Is it Ipswich or Springfield that’s going to be the next CBD?
Both. ShapingSEQ (the regional plan for SEQ) lists them both as “principal regional activity centres”, the second highest category in their hierarchy (the highest being capital city centre i.e. Brisbane CBD). There are 14 other PRACs to be fair, but few are as close together as Ipswich and Springfield, while also being far enough away from Brisbane CBD to not be entirely in its economic orbit. They’re also in the same council area, with a population growing at a breakneck speed. I think a heavy rail line between the two would be a good investment in the future growth of the area, if planned well with TODs.
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Because cities generally grow outward.
It’s probably not going to be built in the next 30 years tbh. Gold coast line was first extended from Beenleigh in 1996. 30 years later, it’s still not fully built out. The Sunshine coast line has a similar time horizon.
If this were Perth i’d be more optimistic - rail is about half the cost there and lines are built out end to end, generally.
An 8.5 km extension would cost about $2 billion from Deebing Heights into Ipswich, the implication being that a bus is likely to run for many decades first.
Members are free to hold their own perspectives, i’m just pointing out the most likely outcome.
Just because our transport planning is broken in QLD is no reason to abandon perfectly good future plans.
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Are there any estimates of what it would cost to do the full route from Springfield to Ipswich?
In looking at the protected corridor north of Yamanto, it looks like much of it runs up the Bremer River and Deebing Creek, so I can only presume elevated rail would be the only realistic option for a heavy rail solution. Obvious implications for price, realisticness of environmental impact assessment etc. given the nature of the corridor.
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Heavy Rail must be extended from Springfield Central ALL the way to Ipswich…I can’t even believe we’re having a conversation of anything different!
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As long as they don’t get any ideas of adopting “metro buses”.
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Do we want Brisbane to continue growing outward beyond 50km? How much is too much? If the government are stupid enough to allow development beyond that, it should not be the role of public transport to try to service all this poor development as it will simply encourage further and further sprawl. Where does it end?
Okay, that doesn’t change my point.
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Ipswich is too small to be the next CBD, but its perfect to be a suburb of and vassal to the BCC.
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The problem for Ipswich is that it’s quite constrained by its location along the river, and is flood prone. Personally I’d prefer Springfield to become the future CBD of the Ipswich area, given it’s more a more central-ish location and not flood prone.
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Some great observations here!
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Just a few more observations about Ipswich, is that Ipswich only came about in the 1800s because it had 3 key attributes for its location - the river (for transport - before the train and car arrived), coal and limestone for mining.
Those three things are no longer a thing and now has those previously mentioned problems working against Ipswich, hence why Springfield is a far better CBD than Ipswich will ever be, and it’d be in the best interest for ICC to densify and plan for Springfield to be the future CBD (could even eventually either merge BCC into Springfield or create a new council with Springfield in the name, moving all the council assets over to Springfield which has much larger footprint to work with without any issues that Ipswich has).
The State Government really needs to also close Ipswich Hospital IMO, it’s in a constrained spot and up on the side of a steep hill, makes it dangerous and difficult for those with mobility issues to access the hospital, and there’s very little space for it to expand, other than upwards. Side note: the location of Ipswich Hospital came about again in the 1800s due to the belief at the time that health facilities be located on top of hills to capture the breezes as they thought that access to a breeze would be good for health.
Considering that the Government have commenced the $1 billion Ipswich Hospital Stage 2 expansion project, it’s not going anywhere fast.
Neither I suspect is Ipswich City Centre - the region of Greater Ipswich is geographically centred around the Ipswich City Centre - Springfield is an outlying area, separated from most of the LGA by the White Rock Conservation Area and the wasteland that is Swanbank. I would point out that the one issue that Springfield has as opposed to Ipswich, is that all the land at Springfield is privately owned by the Springfield City Group - as opposed to Ipswich City where the council owns property and community assets, the State Government owns property like the hospital, etc.
While I could see Springfield becoming a more prominent central business district than the Ipswich, I can’t see Ipswich ceding its roll as the city’s civic centre. It would be similar to Logan, where the city’s business centre is Springwood, but the Civic Centre is based around Logan Central.
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A question on notice of interest.
QUESTION:
With reference to the Ipswich to Springfield rail line, business case (QTRIP 2604930)—
Will the Minister (a) advise how much funding has been allocated in the 2025–26 financial year
for the business case and (b) detail the activities to be undertaken in 2025–26?
Answer: https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/tableOffice/questionsAnswers/2025/779-2025.pdf
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Decades away is my read
this extension really should be and could be easily built they just dont wanna spend money on it so its something we should really push for
Concept Only Disclaimer
The following concept is for forum discussion and exploration purposes only.
It is not expected to be funded or built as a priority anytime soon. It is not BTQ policy.
In a different thread, a busway option was considered for improving PT to the Centenary Suburbs. Mode neutrality means the competing rail option will now be explored in this thread.
Centenary Rail
This (heavy) rail option concept takes the exisiting Springfield line and threads it through the Centenary suburbs before rejoining the Ipswich line at Indooroopilly.
Length: ~ 10 km (Priority A, mix of surface, tunnel and elevated)
Time: Similar to existing or slightly faster by a few mins due to newer alignment with wider stop spacing.
Stations: New stations at Indooroopilly, Fig Tree Pocket, Jindalee, Mt Ommaney Centre.
Cost Estimate: 400 million/km x 10 km = ~ $4 bn (a very rough estimate).
Comments: Unlike the busway option where the Centenary bridge (road) could be used, a new rail only bridge over the Brisbane River will be required to carry the track and trains. Stricter engineering requirements than a busway due to trains requiring a less steep gradients and smoother curves. Trains could potentiall travel faster (speed limit bus 90 km, train 130-160 km/hr).
(Click to expand)
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We’ve been over this before on RBOT that following the M5 would mean trains could not travel at the speeds you’re taking about. Cars are limited to 90kmh along much of the Western freeway north of the river, so trains would be the same. If it’s tunneled could be a different story
Noted, and the concept mentions a mix of surface, above and below for this reason