With so much happening with Brisbane infrastructure it can be hard to keep up. So here’s a ‘Cook’s tour’ of the latest:
The opening this month of Clem 7 is a significant milestone for a lot of reasons. It’s the first piece of the Lord Mayor’s “TransApex” plan, and this 4.8km tunnel is the first Brisbane river crossing for cars since 1986. Almost a quarter of a century!
The media write about the impact on cross-city travel, speeding travel times. But there’s also major benefits to the live-ability for inner city residents and property owners. Clem 7 will take 60,000 cars a day away from surface roads and move them underground. Residents of Kangaroo Point, Woolloongabba and South Brisbane will have less noise and less congestion.
The next piece of the Newman TransApex Pie is the Hale Street Link, a bridge between South Brisbane and Milton that’s due to open in just 2 months time. This one will help free up the traffic bottlenecks that occur in so many near-CBD junctions. Two new cross river crossings will be complete – amazing how things can actually get done!
Airport Link is the third major project, now being run by the state government, and with tunnel boring underway as we write. This 6.7km roadway will start at Bowen Hills, linking the Clem 7 and Inner City Bypass to out near the airport. Residents in suburbs like Clayfield, Windsor and Lutwyche will have direct and immediate benefit when it opens in 2012.
Suburbs like Auchenflower and Milton can often feel like thoroughfares for major traffic routes Milton Road and Coronation Drive. But with the Northern Link soon to burrow from the Western Freeway at Toowong and popping back up at Kelvin Grove to link with the Inner City Bypass, there’ll be some relief for these inner west residents. Northern Link is due to start construction this year and wrap up in 2014.
The fifth and final TransApex project is the East West Link. This tunnel would link the M1 at Buranda with the Western Freeway at Toowong, bypassing the West End peninsula to offer a significant cross-city link. Even the inner-south’s anti-development movement must be able to see the benefits of this one. Officially it appears East West is on hold for some years to come…
Savvy property owners and investors watch infrastructure changes with interest. There’s plenty on this list to keep us all busy for the next few years.
The TransApex plan for Brisbane
