$175M (and rising) = 250 new buses
Hale Steet Bridge: waste of money
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 problem: waste of public money
The Hale Street Bridge is an integral part of the massive TransApex network of tunnels, bridges and roads proposed by the Lord Mayor.
According to the Australian Financial Review and other commentators, many experts believe that Brisbane simply cannot afford the huge costs of TransApex, particularly as they are rising at an alarming rate, even before any construction begins.
Costs on the North South Bypass Tunnel (NSBT) alone have more than tripled in just 2 years – increasing from 1 to 2 and now over 3 billion dollars (and rising)! At the same time proposed tolls for that tunnel have doubled, and who knows where that will end?
Currently the official estimated cost of the Hale Street Bridge is $159M (about $175M with ‘associated works’), but the true cost is believed to be closer to $300M. What if its cost triples or worse, like the NSBT? How high will the tolls go, and how long will we (and our children and grandchildren) be paying it off?
Even Council’s conservative estimate of the cost of the bridge is almost double Council’s annual expenditure on bus services for the whole city! It’s irresponsible to borrow that much money to finance a project of such marginal economic viability and limited practical use. When the costs blow out, as they always do, Council will need to go even further into debt to finance the project, meaning an increase in tolls – which will in turn threaten the project’s already shaky viability.
Imagine instead the sort of world class public transport system Brisbane could have if that level of spending was redirected to Brisbane’s under funded public transport network. Each bus takes up the same road space as only 2 cars but moves the same number of people as 20 or more cars – so if Council was fair dinkum about solving road congestion, that’s where it would invest our money.
There are serious concerns that cost blowouts on
all aspects of TransApex threaten Brisbane's credit rating. How are
we going to pay for all this without
the city going broke? Council should spend our money more wisely,
not waste it on road transport infrastructure ‘solutions’ discredited last
century. Public transport is more affordable, as well as being much more
environmentally responsible.
What can YOU DO about it? Find out...
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STOP the Hale Street Bridge |
Contact: info@stopthehalestreetbridge.org