Question on Notice
No. 675
QUESTION:
With reference to the Salisbury to Beaudesert passenger rail and the planning summary report released by Transport and Main Roads last year—
Will the Minister provide a detailed timeline for community consultation on the identified corridor?
ANSWER:
I thank the Member for the question.
The Crisafulli Government is committed to creating vibrant, well-connected communities. This includes ensuring the progression of timely planning to support growth in South East Queensland.
Corridor protection has been identified as the next key activity for the Salisbury to Beaudesert passenger rail. Consultation activities including consulting potentially impacted landowners will be undertaken prior to formal protection of the corridor. A detailed timeframe for consultation is subject to the timing of the next stage of technical investigations to inform meaningful engagement with the community on future corridor requirements.
Id prioritize Toowoomba rail link over Beaudesert if were to make communities connects better…but to beaudesert ascwell as ither half of logan thats still growing is still good… Thatll pair well with redcliffe me thinks
But its also Labor in opposition playing games in the question of pretending like they were making real progress on this sort of project (and others they’ve recently ‘QONed’ the government on) - yet in reality in 10 years of governing nothing substantive was really done.
One thing to note about Labor though is that Steven Miles seems to have significantly different priorities to Annastacia Palaszczuk. Sure, Labor did shit all under Annastacia for rail other than CRR, but these questions could actually indicate the kind of agenda Steven Miles has.
I disagree because the government should be trying to get the easy wins first. They already have the corridor in place at least down to Flagstone, whereas regular rail to Toowoomba will require extremely expensive new infrastructure.
I also got the impression that Bart Mellish was going to be much more useful than Mark Bailey too. Too bad he was only in the role for such a short time…
While corridor protection is important, I’m not convinced this should be very high up the priority list for heavy rail projects right now.
More important (IMO):
DSCL (including extension to Maroochydore).
Gold Coast extension to be OOL.
Ripley Valley line
Cleveland (at least partial) duplication, and third platform/turnaround facilities at Lota.
Given the very low density in much of the corridor, and considering the rail line bypasses Browns Plains and Jimboomba, I wonder if BRT might work better in this corridor.
Its definitely a corridor for future growth rather than a necessity for the existing population, and because of that it it lower priority in my eyes too.
Im not sure about BRT purely on the fact that the long term plan has significant development along that corridor. Another consideration is that we will need to expand access to rail as the city continues to grow, and that will require new corridors to be built. Where else is suitable at the present to preserve a new rail corridor for future development? BRT is good for areas that are already developed and/or won’t see high demand in the future due to geographical constraints.
At the very least, Browns Plains will continue to need some kind of frequent bus service. Whether that feeds to the train in Hillcrest, or goes via the current corridor (or both) is open to discussion.
I think ideally, you could have a bus from Hillcrest to Griffith Uni via Browns Plains, with transfers at each end to either rail or M1, depending on the corridor passengers wish to access.
My concern is that, historically, Qld has done a terrible job of linking separate spines, e.g. SEB to/from Beenleigh line links are garbage.
One potential issue with such a rail link is the 3 track bottleneck between Yeerongpilly and Dutton Park, which would make it difficult to run services from Beaudesert into Brisbane city. There could be ways to get around this, but over all I think it BRT system would be an over better option as Axilya suggested.
We should not even be contemplating BRT for this corridor. This is just like “”“the wave”“” on the sunny coast where a corridor exists, and planning has been going on this for about 20 years, specifically for it to be rail.
There are two hindering factors as to why it has not yet been built:
Cross river rail being curtailed to Dutton park instead of Yeerongpilly, meaning, as @Chickenpie put it, a bit of a shortage of capacity. However it’s not all bad, as you can essentially turn Coopers Plains terminators into Beaudesert trains
Inland Rail. When Inland rail was being talked about seriously, the plan was to quad track the corridor from Kagaru to Acacia Ridge
1x existing Dual gauge for freight
1x new dual (standard?) gauge for inland rail freight
2x new narrow gauge tracks for passenger service.
Now that Inland rail from Gowrie to Kagaru is essentially on pause to reassess (due to the insane costs of the new alignment down the range), everything is on hold regarding the Salisbury to Beaudesert corridor as they’re not sure how it will all interact now
Regarding land use: there’s a huge amount of development going on in Flagstone and Greenbank. I know people who live out that way who drive all the way to Springfield to park n ride to the city. Rail there is desperately needed. The Algester/Parkinson/Calamvale corridor could definitely use it to, to take strain off the 130/140/150
Beyond Flagstone you could definitely stage it. Build to Flagstone stage 1, beyond that probably not for another 10 years
As for other modes, my pipe dream (ie foam) is an interurban tram train LRT along the old Bethania to Beaudesert line, including the Canungra branch, to service the growing communities at Logan Village, Jimboomba and Yarrabilba. There are interurban tram trains that serve rural ex-urban towns around major cities in Germany and Switzerland, that often feed into (or in some cases become) S-bahns as you get closer to the city, to give you an idea of the kind of service I’m talking about
The Logan village branch isn’t appropriate for heavy rail anymore, but could be ok for another mode, further into the future as the area develops.
The line to Flagstone meanwhile, absolutely should remain rail and realistically should have been built years ago
Definitely agree that a Stage 1 should be Salisbury to Greenbank/Flagstone area. There is already enough catchment area population to justify it, especially with feeder bus and park & ride opportunities at stations.
I think this line would be inportant, mostly becuase it would give existing areas like acaica ridge better transport, as well as the opportunity to build new housing around pt