon last week.

A minor collision on the Story Bridge brings the city to a standstill, says Mike O’Connor. Picture: NCA NewsWire/John Gass

Southbound the traffic flowed but the northbound lanes were a carpark, traffic snaking back

for kilometre after kilometre as the system failed to carry the traffic volume – and this happens virtually every day.

The Bruce Highway is a monument to bureaucratic and political ineptitude, one that stretches from Brisbane to Cairns, and which is closed, cutting off North Queensland, whenever there is significant rainfall. What a joke.

There aren’t enough vehicular bridges and there aren’t enough tunnels.

On the one hand, the council spends mountains of money on “green” bridges, which are lovely for cyclists and joggers, but do absolutely nothing to alleviate traffic woes, while the state government looks the other way and does what it does best, which is nothing.

You don’t need to be an engineer to appreciate that building a freeway through the densely populated northern suburbs is not practical.

The North West Transport Corridor is a political football, says Mike O’Connor.

A tunnel is the obvious choice but rather than the council and the state government joining forces to drive this, we have petty bickering and name calling.

The North West Motorway is meant to take about 110,000 vehicles a day off surrounding roads by 2031.

Thanks to procrastination, blame-shifting and general incompetence, this will never happen.

Put all of this in the context of the 2032 Olympics and the omens portent disaster writ large.

The announcement the state government will assume overall control of infrastructure construction should send alarm bells ringing throughout the Olympic movement.

Whenever the state government gets involved in a project, the costs blow out, the unions have a picnic, it’s late in delivery and questions as to how the money is being spent and who is getting it are waved away with claims of “commercial-in-confidence”.

I would like to think that the Olympics will be a happy experience for my home town but I fear the worst.