Brisbane City Council has scrapped its plans to spend almost $6 million to duplicate a tunnel in Brisbane's west.
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The LNP announced its intentions to duplicate the Land Street Tunnel at Auchenflower during its 2016 election campaign and $5.9 million was allocated for the project in the 2017-18 budget.
The underpass is a shared pedestrian and cyclist path at present, but the council proposed duplicating the tunnel to allow cyclists and pedestrians to be separated.
Despite progressing plans, community consultation and calling for tenders, the council’s public and active transport Adrian Schrinner announced plans at a council meeting on Tuesday evening to no longer proceed with the project.
“We are prepared to in a situation like this see the writing on the wall that this is not a project that is going to either provide good value or a project that will be low impact in terms of its construction,” he said.
During community consultation, 81 per cent of respondents said they did not support the proposed design while construction plans revealed Coronation Drive would need to be dug up, leading to nine months of traffic impacts.
Cr Schrinner said the preliminary works identified potential issues with the project so the council concluded it was not possible to deliver within the expected budget.
“So overall we believe that this project no longer represents a good outcome for the ratepayers of Brisbane and we have decided to defer the project,” he said.
Bicycle Queensland chief executive Anne Savage welcomed the move and said the project was costly and unnecessary.
“The proposed Land Street Tunnel project was high cost and low benefit – bike riders didn’t support it and the business case didn’t add up,” she said.
Opposition councillor Jared Cassidy said Labor never really thought the project was a good use of money.
“Six million dollars could have been used on a lot of other more pressing matters, so we took the advice of cyclists at the time and didn't support the project,” he said.
“We would like to see the administration engage with cyclists to try and identify what the priorities are for cyclists rather than announcing projects and then getting their reaction.”
Cr Schrinner said the funding for the bikeway would be reallocated to other bikeway projects.
The council’s revised plans for its $100 million Better Bikeway for Brisbane program will be revealed in the 2018-19 budget, which will be handed down on June 13.
