Go Between Toll Bridge
30 June, 2010
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The Hale Street Toll Bridge
One of the Lord Mayor’s biggest gambles with rate payer’s money is now in its final throw.
The Lord Mayor's refusal to revisit the initial business case for this bridge is a big gamble on whether Brisbane residents will pay the $2.40 toll to save 4 minutes travel time via the Hale Street Link.
In the wake of the failure of the Clem 7 tunnel, the Lord Mayor has now dropped the Go Between Bridge toll to $1.50. This is a desperate attempt to ward off criticism as traffic projections plummet from 20,300 vehicles per day (vpd) to 12,800 vpd. This is clear evidence that the Bridge is a financial disaster.
Initially the $120 million project “would pay for itself”, next it was going to generate ‘a big fat cheque’ of $88M to $145M for Brisbane rate payers and now it is costing rate payers $370M.
At the same time, the cost of collecting the toll has risen from $9M to $21M for the first five years. Based on the reduced traffic flows the predicted toll income will not meet the cost of collecting the toll in its first years: forget about paying the interest or any of the capital.
But it gets worse; Council has to pay an annual contribution of $9.8M per year for the first 17 years ($166.6M) due to an increased risk that the project will not be successful.
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This project will be a debt burden for rate payers for decades and decades to come. Brisbane residents will be paying for the bridge even if they never use it.
My opposition to this project has been strengthened by this reckless financial management but the main reason for my opposition is that it will not reduce traffic congestion. The bridge will only move cars across the River from one congested arterial road to another grid locked arterial.
Interestingly, the Lord Mayor has now admitted that the bridge will not solve traffic problems on Coronation Drive but it certainly will dump more traffic in South Brisbane.
If the $370M had been invested in public transport, our buses would not be leaving people behind at bus stops. If, in addition, a proportion were invested in bike lanes, Council would have shown it was serious about providing residents safe alternative transport options so they could leave their cars at home.
This bridge is an environmental disaster and contrary to the Lord Mayor’s vision of a Carbon Neutral City by 2026. Were he serious, this bridge would have been a ‘Green’ pedestrian, cycle and bus bridge similar to the very successful Eleanor Schonell Bridge.
Finally the residents of West End and South Brisbane do not want this bridge. It will create a ‘wall of cars’ severing these suburbs from the CBD, the cultural precinct of South Bank and increase traffic noise and pollution.
The opening weeks will show whether the forcing of this bridge onto our inner city community will be the Lord Mayor’s lasting nemesis.