Brisbane-Gold Coast drive will blow out up to 2.5 hours
Motorists will face up to a 2.5-hour journey between Brisbane and the Gold Coast over the next two decades as more than 30,000 cars clog the Pacific Highway every day.
Data released privately Brisbane Times It could reveal Transport and Main Roads forecasts of a congestion boom and increased traffic on motorways to the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Ipswich by 2046.
But a department spokesman said the modeling did not yet take into account “future congestion-relieving projects” to be planned, adding that the upper end of the 2046 estimates was “indicative” as scaling was affected by variable traffic conditions.
Forecasts show the journey from Pine River in Brisbane to Nambour on the Sunshine Coast using the Bruce Highway will increase from 60 to 80 minutes to up to two hours on a weekday afternoon in 2046.
Travel from Rocklea in Brisbane to Ipswich will more than double to an hour, with average weekday two-way traffic along the Ipswich Expressway expected to increase from 81,000 vehicles to 135,000 vehicles to 182,250 vehicles.
Traffic congestion is plaguing South East Queensland as it continues to outpace the nation in population growth, according to a KPMG analysis of Bureau of Statistics data; The state’s fastest-growing corridor will be home to 4.5 million people by the 2032 Olympics, reaching five million just four years later.
“It took 14 years for south-east Queensland’s population to grow from 3 million to 4 million, but now, with growth accelerating rapidly, the next million could arrive in as little as a decade,” KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said in December.
Oliver Shearer commutes between Mount Tamborine and Brisbane by train or car once or twice a week and said he was avoiding going home on Friday afternoon.
“If I’m driving and I have to go home after work on Friday, I’ll actually go to a friend’s house and go home after dinner or even the next morning,” he said.
“A few times it took me more than three hours [of] situations – madness.”
Shearer said it takes about two hours to get to work in the Brisbane CBD by train after going to Coomera train station, but if driving all the way he has to leave by 6am at the latest and the journey will take about 1.5 hours.
“Luckily we have flexible working arrangements, so I can work from home some days and from an office on the Gold Coast some days,” he said.
“Although the Brisbane days are huge and tiring, I am happy with this arrangement.
“If I had to go back to the office every day, I would have to quit.”
Shearer said he prefers the train, which eliminates the hassle of parking and gets him almost to the office, but said the train can be very full.
“The 50-cent fees are great because it has cost me so much in the past,” he said.
Griffith University transport engineering lecturer Kelly Bertolaccini said investment in public transport, including new areas and increased frequency, was vital.
Australia has low-density, sprawling cities, people are used to driving and neighborhoods are designed that way, Bertolaccini said.
“A lot of people don’t live near any public transportation stops; they really don’t have a reasonable option other than driving,” he said.
Widening roads may lead to temporary relief of traffic congestion, Bertolaccini said, but it also leads to more travel on that road in the long run, a phenomenon known as induced demand.
“It’s not really possible to widen our highways so much that there won’t be congestion, so we have to look at other options,” he said.
Bertolaccini said introducing congestion pricing in cities would reduce traffic on major highways.
“So they have to pay a price to get into these areas, so there’s an immediate reduction in traffic because people don’t want to pay that, but at the same time all that money is then promised to infrastructure projects to improve public transport and active transport,” he said.
University of Queensland transport engineering Professor Mark Hickman said widening roads cannot be avoided when necessary, but investment in public transport and active transport is important.
“I think the general rule is if you build it, they will come, and even after you add them, people will start filling the lanes again,” he said.
Transportation challenges are linked to housing, Hickman said, because people need to live somewhere where they can find affordable homes.
“It’s down to the fact that there really isn’t a lot of affordable housing in south-east Queensland,” he said.
A Transport and Main Roads spokesman said the government was planning for the state’s future and “building roads and infrastructure to get Queenslanders home quicker and safer”.
“As we plan for the future, the Queensland government continues to deliver new transport projects such as the Coomera Connector, the $9 billion Bruce Highway Targeted Safety Programme, The Wave and improvements to the Gateway Highway between Bracken Ridge and Pine River,” he said.
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