Green Up Moggill

Why is the Kenmore bypass such a divisive issue in Moggill? Why is finding your way around such a problem for so many people?

We can divide the problem into four parts:

• problems with Moggill Road
• too many people having to travel
• too much of the travel in the same direction
• no alternatives

But first, I’d like to explain why I became involved in the issue.

We are facing an era of great change. Oil prices have only tumbled from record highs because of an economic meltdown evoking memories of 1929. Dealing with climate change will force us reduce emissions. Both forces point to reduced role for the private car. Of course, some people will still have to use cars by the nature of their work, but many others in the new energy economy will mainly use cars for recreation, and use bicycles or public transport for routine travel.

Even without these changes, though, there are good reasons to look at alternatives to building a road as a way of solving congestion. In cities like LA, where building roads was the only solution under consideration, the result is a city full of freeways and traffic gridlock. In cities such as London, Paris, Seoul and Bogota where the approach was to provide alternatives to cars, most people don’t drive, and do not miss sitting in traffic.

Let’s now go on to more detail of the problems and how I propose we tackle the problem.

Problems with Moggill Road

Aside the problem of heavy traffic, Moggill Road has patches that are poorly designed and unsuited to their purpose. A few examples:

• dangerous crossings
• hazardous school drop-off zones such as at Our Lady of the Rosary School
• the poorly designed roundabout at Kenmore State School

It is questionable whether reducing traffic alone would fix these problems; some may even be worse if it were possible to travel faster.

So these problems need to be fixed whether a bypass is put in or not. Unfortunately the bypass appears to be used as an excuse for inaction.

Too many people travelling

Too many people having to be travel can be addressed by putting more facilities and services into the outer suburbs. Kenmore High School is bursting at the seams, with many students from the outer suburbs. If we put in a new high school in Bellbowrie, we would not only cut a lot of traffic, but help build the community. If you have a medical emergency in the outer suburbs, where do you go? You have no options that do not require a long trip. A 24/7 emergency centre that could be upgraded to a full hospital would solve that problem. Add in services and entertainment, and the need for travel would be greatly reduced.

Much of the problem arises from new houses that were put in at Moggill without requiring that the developer include local services. The notion that you can build a pure dormitory suburb in an era of climate change and declining oil supply is crazy.

Much of the demand for more roads therefore arises from poor planning, a problem that must be addressed whether a new road is built or not.

Too much of the travel in the same direction

Because of the shortage of services in the outer suburbs and the poor state of public transport, much of the travel through Moggill is in the same direction. Inevitably, many residents of the outer suburbs who have children head towards Kenmore because that end of the electorate is where most of the schools are. Most residents head in towards the city for work. Someone I met in Bellbowrie leaves home at 6am to be in time to find parking in Taringa, the nearest park and ride train station from the Moggill side of the river.

No alternatives

Public transport in Moggill is abysmal. I’ve had students as close in as Kenmore telling me it takes them an hour to get to Uni by bus. That’s not an alternative, that’s punishment. The big problem with buses on Moggill Road is that they are stuck in the same traffic as the cars. There also is no option to catch the train – unless you are willing to drive in to Taringa or Toowong to find parking.

The problem of no alternatives can be addressed in four ways:

• light rail – the Greens light rail plan will take traffic to the city off the roads, freeing them up for people with no option but to use a car
• a river crossing to the Ipswich line – the exact alignment and nature of the bridge needs further investigation, but giving residents of the outer suburbs the option of taking the train in to the city will also take cars off the roads
• safe bike paths – you wouldn’t think that more bikes than cars have been sold in Australia for the last 9 years, the way infrastructure planning all centres on cars. While there are some excellent bike ways, it is not safe to ride your bike on the roads. We must fix that
• comprehensive school bus system – a country as poor in public transport as the United States has a comprehensive school bus system. School children are picked up reliably, transported safely and dropped off safely at school. The existing city bus system is not adequate; there have been too many stories of children being left at the side of the road.

Why are so many people upset?

Why are some people so upset about the proposed bypass? Because it’s not a little road, suited to a residential suburb. It’s part of a plan to construct a large freeway, many times the length of the initial plan, that will not only cut the suburb in half, but turn it into a noisy urban environment.

Here’s a picture extracted from the Department of Main Roads description of the Moggill Pocket Arterial Road/Moggill-Warrego Highway Connection.

The little red piece on the right is the Kenmore bypass; the blue part on the left is the longer-term plan. The actual map of the complete route is far too big to display on any meaningful scale on a web page. This road will start from the Centenary Highway at Fig Tree Pocket and end at the Warrego Highway at North Tivoli, cutting through Kenmore, Pullenvale, Anstead and Karalee.

Won’t the Kenmore Bypass solve the problem?

So, won’t this new road (the little bit that’s already planned, the Kenmore bypass), solve all these problems? If history is a guide, no. There is a great highway down to the Gold Coast. Developers spotted the easy commute to Brisbane, and put in new housing. That great “easy commute” highway is now a parking lot at busy times.

Putting in this new road will also not address the lack of community development of the outer suburbs, or the over-crowding of Kenmore High School. It will also not address the dangerous school drop-off zones and other issues identified as problems with the road. These things need to be fixed anyway, bypass or not.

It also won’t address the problem of dependence on cars.

Of course some people do need to use their cars, a need that doesn’t go away even in cities with great public transport. But if we can reduce traffic by at least as much as in the school holidays, there is no need for a bypass. And good planning can take even more cars than that off the roads.

What’s more, this is the wrong time to be planning for an increase in use of cars. Oil supply is starting to look tenuous. Climate change not only demands that we use cars far less but that energy will become more expensive.

What will solve the problem?

We would be much better off spending the money that would go towards the Kenmore Bypass and the other roads infrastructure around Brisbane that collectively adds up to many billions of dollars on better public transport, a cross-river connection to the Ipswich line, school buses and safe bike paths.

Of these solutions, school buses could be brought in fastest, and would go a long way towards reducing the dangers of school drop-off zones. As a guide to how soon a crossing to the Ipswich line could be put in, the Green Bridge (now Eleanor Schonell Bridge) at the University of Queensland, carrying buses, bicycles and pedestrians, was completed in six months. Light rail would take longer, but the quicker measures would considerably ease congestion. Constructing a new school and adding local services and entertainment would be an ongoing project. Completion of the Kenmore Bypass, by contrast, would take at least four years, during which time none of the other problems would be solved – and some would still not be solved once it was built.

So not only is the Kenmore Bypass a poor fit to the times, a poor fit to the community and unlikely to solve the problem in the long term, but other solutions could be put in place faster.

That’s why the Greens say No to the Kenmore Bypass