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‘The next big project’ after Cross River Rail: Is it time to dust off the Brisbane Subway?
There are calls for the revival of the Brisbane Subway, which was proposed in 2010.Credit: Illustration
It was meant to be the next big thing after Cross River Rail, but the planned east-west Brisbane Subway has been largely forgotten.
Indeed, it barely entered the public consciousness when it was first mooted in a 2010 south-east Queensland public transport plan, as the more immediate Cross River Rail hogged the headlines.
Now, with the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games on the horizon, there are calls for it to be placed back on the agenda.
Tunnelling for the Cross River Rail.Credit: Toby Crockford
The underground link running between Toowong, West End, the CBD and Bowen Hills/Newstead, with future extensions to Bulimba, Hamilton Northshore and the Brisbane Airport, would have been a true metro system, with automatic train services running every 90 seconds.
It was uncosted, and no detailed planning was done. But it was a big feature of the Bligh government’s 2010 Connecting SEQ 2031 document, which outlined a 20-year public transport plan for the region, the likes of which have not been seen since.
The concept for a Brisbane Subway, according to Connecting SEQ 2031, was “a new separate network, with separate operations to existing rail infrastructure” which would be designed to “support the expected growth and expansion of the inner city”.
“The Brisbane subway will provide a high-capacity, high-frequency distributor system connecting central city destinations and linking passengers from the bus and rail networks to destinations not within a comfortable walk of existing stations,” the document says.
“The priority corridor for delivery by 2031 will be from Toowong to West End to Bowen Hills/Newstead. This corridor will be under the CBD and intersect with existing rail and busway stations.”
Just this week, Brisbane dropped out of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s list of the world’s top 10 most livable cities, due in large part to other cities’ COVID recovery.
But EIU Global Livability Index head Upasana Dutt said part of that drop, from equal 10th to 27th, was also due to Brisbane’s infrastructure score, which was relatively low compared to other Australian cities.
“This is due to the city scoring slightly lower in terms of quality of public transport and road network,” she said.
Planning for the Brisbane Subway was to start in 2015, but the election of the Newman government meant Connecting SEQ 2031 was left to gather dust.
Now, some say it is time to wipe that dust off.
“The subway project was effectively the next big project post-Cross River Rail,” said one former government official involved in the creation of Connecting SEQ 2031.
“It was very speculative and had not been fully resolved, but the underlying logic is strong.
“An underground is not a cheap solution, as we all know from Cross River Rail today, but it was really a response to the constraints everyone knows are there.
“There are only so many more surface transport options in a city like Brisbane.”
Paul Lucas, a former transport minister and Cross River Rail Delivery Authority chairman, was then-premier Anna Bligh’s deputy when Connecting SEQ 2031 was released.
Lucas said the upcoming Olympic Games made the prospect of a Brisbane Subway, which he dubbed the “Meanjin Line”, more attractive to potential investors keen to participate in a public-private partnership (PPP) to deliver the project.
Then-deputy premier Paul Lucas, pictured in 2009.
“Dedicated automated railway lines are much easier to do when they’re not integrated with the rest of the network,” he said.
“Those sorts of things become very possible when you do actually have dedicated lines that are not that are not subject to the interaction with the main network.
“In most overseas countries, their stations have multiple lines, and people walk between them with escalators and things like that, rather than having them connected with each other.”
Connecting SEQ 2031 cites the London underground and New York subway as examples of this system.
Lucas said tunnels overcame the disruption of surface lines, such as the need to resume properties, and made them an attractive investment opportunity for PPPs.
“I think that there will be a high, high degree of interest, particularly when they’re underground and you’re not disturbing anyone on the surface,” he said.
Public transport advocate Robert Dow, from commuter lobby group Rail Back on Track, counted himself as a fan of the subway proposal.
Dow said the upcoming 2032 Olympics, and a new prime minister with a history of backing public transport projects, meant it was time for the Queensland government to put the subway back on the agenda.
“Maybe with the change of [federal] government, they might have enough courage to resubmit the Cross River Rail business case because if [the federal government] can pop up $2 billion, which is quite reasonable when you look at what the other states are getting,” he said.
“Now, if they $2 billion, that would be very handy for removing some level crossings, upgrading the Sunshine Coast line and doing some preliminary work on a proper subway.”
Transport Minister Mark Bailey was not available for an interview, but said in a statement the Palaszczuk government had “no plans” to build the subway.
“Connecting SEQ 2031 is a perfect example of the visionary work of Labor state governments on public transport in south-east Queensland,” he said.
“...The Palaszczuk government is delivering on many of the key projects identified in this draft report.
“This includes Cross River Rail, Sunshine Rail duplication, Kuraby to Beenleigh duplication, Gold Coast light rail from Broadbeach to Burleigh, new stations at Pimpama, Hope Island, and Merrimac, plus major station accessibility upgrades across the network.”
Lucas said the government was right to prioritise the projects that the completion of Cross River Rail allowed, but funding options for the subway should be explored.
Following the 2012 election of the Campbell Newman-led LNP government, the subway plan laid dormant for four years before it was resuscitated in the 2016 federal election, when it formed part of the Greens’ federal pitch to voters.
Under the Greens’ plan, however, the starting point would have been Indooroopilly rather than Toowong and it would have passed under the University of Queensland at St Lucia. It would then go to West End, the CBD, Kangaroo Point, Teneriffe, Bulimba and Hamilton.
Newly elected Ryan MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown, the Greens’ federal transport and infrastructure spokesperson, said the concept should be back on the agenda.
New Greens Ryan MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown says its time to revive the Brisbane Subway.Credit: Jamila Toderas
“Cross River Rail will be finished soon, and game-changing public transport projects take years to deliver. Where is the planning for what’s next?” she said.
“We should give people living both in inner and outer suburbs the freedom to leave their cars at home, or avoid the expense of owning a car.”
Dow said the subway’s benefits were clear.
“It will provide novel mass transit in an east-west/west-east direction, across fairly dense residential and activity suburbs,” he said.
“It will take pressure off the surface road system, it will take pressure off the surface rail system.
“It’ll make cross-suburban connections a lot easier and being high-frequency mass transit, it’ll be very, very successful.
“Frequency is the most important factor in getting people to use public transport.”
The Brisbane Airport Corporation would also welcome another mass-transit option for the precinct.
The privately run Airtrain, with its higher passenger costs, only services the airport terminals, whereas most precinct employees worked off-terminal.
“We would welcome any mass transit system that provided better connections from the airport precinct to the city,” a BAC spokesperson said.
“Currently, 24,000 people a day come to work at the Brisbane Airport precinct, and that number is going to grow to more than 60,000 people by 2040.
“At the moment, the overwhelming majority of those people come here via a car because there is no regular mass transit system outside of the Airtrain to the terminal.
“Getting access to the airport both for work and also for travel is going to become a challenge if cars are the only viable alternative.”
As for the cost, which would no doubt be in the billions, there was at least one potential saving.
A spokesman for the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority said the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) used to construct that rail project could be repurposed.
“The TBMs are lifted piece by piece out of the ground, moved to a storage area and then assessed by our contractors to see which parts can be refurbished and used on future tunnelling projects,” he said.
“This means we don’t know just yet exactly which parts will be re-used or where, but we have been assured there is a high likelihood of both TBMs being put back to work on future projects.”