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FREEWAY by stealth

Hale Steet Bridge: through traffic and congestion

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What is the Hale Street Bridge proposal?

The Lord Mayor wants to build a toll bridge across the Brisbane River beside the William Jolly (Grey Street) Bridge. This new road bridge would link Hale Street in Milton to Cordelia and Merivale Streets in South Brisbane, effectively extending the Inner City Bypass through inner southern suburbs.

The problems: through traffic and congestion

The bridge proponents now admit that through traffic along Cordelia and Merivale Streets will increase by at least 50% as a result of the Hale Street Bridge. If the bridge toll is lower than the North South Bypass Tunnel toll, this increase in through traffic is likely to be even more. In any case the traffic levels will be similar to those along Ann Street onto the South East Freeway.

Pushing more traffic through the inner south doesn’t solve traffic congestion. It just shifts existing congestion from the north side of the Brisbane River to the south side. The result will be a ‘traffic sewer’ through South Brisbane, which will soon clog up again at ‘pinch points’ in Vulture Street, Gladstone Road and elsewhere.

BUT this will in turn build pressure to widen roads ‘downstream’, and to build a new road linking Vulture Street to Annerley Road and the Pacific Motorway at Buranda – creating a freeway through South Brisbane and Woolloongabba. This will no doubt be denied, but if the bridge goes ahead, in a few years this will be presented as the only ‘solution’ to the traffic chaos.

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STOP the Hale Street Bridge

Contact: info@stopthehalestreetbridge.org