Gold Coast traffic congestion busting $700m roadworks to begin with big 2019 spend

THE Gold Coast’s road network will get more than $700 million worth of road works in the next 12 years. It can now be revealed when the work will begin and what’s in store for motorists.

GOLD Coast Mayor Tom Tate has revealed when a $705 million roadworks packaged will begin rollout out across the city’s streets.

The Gold Coast Bulletin today revealed in a special report that the Gold Coast City Council had plotted out at least 116 road works projects through to 2031 as part of a push to ‘congestion-proof’ suburbs.

More than $700m of roadworks are planned Photo: David Clark

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A bulk of the money, more than $200 million, will be spent in and around the Coomera Town Centre precinct, where at least nine new roads will be built, including an overpass.

Cr Tate said he expected to fast-track spending on major road projects in the 2019-20 financial year.

“Next year you will see a record spend on roads. We have costed the road upgrades, we will now tweak it and revitalise it so they are built earlier in the piece,” he said.

“I predict we will spend $180 million on congestion busting programs next year.

“We have been putting money away in a reserve from infrastructure charges and this spend is going to happen.

“We are planning to go hard.”

The Council this year committed $110 million to road upgrades.

Many of the planned roadworks are already on the drawing board and well progressed, allowing the council to fast-track any projects if necessary.

Council sources told the Gold Coast Bulletin several of the upgrades would be ‘shovel ready’ to begin in the 2019-20 financial year.

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Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

Cr Tate used a press conference this morning to take aim at the Coast’s three federal MPs, Steven Ciobo, Stuart Robert and Karen Andrews, saying in the wake of the Super Saturday by-elections that they took the city for granted.

“Any federal government to take the Gold Coast for granted would be a mistake — voters are very quick to change their minds and judge and if you take the Coast for granted, you do so at your own peril.

When asked if those MPs took the city for granted, the mayor said ‘Yes I do’.

“Listen to your local government, we are grassroots and the main thing is when we put our hand up for a dive wreck, don’t look us over and let the last two ships go elsewhere,” he said.

‘They go to Canberra and think they work for Canberra, they work for the Gold Coast.”

‘Who am I to tell a federal political how to serve the city, I am just saying put the city first and if you do that, everyone is happy.”