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Friday, March 29, 2024

Public feedback sought on Cross River Rail project in Brisbane

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Public feedback is now being sought on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed Cross River Rail project.

Transport Minister Annastacia Palaszczuk said the proposed Cross River Rail would almost double the capacity of the inner city rail network making it one of Queensland’s most important infrastructure projects.

“We’ve finished key changes to the reference design and the Coordinator-General Keith Davies has now approved the release of the EIS for public review and comment,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“This EIS outlines the project’s impacts, and how these could be avoided, mitigated or managed and I encourage the community to have its say.

“Detailed planning during the past 18 months confirms we know the design, how to build it, how to operate it and, with the release of the EIS for public comment, how to manage the construction impacts.

“It offers a solution to addressing the inner city capacity constraints of the 300-kilometre South East Queensland rail network, allowing 96 more trains from the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and outer Brisbane suburbs to come into the CBD each weekday in the two-hour morning peak.

“It will also deliver significant benefits for South East Queensland, including providing a ‘turn-up and go’ level of service in the inner city and the capacity to move up to 120,000 people into the inner city in the two-hour morning peak period – equivalent of a 30-lane motorway.”

Ms Palaszczuk said the decision to delay the start of construction by two years because of the flood recovery effort meant the project team could step back and ensure the project would deliver the most benefits with the least amount of impacts.

“We took public feedback, impact assessment, further engineering and the January 2011 floods into consideration and made changes to the reference design,” she said.

Changes include:

  • Moving the southern tunnel portal about 110 metres further south in Yeerongpilly
  • Moving the new Yeerongpilly Station about 250 metres further south to industrial land near Station Road, Yeerongpilly
  • Moving the ventilation and emergency access building 500 metres further south to higher land in Fairfield
  • Incorporating tunnel floodgates into the southern tunnel portal to negate the need for a separate floodgate building at Yeronga.

Ms Palaszczuk said the design changes had numerous benefits including less community impacts and lower construction costs.

Coordinator-General Keith Davies said the EIS considered a wide range of issues, including:

  • Preliminary urban and landscape design and construction planning land use, planning scheme provisions and urban renewal opportunities
  • Managing noise, dust, traffic and parking around construction sites
  • Traffic and transport considerations, including railway operations, pedestrian and cycle access, road network impacts and other public transport
  • Changes to streets and footpaths around stations
  • Waste and flood management.

“The EIS incorporates lessons learned from the January floods and improvements to noise, road traffic and air quality management practices from other urban infrastructure projects.

“The release of the EIS is not an approval, rather it gives any interested person or organisation the chance to make a submission on the project,” Mr Davies said.

“Submissions on the EIS can be made until 21 October 2011 and will help inform the final decision.”

Submissions can be made online here, or by posting or emailing the submission form.

 

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