Gold Coast traffic: Nightmare that some locals say is driving them to quit city

Long-time locals are up in arms over a traffic headache, with some even saying it’s encouraged them to leave the city for good. Here’s where the gridlock is worst.

It’s the ultimate double-edged sword.

After years of Covid disruption, Gold Coast tourism operators have celebrated a bumper Christmas and New Year holiday period.

Everywhere was full and the tills were ringing, and who could begrudge them after the nightmare of the last few years.

But on the other hand, the traffic. Dear God, the traffic.

Long-time locals, people who have lived here all their lives, have never seen it so bad.

On many days over the last two weeks, the Gold Coast Highway was in near total gridlock through Southport and Main Beach.

The chaos reached another crescendo on Sunday due to the Magic Millions Polo event at Doug Jennings Park on The Spit.

The approaching problem – southbound traffic on the M1 at Ormeau early on Monday last week. Picture: Liam Kidston

Things were even worse at the southern end of the city.

One person told this column that at the heights of the madness it took them the guts of an hour to travel the short distance between Burleigh and Palm Beach.

Another commented on social media that it took 45 minutes to get from Elanora to Bilinga. Others said there were times it was barely possible to leave their homes by car.

“It’s just become impossible to live in our own city when it’s holidays,” they said.

On community forums frustrated residents said the traffic was the worst they’d seen in decades, with some saying they’d had enough and were leaving the city they grew up in.

“We were spoilt with it growing up here, we’ve had the best of the Goldy,” one wrote. “Now it’s time for a change.”

In a supreme irony, it was suggested that some recent arrivals from Sydney were planning on heading back south to escape the chaos.

Am all too familiar scene on the Sundale Bridge. Picture: Richard Gosling.

The bedlam reinforces some awkward points about the future of transport on the Gold Coast.

The first is we need more and better public transport. That means pressing ahead with the light rail.

The fears that extending the line to the airport through Palm Beach will lead to more development and traffic chaos are moot – because as the last few weeks prove, it’s already happened. But there is another important point here.

Even with a move to public transport, the city’s escalating population implies there’s going to be a lot of cars wanting to get on to the highway one way or another. What happens if it’s dropped to one lane?

The light rail needs to be built better than proposed, and better than it has been done at some points on the existing line, such as where it rises to meet the road and crosses Olsen Ave near Gold Coast University Hospital.

The light rail track running through a busy junction at Olsen Ave in Parkwood. Photo by Richard Gosling

Although spiralling construction costs are already costing blow-outs, no cent should be spared to maximise the extent to which the line is separated from other traffic, and to ensure four lanes are preserved along the highway (which to be fair, council and the state government are examining).

Spur lines heading west also need serious consideration. What we’ve got right now is a long single line and a proposal to make it even longer. What the city needs is a system.

It’s hard to imagine anyone driving from Brisbane getting off the motorway at Helensvale to take the light rail the rest of the way to Burleigh.

But maybe they’d ride the rail if it was a short trip east from Varsity Lakes – especially if it meant avoiding a traffic snarl and a battle for parking.

That sort of thing might help keep local roads for local traffic, and give more southern Gold Coast residents reason to be enthusiastic about the light rail.

It may also mean that, although traffic levels will never go back to what they were decades ago, we may be able to enjoy holiday periods that deliver for businesses, without also bringing the sting of near total gridlock.

Follow @keithjwoods

Originally published as Gold Coast traffic: Nightmare that some locals say is driving them to quit city