By Dave Riley
BRISBANE — With stronger winter sunshine, warmer temperatures and more "calm" days, Brisbane has a greater smog potential year round than centres such as Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Newcastle. The capacity of the airshed over South East Queensland to absorb greater levels of motor vehicle exhaust emissions is limited by the region's topography and the prevailing meteorological conditions.
During still summer days, the afternoon sea breeze moves the smog-rich air inland along the Brisbane River valley, reaching Ipswich by 4pm. It then stagnates to the west of Ipswich or in the nearby Boonah valley. Early on the following day this stagnant air is moved back towards Rocklea before being moved south towards and beyond Beaudesert by the afternoon sea breeze.
Nonetheless, Brisbane is one of the most car-dependent cities in the world with around 90% of all trips undertaken by private motor vehicle.
In the ten years after 1976 public transport utilisation fell from 11% to 8.5% of all trips in the region. Over the next twenty years the number of vehicular journeys per day is projected to grow by 69% and the number of kilometres travelled per annum to increase by 103%. Over the same period public transport use will fall even further especially if current trends are maintained.
This bleak scenario confronts the region as the population soars through interstate migration. Many of the 1000 people who move to Queensland each week settle in the south east corner. Attracted by cheap housing and land packages on the outer areas of the metropolis, most are forced to rely on private motor vehicles for transport. While transport costs account for 12-19% of household expenditure, if you are situated on the edge of the suburban sprawl, cars are an essential investment if you or your family are to reach work, attend classes, shop or recreate.
Planners blame the low density of this spread for the high cost of providing public transport. Already, the urban corridor in south east Queensland is almost one continuous ribbon of development that stretches from Noosa in the north to the NSW border.
This growth is fuelling the local economy. With 460 new homes thought to be needed each week to house the flood, local business, especially the retail and housing sectors, can't get too much of such a good thing. But for folk who live and work here the nagging question is one of wondering who's in control.
The rhetoric of panic is utilised by the state government. Baulking at the infrastructure costs involved, a succession of tabled reports have emphasised the enormity of the problem. But since the Goss government is dedicated to a lean and mean public sector its response has been piecemeal. While a $2 billion fund has been set up to fund infrastructure programs no total plan is forthcoming.
After slashing rail services in last year's budget — and even closing down one suburban rail line — commuters have had to negotiate new timetables which have reduced services at some stations by one third. While work proceeds on installing two extra tracks through the city loop, there have been no assurances that services will improve outside peak hours.
Changes bought in after the recent council elections have generalised service contracts for urban bus routes. While the government says this overhaul will ensure that 95% of residents will live within 800 metres of a service that operates seven days a week, the changes are also geared to abolishing subsidies as the private operators who win the contracts are now being forced to make them profitable through income from fares alone.
The recent state budget continued this trend away from public transport funding. After slashing $115 million from government expenditure through a series of rail and education cutbacks in the 1993 budget, this year a record outlay of $725 million was allocated to road works.
Road projects
At present the department of transport has four major road projects for south east Queensland on the drawing board. Most have led to community outrage.
The 10 kilometre Southern Bypass joining the Gateway Arterial to the Logan Motorway will now proceed. Costing $100 million, the tollway will service Logan City which one recent survey concluded, had the poorest bus service in all of Australia.
The new South East Highway planned as an eastern corridor linking Brisbane and the Gold Coast has been opposed by community groups because the proposed route takes the new highway through a koala habitat.
The $60 million Bowen Hills Bypass is a joint project by the Brisbane City Council and the state government which only came to light after the votes were counted in the March local council elections and the Soorley administration had been returned.
This secret agenda was exposed again when plans for a four lane motorway linking the airport to the Southern Bypass were revealed by the local Liberal member of parliament.
The $80 million plan created a furore among residents of the northern suburbs of Bowen Hills, Woolloowin and Eagle Junction. The road is designed to cope with an estimated 250% increase in airport traffic during the next 16 years. That the airport — currently undergoing a $250 million facelift — is part of the federal Labor's current catalogue of assets sales, makes the local commitment to forging a new road to it all that more provocative.
Opposition mobilises
A meeting of 500 local residents has mobilised opposition to the plan. While the proposed route will require the resumption of a further 70 properties, many other house and unit owners will front onto the road. The freeway also runs through the middle of Kalinga Park — the most popular picnic and recreation spot on the northside — as its route takes it along the flood plain of Kedron Brook and Schultz's Canal.
For residents just north of the proposed road its logic becomes all the more perplexing because it does nothing to alleviate the congestion along the major northern feeder into Brisbane of Sandgate Road which currently carries approximately 35,000 cars per day. Last year's closure of the Pinkenba rail-line was achieved without much protest or discussion under the aegis of a more profitable rail network. However, the Pinkenba line skirted the southern border of the airport and could have been extended and integrated into serving the airport's transport needs.
But such thoughtful planning doesn't register on the Goss agenda now dedicated to using growth as an excuse for restructuring government transport interventions. As one transport specialist pointed out, building new roads is like "trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt".