Where’s the plan to fix one of Brisbane’s worst roads?

Should candidates for The Gap ward have to reveal a plan to fix Waterworks Rd before they get your vote? We ask you, ahead of the March Brisbane City Council election.

Traffic on Waterworks Rd at .

Waterworks Rd looks exactly like it once was — a horse and cart track.

The road was fine for horses, but it’s a nightmare for modern traffic.

In the two decades since it was widened to four lanes, there have been no major upgrades despite a huge increase in vehicle movements.

Westside News thinks it is unacceptable for any candidate for The Gap ward to ask for your vote without having a detailed plan to fix this mess.

Of course, Council has limited funds which have to be spread across a large city.

And it has just finished a small but welcome improvement, costing $8.9 million, from Trout St to Beth Eden Tce, Ashgrove.

That’s great, and the RACQ supports the works, but no major upgrade in 17 years? Come on.

There have been four Lord Mayors in that time — one Labor and three LNP — who have sat on their hands.

Westside News is asking you to make your voice heard on the number 1 issue in Ashgrove, Red Hill, St John’s Wood and The Gap.

We will publish the results of our exclusive poll in next week’s edition.

THE LONG AND TROUBLED HISTORY OF WATERWORKS RD

Originally a pathway used by the Turrbal people.

Surveyed in 1864, it was built in 1866 as a direct route to Enoggera Dam, then the city’s water supply.

It remained as a two-lane thoroughfare for the next century until the former Labor Soorley Council proposed four-laning it in 1988.

That sparked a series of community-led protests, including a rally of 150 people at Walton Bridge Park in October of that year.

Despite major political fallout at the March 2000 council election, and the resumption of houses and buildings — including the Red Hill police station in 2000 — the four laning went

ahead.

Controversially, Soorley wanted the extra lanes only for buses but backed down and made them T2 lanes with car poolers allowed.

The transit lanes opened in October, 2001, initially for 1km each way between Settlement Rd and Walton Bridge, and then later extended to Enoggera Tce.

The extension to Red Hill, which blew out to a total of $53 million, $17 million more than budgeted, was finally opened in December, 2003, after four years of delays for motorists.

By then Tim Quinn had replaced Soorley as Lord Mayor.

The project was a fiasco from start to finish.

Part of the T2 lane had to be dug up amid revelations the bitumen’s thickness was cut, possibly to save money.

Labor candidate for The Gap ward, Daniel Bevis, at the site of the now removed bus indent on Waterworks Rd.

By then it was so politicised Quinn refused to invite the popular Liberal councillor for The Gap ward, Geraldine Knapp, to the ribbon cutting.

The Gap Chamber of Commerce president Terry Mendies gatecrashed the event with a coffin symbolising the death of small business during the disruptive road works.

In 2007, a joint QUT/RACQ study found the inbound T2 lane provided “some benefits’’ but the outbound lane “was underused and not warranted’’. \

By 2011, a decade after transit lanes were introduced in Brisbane, an average of 84 motorists per week were still being fined across the city at $100 a pop. Ouch.

Council recently finished a $8.9 million upgrade of a 315m-long section from Trout St to Beth Eden Tce, which includes an extra right turn lane from Stewart Rd into Waterworks Rd and realigns the inbound lane of Waterworks Rd to deal with blockages caused by parked cars.

However the removal of a bus pull-in bay on the outbound lane, which Council said was due to safety concerns, sparked a social media storm with claims traffic delays outbound would cancel the benefits to improved inbound flows.

There has been no other major upgrade of the road in many years, only resurfacing of the Walton section, despite a steady increase in traffic volumes.

The road has also for many years been in the RACQ’s top 10 worst Brisbane roads for travel speeds.