Opinion: Why is it so hard to get something so necessary like the light rail right?

Light rail is essential for the Gold Coast’s future. But is the government just looking at the easiest solution, instead of the best, asks Keith Woods.

IT’S only 7.3 km of track. There are just three stations. It is mostly separated for roads. A trip takes just eleven minutes.

Yet stage two of the light rail has still managed to cause traffic headaches for locals.

As trams rise from the Gold Coast University Hospital to street level, too often the sight out the window is of a lengthy traffic snarl.

GCB The G-Link train crossing Olsen Ave Southport. Picture: John Gass

If ever there was a place to keep roads and rail separate, most obviously by keeping the trams below the surface for just 150m more, it was at this intersection fronting our busiest hospital, which lies just a short distance from Smith St.

The story is just as bad, if not worse, at the only other point the stage two line meets a road, the junction of Napper Rd and Smith St.

At busy times, traffic snakes back as far as Arundel Plaza.

Even local MP Sam O’Connor, one of the city’s most enthusiastic fans of light rail, says traffic there is a “nightmare”.

None of this is to say that light rail is a mistake. Far from it. The tram system is vital for this city’s future.

But it must be done right.

Mr O’Connor wishes that at the time stage two was built, more effort was made to prevent the Napper Rd nightmare.

“Again (like at the Olsen Ave junction), you could have cut it in,” Mr O’Connor told this column.

“It would have cost more, but you could have cut it or got the road to fly over it”.

With the Commonwealth Games looming, stage two was built on the cheap and in a hurry.

A similar situation now looms for stage four to the airport. Given the spectre of the 2032 Olympics, pressure is already building to get the line built, and fast.

Location of the pinch points in stage two of the Gold Coast’s light rail.

Councillors want construction to start immediately after the completion of stage three to Burleigh.

But as reported in the Bulletin this week locals are already raising serious concerns about the stage four design, which according to Division 13 councillor Daphne McDonald, would allow for only two right hand turns for traffic heading north along the Gold Coast Highway through Palm Beach.

Residents described the proposal as “ridiculous”, with one asking if the designers “have ever been to the GC”.

The plan to run the line down the east side of the Gold Coast Highway at Tugun has also come under fire.

Could it be a case of history repeating itself? Could it be that the cheapest and easiest way through junctions is being proposed, rather than the best?

It is hard to know for sure, although the experience of stage two suggests we are right to be wary.

The light rail is overall an excellent system, badly needed as this city grows.

It’s no exaggeration to suggest that the long-term success of the Gold Coast is tied up in the success of this project.

But as the light rail will be with us for generations, it is vital that we iron out any issues now. We only get one chance to get this right.

Transport planners need to listen carefully to the concerns of concerned locals, who understand their own area better than anyone, and find solutions to the trickier conundrums.

Not just take the easy route, as they did at Olsen Ave and Napper Rd.

Originally published as Opinion: Why is it so hard to get something so necessary like the light rail right?