This article in the Courier (trash) Mail is very interesting. As par usual as it is coming from the Courier (trash) Mail I need to look it up in the budget papers but still it is interesting. According to the article it claims that Clem 7 (formerly known as North South Bypass Tunnel) toll tunnel is costing the council $30 million a year. I have to say this is very distressing as a Brisbane resident as not only is the tunnel not living up to expectations in removing traffic from surface roads but it is also costing us in reduced council services.
When the then Liberal Lord Mayoral candidate back in 2004 announced that he was to build 5 road tunnels in Brisbane if he won office I was less then impressed. Then there were the costings that were wildly underestimated but he got elected. The costing did balloon from under $1 billion to over $3 billion for just the first project the North South Bypass Tunnel. At that time all I could think of was what if that money was put into Cross River Rail (then only just being investigated) or the Northern Busway (still in the planning stages). Even at that time the public Transport system was starting show signs of being strained.
So why is it costing council? This seams on my understanding to come down to the fact that the usage projections to of been wildly over estimated (just like the costings were underestimated). If I remember correctly the projections for usage within the first year was 40000 vehicle movements a day rising up to 70000 within the next two years. The figures I quoted are just one of the figures that came out, on this link they are different again. This is because they keep changing throughout the project time line. Then there was also the time saving predictions. It is true for some people it has saved time but alot have said it saved them nothing. In most cases the time/benefit/cost has not been on the good side.
The fact is in reality the Clem 7 is only carrying a little over 22000 vehicle movements a day. This figure would be easily comparable to the bikeway network daily usage. Council put $500million of it's own funds into the $3 billion Clem 7 project, a figure that is far larger then what has been spent on the BCC bikeway network in the last twenty years. Then there is the $30million cost to council this year which equals what council is spending on the bikeway network for this year.
So in short
- it costed more to build then bikeway network
- it is carring less then the bikeway network
- it is costing more to maintain then it is for the bikeway network to expand!
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