Council must do better on Hale Street bridge traffic management plan

The Brisbane City Council needs to shift the Hale Street Bridge traffic management issue out of its too hard basket, Main Roads Minister Warren Pitt said today.

Mr Pitt said the State Government stood ready to give the green light to the construction of the Hale Street bridge.

But first it needed to be satisfied with the traffic management plan that the city council proposed to put in place.

“The State Government is not prepared to take a ‘she’ll be right’ approach to this issue.

“We are talking about more than 100,000 motorists who daily use Coronation Drive, Milton Road, the Inner City Bypass, the Riverside Expressway and Pacific Motorway facing their worst nightmare of traffic congestion for two-and-a half-years.

“We are talking about traffic delays of that would add 50 minutes to the trip time for motorists coming to and going from work along Coronation Drive and Milton Road.

“We are talking about traffic banked up for 5km or more back along the Riverside Expressway and the Inner City Bypass.

“The whole inner city traffic system would lock up. It literally would be gridlock.  We are not prepared to let that happen. We are insisting that the Council comes up with a proper traffic management plan.

“There’s too much at stake here to have anything less than the very best traffic management plan that can be developed, within reason.

“If it means some extra expense, then that’s the price the council needs to pay to undertake this type of project at this location.

“I am greatly concerned at comments from Lord Mayor Campbell Newman today that the council has done all that it can, and it has no further room to move.

“This is not true, and it’s certainly not acceptable. There is much more they can do, for example:

• maintain the existing number of lanes, instead of shutting down one lane as the council proposes
• schedule more works outside of morning and afternoon peak hours
• ensure restricted capacity activities occur outside of peak hours
• rearrange the proposed staging or works, for example, re-open the right turn out of Hale Street earlier than planned by constructing the right turn underpass before closing the existing outbound lanes on Coronation Drive
• quantify and arrange for additional services with public transport providers.”

Mr Pitt said it was nonsense for the Lord Mayor to suggest that the State Government wanted to cut down trees and temporarily extend the Riverside Expressway to Park Road at Milton.

“The State Government has made no such suggestion. This is a figment of the Lord Mayor’s imagination.

“The Lord Mayor wants the motorists and public transport users of Brisbane to pay the price for his refusal to come to grips with the reality, the complexity and the gravity of this issue.”

Media contact: Minister Pitt’s Office 3227 8819