Gold Coast traffic: Gold Coast’s worst roads for gridlock as population booms

Road congestion costs are predicted to quadruple, taking $973 million out of the pockets of Gold Coast motorists. This is where you can find the worst gridlock.

ROAD congestion costs are predicted to quadruple by 2031, taking $973 million out of the pockets of Gold Coast motorists as they sit in gridlock.

The worst of it, despite major upgrades planned across the next 10 years, will be on the Pacific Motorway. Delays on the M1 will cost Coast commuters $1.2 million per day.

GOLD COAST’S WORST ROADS REVEALED

Congestion on the M1 north of the Gold Coast. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

WHERE THE GOLD COAST’S WORST TRAFFIC JAM IS

Failure by governments to proceed with a second M1 – the Coomera Connector – means motorists will lose 60,000 hours of their lives as they sit in their vehicles in traffic.

The 2019 audit figures were calculated by measuring the “discomfort and inconvenience” of being on heavily loaded public transport and financial amounts lost by the total delay hours on congested roads.

The Infrastructure Australia Urban Transport Crowding and Congestion report shows the Coast will accommodate an extra 200,000 residents in the next 15 years.

“Nerang and Surfers Paradise will each grow by about 30 per cent, Southport will grow by 40 per cent, while Ormeau-Oxenford will grow by over 70 per cent,” the report said.

Similar to Brisbane in the past, the growth in public transport will outstrip cars.

The key findings in the report include:

* Trips by car are expected to increase by 37 per cent, while those on public transport will be boosted by 67 per cent.

* Road congestion costs will increase from $243 million in 2016 to $973 million in 2031.

* Despite upgrades the M1 will experience more traffic and longer delays – an extra 31,000 peak period vehicles in each direction by 2031.

*. Roads like Hope Island Road, Gooding Drive, Robina Parkway and Bermuda Street will become increasingly congested.

* The city’s population, which had been clustered by the beaches, will be more dispersed, headed to Southport and Ormeau-Oxenford.

* Patronage will significantly increase on the light rail from Helensvale to Southport in both directions – extra 3000 passengers each direction at peak.

* Significant crowding will occur on routes connecting Brisbane rail to Burleigh Heads and Coolangatta.

COAST’S WORST BOTTLENECKS REVEALED

Congestion as traffic leaves Brisbane heading to the Gold Coast on the M1. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

Queensland Transport expects the upgrade of the Mudgeeraba to Varsity Lakes section of the M1 will be completed mid next year, which will then enable work to begin on the next section to Tugun.

Six-laning the entire four-lane southern stretch of the M1 is expected to be completed in 2023.

The Government is finalising designs on the upgrade of the Oxenford interchange and further north on the section of M1 from Eight Mile Plains to Daisy Hill.

But the State Opposition says the latest report shows congestion is at crisis point and the Government lacks a long-term plan.

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Light rail outside Gold Coast University Hospital — the link from Southport to Helensvale will become much busier. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

“In just over a decade, congestion on the M1 will cost commuters $1.2 million every single day,” LNP State Development spokesman Andrew Powell said. “That is an appalling figure that Annastacia Palaszczuk should be ashamed of.

“Queensland’s weakest Premier in history, Annastacia Palaszczuk, continues to make every excuse imaginable as to why Labor won’t build the second M1.

“Building a second M1 is clearly not a priority for Labor. It was the LNP which built the first M1 and if elected in October 2020, a Deb Frecklington LNP Government will build the second M1, as part of our congestion-busting plan.”