nicole Macqueen

This is the main point, (Peak Oil) if you ask me. How viable will lifestyles be in the outer western suburbs when commuting is not do-able because of liquid fuel shortages? The Kenmore – Karalee corridor should be seen as an opportunity to get some infrastructure into the area without which residents may not be able to continue to live so far from shops, schools and jobs for much longer. Andrew McNamara has already tabled on this topic (Queensland’s vulnerability to rising oil prices taskforce report 2007) and so has the Brisbane City Council (The Climate Change and Energy Taskforce report). The frustrating thing for me is that government doesn’t act on (or even know about) it’s own research.

Kat

Planning for transport in the face of rising fuel costs and climate change don’t sell votes or make money in subdivided land. These issues are the elephant in the room that no one really wants to discuss.

The thing that really bothers me is that debate has been reduced to ‘road or nothing’, when that’s NOT good enough from our government. We should be planning for transport that we will need and use in the future. A 40 year old plan that expired on the shelf at least 5 years ago isn’t some brilliant plan to save us all from our traffic woes. The transportation concept of one person per vehicle in a line to the CBD just isn’t going to be around forever.

Public transport is not a replacement for roads, however it is incredibly discouraging the WBTNI study has nothing to offer in the way of improvement to the inner west. Perhaps if there were ANY options other than cars out this way, Moggill Road might not be in the mess it’s in now. I, for one, would be providing one less car on the road in the morning had I any option.

StephC

When you look at the time lines involved in the construction of the gargantuan system of road projects outlined in the WBTNI, it’s hard to believe that they will go ahead – given the way that global warming, peak oil and permanently high world fuel costs are starting to dominate public debate.

The Moggill Pocket Sub-Arterial and Kenmore Bypass cannot work without tunnel link-ups going north, south and into the CBD from the Toowong roundabout. Yet, as I understand it, a final design for the Northern Tunnel link alone will not be done until the construction tender is announced late next year, and the project is not expected to open until 2014.

And then there’s the costs involved – many billions of dollars, with financing coming from a partnership between government and private investment consortiums. If road-use trends continued at the same rate as the last twenty years, this would be a major cash cow for both parties, as the endgame would be to actively channel all of our major traffic flows onto an interlinking system of toll ways.

However, with the almost inevitable threat to the long-term future of the car, road privatisation investement schemes such as these have almost certainly come too late.

I would say that a sense of panic must be looming over the entire process.