Toowong overpass ... future uncertain
FROM MY CORNER .... with Ann Brunswick
Does anyone share my concern about the ongoing speculation over the future of the recently completed pedestrian and bicycle overpass crossing the western freeway near the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens?
It seems the $10 million structure built by the state government could be in the way of the entrance to a new (yet another) road tunnel planned by the Brisbane City Council. The overpass was announced in May 2006 as a $4 million project but its cost had more than doubled by the time it opened in March last year.
If that were not bad enough, there has since been a lot of chatter about its very existence. Apparently there is serious consideration being given to demolishing the bridge to accommodate the tunnel entrance. Member for Mt Coot-tha, Andrew Fraser, who now happens to be state Treasurer, said at the time the bridge project was announced that he had “lobbied hard” for the project that was “a victory for the local community”.
Well, it’s not so clear to me that bulldozing the structure would be a victory for anyone, especially not taxpayers. Isn’t there somebody at the state government or BCC who can stand up and say the bridge will stay? Mr Fraser perhaps? Our Lord Mayor?
If not, then maybe one of them should explain how they plan to recoup the $10 million they plan to waste and where the next $10 million for a replacement bridge will come from. Each year a lot of small community groups, sporting clubs, and other not-for-profits apply for grants of just a few thousand dollars to buy new equipment, renovate their premises, or undertake some other project that is relatively small but significant to them.
Even at $5,000 per grant, the $10 million spent on a bridge that may disappear would have helped out 2,000 organisations across our state. Unfortunately that’s the real cost of this prime example of financial and planning incompetence.
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The saga of the overpass leads me to another gripe about bureaucrats wasting the money you and I pay in taxes and rates.
It would be good to know what genius in the Brisbane City Council agreed to install plastic parking bumpers at a near-city park. Bumpers are a common sight in most large car parks. They are usually made from concrete and are pre-cast so they can be bolted to the ground in such a way to prevent vehicles hitting a wall, fence or another vehicle. Well imagine my surprise to come upon a raft of plastic bumpers in a BCC park.
Unfortunately as my snaps show all too clearly, some of them have already started to do what any sensible person would expect plastic to do when it is exposed to the sun and comes into contact with a vehicle wheel with around one tonne of weight behind it. That’s right, they have started to crack.
Gee, what dill in the BCC didn’t see that as a possibility? Please, could somebody in the BCC get in touch and let me know that the plastic bumpers were a gift from some manufacturer, that they were installed free of charge as a trial maybe?
As a ratepayer, the alternative that my rates are paying the wages of someone who actively fostered this stupidity is too horrible to contemplate.
Holes in the argument ... plastic parking bumpers
