Council under pressure on Brisbane Metro Adelaide St tunnel opening as deadline looms

Council has come under fire after refusing to narrow down an opening date for a Brisbane CBD Metro tunnel critical to busting congestion and boosting services.

Premier David Crisafulli and Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner in the Adelaide St tunnel in December. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Courier-Mail

Council has come under fire from the Labor Opposition after refusing to narrow down an opening date for the Adelaide St Metro tunnel despite it being critical for more services.

But it has promised M1 route services connecting Eight Mile Plains to Roma St would be open by the June/July school holidays.

Its online Metro construction update currently stated that completion would be in “mid year’’.

But council has also said bus services would switch from the existing Queen St Mall tunnel to the one in Adelaide St in the third quarter of this year (July-September).

When asked to narrow that down to a specific month, a spokeswoman said that “as with other major infrastructure projects’’ opening dates would be confirmed closer to completion.

“At this stage, we can’t pinpoint a date for the opening of the tunnel because it’ll be in the hands of independent testing and validation,’’ she said.

“There’s also a process between excavation and testing.’’

(L-R) Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, Premier David Crisafulli, Ryan Murphy and Transport Minister Brent Mickelberg inspect the tunnel in December.

However the main variable, the excavation works, were completed in December when Premier David Crisafulli, Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner and transport chair Ryan Murphy announced the milestone.

Concreting on walls and the floor also appeared to be finished at that time, but the spokeswoman said the media walk-through did not include other, incomplete sections.

Tunnelling was already 80 per cent complete by October 2023 despite major challenges from soft soil and the shallowness. At one point the structure came within 3.5m of city streets.

The vague opening date prompted Labor Opposition Leader Jared Cassidy to claim that council was “making things up as they go along’’.

The tunnel in October, 2023 when almost 170m, or 80 per cent, had been excavated. Picture: David Clark

“After 21 years in power you’d think they’d have a clear plan,’’ he said.

“We were promised a 2023 opening, then a 2024 opening and now it’ll probably be late 2025 before it’s complete.

“They don’t actually have a plan. We know that because the goalposts on this project have changed so much.

“This project has been plagued with delays, cost blowouts and even shutdowns due to safety concerns.’’

Mr Cassidy claimed there had been a collapse, greatly slowing work, but the council spokeswoman said that was incorrect.

He has previously also claimed 9km of Cross River Rail tunnelling had been achieved in the same time that the 213m Adelaide St tunnel was excavated.

However, Engineers Australia said in a 2024 site visit fact sheet that the excavation was “one of Australia’s most challenging tunnel projects’’ because of the soft, shallow ground.

When the tunnel opened it would free up the Cultural Centre Busway/Victoria Bridge bottleneck.

At the moment standard buses were often nose-to-tail right across the bridge.

About one-third of all the buses currently clogging CBD streets would be redeployed into the suburbs.

The spokeswoman said the King George Square busway station works were already finished and Buranda busway station works would be finished by the second quarter (April to June).

Above-ground improvements to more than 800m of Adelaide St, between George and Edward streets, would be done by “early 2025’’.

It included new street furniture, lighting, bus stops, upgraded footpaths and in-ground services.

Originally published as Council under pressure on Brisbane Metro Adelaide St tunnel opening as deadline looms