Gold Coast light rail stage 4: Why billions must be spent on tram and transport infrastructure

The future route of the light rail “doesn’t matter” according to a leading Australian demographer who says billions of dollars must urgently be spent on expanding the Gold Coast tram system.

BUILD it and they’ll come.

That’s the message from a leading demographer who has thrown down the gauntlet to political leaders to spend billions of dollars on big-ticket infrastructure in the next decade to set the Gold Coast up for half a century of prosperity.

Simon Kuestenmacher, co-founder and director of research The Demographics Group, says the Gold Coast - sitting at just over 700,000 population - has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to build the infrastructure it needs to grow into a city of more than one million people potentially within the next decade.

From light and heavy rail through to major community infrastructure projects, he urged council, state and federal government politicians to put “everything on the table”.

Director and co-founder of The Demographics Group Simon Kuestenmacher. Picture: Brendan Radke

Mr Kuestenmacher, the keynote speaker at this month’s Future Gold Coast forum, said it was a “golden opportunity” which could not be passed up.

“The Olympics have to be used to bring infrastructure spending forward because there is a brief window when this will be possible and it opened last year when the Olympic Games was won but it must be grasped,” he said.

“There is no wiggle room here and there is a deadline here so if infrastructure needs to be built, the time is now because there is no such thing as trying to time it right, you need to build it right now.

“The important thing is creating regional infrastructure at (a great) scale right now and this is about the big picture, so it isn’t important which routes they take. They just need to be built.”

The Gold Coast will host at least nine sports events during the 2032 Games, however no new major sports infrastructure projects are needed, with venues created for the 2018 Commonwealth Games being recycled.

Artist impression of Gold Coast Light Rail Stage 4 between Tugun and Coolangatta, including Gold Coast Airport and the NSW border. Picture: Department of Transport and Main Roads.

While not currently listed as Olympic-linked projects, extensions of the light and heavy rail are considered essential to ensuring the city can support not only the Games but the dramatic population growth expected to take the population beyond a million people by 2040.

Mr Kuestenmacher said the Gold Coast should follow the example of the German city of Munich which hosted the 1972 Games.

After winning the Games in the mid-1960s, its politicians spent millions to build its railway network and revamp the still-damaged World War II-era infrastructure into a modern city capable of hosting a major sporting event.

The infrastructure developed for those Games remain in use and part of the city fabric today.

Mr Kuestenmacher said Gold Coast leaders had to think half a century into the future rather than on day-to-day minutia including cost and concerns about specific routes.

Demographics Group Director Simon Kuestenmacher uses Munich as a major example of what the Gold Coast could achieve.

“Munich is a positive case study because this is a city which was given the Olympics nearly 60 years ago and they managed to build infrastructure to scale using the ‘build it and they’ll come approach’ including oversized railways which went out to their Hinterland where few people lived at the time and it couldn’t really be justified,” he said.

“It was an excuse to build infrastructure and it was the skeleton on which the modern city was built and to this day it is still shaping the urban form of lower Bavaria.

“(Regarding the light rail and concerns over the route), all those little fights need to be put aside, you need to build it now, build it fast and get it down to the airport because the window of opportunity will soon close.”

A new view of what the Olympic Athletes Village will look like at Robina.

The other big ticket project will be the multi-billion dollar athlete’s village which will be created at Robina to house thousands of competitions from nations across the world.

A final design and anticipated purpose for its post-2032 existence is yet to be announced but area councillor Hermann Vorster and housing support groups have called for the towers to be designed with its future usage in mind.

Aged care accommodation and low-income housing have both been proposed as options given the Gold Coast has a disproportionately older population and the city’s development sector is not keeping up with the booming population.

The proposed satellite Athletes Village for the 2032 Olympic Games at Collyer Quays in Robina.

Mr Kuestenmacher said the village could serve as both, as well as a home for the city’s “workforce of the future”.

“One of the challenges is that the region is ageing quite dramatically and people will continue to retire at higher rates and these people need homes, but so do those who will have to care for them,” he said.

“They need affordable homes and this is where the athlete’s village comes in because if we can build great affordable and low-income housing, it will help.

“Athletes will get to live in them but they will be created as great big housing for the workforce of the future.

“However, if they don’t have anywhere to live the skill shortage will continue into the future and it will not be a temporary issue.”

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