Future Cairns: Light rail plan could help solve busy roads and ease public transport
With no end in sight to eye-watering fuel bills and increased congestion, cost-of-living pressures have reignited interest in a modern light-rail network. Why a new pitch is gathering steam.
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With no end in sight to eye-watering fuel bills and increased congestion, cost-of-living pressures have reignited interest in a modern, light-rail network for Cairns.
Pitched by Cairns Mayor Bob Manning in 2016, a plan for a city metro formed a significant part of a mayoral campaign before the state government rejected a request for an $80,000 grant in 2019 to develop a business case for light rail to link the CBD and the Cairns Airport.
Predating the mayor’s “Green Train” proposal Cairns Action for Sustainable Transport member Jonathan Strauss has long advocated for a reliable and efficient light rail system for the city.
He said in 2022 many factors had aligned to make the proposal more viable now than ever before.
“Road congestion will continue to get worse and we will have to tackle building a public transport system to improve the way we can move around our city,” he said.
“Political decisions need to be made about what our city looks like in the future.”
Ahead of the Future Cairns event to be held at the Cairns Convention Centre on September 20 keynote speaker Simon Kuestenmacher estimated Cairns would reach a population greater than 200,000 by 2031.
An Advance Cairns Future Growth – Cairns 2050 proposal released earlier this year called for federal and state governments to jointly fund an $8.5m strategic integrated urban development and transport plan, and for Cairns Regional Council to implement a $2.5m growth strategy.
“The city is sprawling south using outdated planning models where congestion will be the new norm,” the document stated.
Mr Strauss agreed work to maintain a liveable city into 2050 needed to be initiated now.
“To make the real quality change our future, Cairns needs a comprehensive transport system, if we have that, far more people will be using it than what they do now,” he said.
“Cairns is reaching a (significant) size and indeed a light-rail system is viable.
“There are European cities that have light-rail systems that are smaller than Cairns.
“The fundamental thing is we need a system people can rely on. But there has been no significant investment in our transport system for decades, compared to what is being spent on roads.”
Cairns Regional Council planning, growth and sustainability director Ed Johnson said identifying future transport options to support the city’s growth was a key element of the Towards 2050 program.
“As part of development the strategy, a number of technical studies will be undertaken, including a transport infrastructure and network planning review,” he said.
“This transport review will assess whether the current mode options, emergent transport trends and broader transport network will be adequate for the anticipated growth and, if not, what additional transport infrastructure options should be explored further.”
In 2016 of 4414 Cairns respondents to a Cairns Regional Council survey there were 3437 mentions of support for a light-rail system.
Alleviating congestion and parking headaches, poor current public transport, environmentally friendly transport and good future planning were all cited as reasons to go ahead with a Cairns light-rail system.
“Bob Manning did put forward his Green Train proposal and it was very popular. There was a great deal of enthusiasm for it in Cairns,” transport advocate Mr Strauss said.
The linear layout of Cairns hemmed in by the ocean and mountains to the west plays to the strengths of a light-rail network whereby strategically positioned nodes would allow people on and off the train in areas of greater population density between Gordonvale and Palm Cove.
“In fact there are new technologies, there are other systems like autonomous rapid transit, sometimes called trackless trams, that we should be considering,” Mr Strauss said.
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Originally published as Future Cairns: Light rail plan could help solve busy roads and ease public transport
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