Wheels coming off $944m Brisbane Metro bus project

One of Queensland’s most important transport infrastructure projects is being scaled down and faces cost blowouts.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner. Picture: AAP

One of Queensland’s most important­ public transport infrastructure projects is being scaled down and faces cost blowouts, amid squabbling between the state government and the Brisbane City Council.

Brisbane Metro, which has gone through several iterations since it was originally pitched by the council in 2016 as a Paris-style rapid-transit network using driverless trains, is undergoing another transformation.

The project, listed as “high priority” by Infrastructure Australia, morphed into a rapid-transit busway using electric buses during the term of previous lord mayor Graham Quirk.

On Sunday, the council announce­d it would finally continue preliminary construction of the network after a year-long impasse with the Department of Transport and Main Roads.

To overcome the roadblock, they have agreed to continue ­assessing options for the design of the crucial station at the South Bank Cultural Centre — a notorious­ choke point — while the council works on other parts of the network.

Lord mayor Adrian Schrinner revealed the Cultural Centre station, which was meant to be underground, would now likely be a temporary upgrade of the existing above-ground station.

Mr Schrinner said it could be another decade before the underground station was built.

While an above-ground station would be cheaper, the delays have supposedly caused a cost blowout of the entire project, the magnitude of which Mr Schrinner refused to reveal, citing ongoing­ contract negotiations.

State Transport Minister Mark Bailey said the council needed to show research proving the ­viability of its proposed station­ design. “Council has to provide us with the appropriate technical assessments and studies to support any change to their original Cultural Centre station design, so they can be independently reviewed and the public consulted,” he said.

The $944m project will repurpose the city’s existing busways and create new routes, including a tunnel under Adelaide Street in the CBD to provide a 21km, 18-station service from the outer suburbs to the city and from hubs at the University of Queensland and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

The council announced this month that a joint tender by infrastr­ucture companies Arup and Acciona had won the bid for the major construction work.

The Australian has been told the council’s initial plan to build the station underground was met positively by the state governmen­t, which asked for existin­g bus services to also be acc­ommodated underground.

But the council has baulked, fearing higher costs and the ­potential impact of flooding.

Public transport advocates said that forgoing the underground station for a temporary above-ground version was disappointing and a waste of time and money.

“Build it once and do it right,” said Rail Back On Track spokesman Robert Dow.