How many more times are we to hear politicians promise a light-rail system for inner-Brisbane? Premier Anna Bligh has raised the issue again. This time it is a suggestion for an underground light-rail (whatever happened to the word “tram”?) linking the CBD and Toowong, West End, Newstead, Bowen Hills, Bulimba and the North Shore precinct at Hamilton.
Apparently we need the new system to help alleviate the problem of cars clogging our city streets driven by the many people moving here each day. For the past 40 years, ever since trams were last seen on our CBD and suburban streets, there has been talk of bringing them back.
Those of us old enough to remember the non-air conditioned beasts lumbering along our thoroughfares would support their return. For me, Ms Bligh’s comments brought back memories of sitting adjacent to an open door on a tram as it rattled along with the wind blowing up my football shorts. Successive governments have undertaken studies that went nowhere. Maybe if they had not had so many studies, they may have had enough funds to actually build a new tram system.
Ms Bligh has ruled out trams on our streets, preferring to have them run in tunnels. Heaven forbid if they hold up cars. Forty-plus years ago it was trams and their passengers who ruled our roads.
Just as they once did in Brisbane, vehicles in Melbourne must come to a halt when a tram does likewise at most stops to ensure the safety of alighting or boarding passengers. Now we apparently need to foot the extra cost of tunnelling just so we don’t hold up the cars that are to blame for clogging our streets in the first place.
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Part of Ms Bligh's rationale for the new tunnel trams was that twice as many people will be working in the CBD in 25 years’ time. “Employment in the same area will double from 200,000 to 400,000 – double the number of people trying to get into the CBD just to get to work,” the premier told us.
Well to my mind Ms Bligh herself could alleviate some of that expected pressure by starting to shift her own public servants out of the CBD.
Surely there are enough people on her payroll living in outer areas such as Caboolture, Logan City, Ipswich, or on the Sunshine and Gold Coasts who would love to work closer to home.
Or, taking a harder line, she should set out a 20-year plan for the bulk move of government departments to those areas, or even further afield. Given the advances in communications technology, such as email, vide-conferencing and the like, why couldn’t the Education Department be located in Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Townsville, or Cairns.
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Also in the past week or so there has been some discussion of the latest attempts to “brand” Brisbane. Yes, yet again our money is being given in big wads to those highly talented original thinkers in the public relations and advertising industries to come up with a slogan for the city.
The latest, apparently is something about Brisbane being “a new world city”. Almost as catchy as that mangy ferret that a few years ago was billed as our city’s image-making saviour. Here’s a simple thought.
Given the problems caused by a population influx as identified by Anna Bligh why not adopt the slogan: “Go away.”
That would surely help stem the flow of people here and the need for costly new infrastructure. Or could it be that something ruder may be needed.
