Rail duplication: five years on, where has the ‘GO’ gone?
Column by Jeffrey Addison, Sunshine Coast Commuter Advocate
Saturday 9 June 2018, Deputy Premier Jackie Trad and Transport Minister Mark Bailey arrived in Nambour to announce $160.8m funding for the 17km rail duplication from Beerburrum to Landsborough.
It represented 20% of the cost of the $780m project.
That made $550m available, given the Federal government’s historic $390m contribution announced in May.
The Deputy Premier said that planning would continue during the 2018-19 financial year before the five-year construction period was set to begin in 2019-20.
A tweet at 10:37am that day by the Transport Minister said:
“It’s GO for Sunshine Coast rail commuters with Palaszczuk @QldLabor Govt $160m in budget to upgrade Beerburrum to Nambour including duplicating track Beerburrum-Landsborough, 4 station upgrades, 2000 extra car parks, dual platforms = 18 extra daily services, 3 minutes quicker to Brisbane.”
Since that announcement, made 5 years ago this June, the Sunshine Coast is wondering where their rail line has gone.
At the time of writing, not one sleeper has been laid of the 13km tracks.
The TMR website says an announcement is expected in late 2022 for the heavy rail works, but to date there’s been silence on when the ‘GO’ gets going.
The early works package that included a 1km realignment of Steve Irwin Way and changes to Moffat Road to accommodate the tracks, are underway.
Work has also started on one of the ‘park-n-ride’ projects with 300 carparks to be added at Landsborough.
The Landsborough bus interchange is under construction.
As part of the works, 50 more carparks are to be provided at Nambour and ‘up to’ 300 carparks at Beerburrum.
A quick tally reveals that of the 2000 carparks announced in the Minister’s tweet, only ‘up to’ 650 may be provided, leaving a minimum 1350 carpark short-fall.
Since the state government failed to secure additional funding from their federal counterpart to date, the length of the rail duplication has been cut back to Beerwah, leaving the project 4km shy of its destination, and some $230 million shy of its cost.
To those wondering why our rail is taking so long to materialize, you need look no further than the Queensland budget papers. It’s a litany of underspend.
Over the past four years to 30 June 2022, they’ve spent $61.96m when they should or could have spent the $132.671m budgeted. That’s less than half, just 46.7% to June 2022.
When will heavy rail works start?
What happened to the 1350 missing carparks?
Will we get the promised trains?
We’re looking forward to the 18 extra services promised and the 3 minute quicker trip to Brisbane – but given that 9 extra trains promised in 2015 never materialised, we wonder if our Government promises ever come true?
As for the $230m funding shortfall where even the state government’s federal counterpart hasn’t come to the party, perhaps it has something to do with the $2.7 billion that the Premier suddenly found to fund her beloved Gabba reconstruction – while critical rail to the Sunshine Coast builds at a snail’s pace.
Time to GO.