The prospect of a major new north west road has been on the cards since the 1980s. A preserved transport corridor runs from Gympie Road at Carseldine to Shand Street at Alderley.
It remains largely free of houses, but the wildlife has moved in, reports Brisbane Times.
This will come as no surprise to locals who will be familiar with the surrounding nature reserves of Chermside Hills, Downfall Creek, Milne Hill and Sparkes Hill.
So the Brisbane City Council has put forward research which proposes an underground solution: a six-lane tunnel linking the Airport Link tunnel at Kedron/Stafford with the Bruce Highway at Bald Hills. This could even be used by a future rail service.
“The corridor that was set aside years ago has really healthy depth of wildlife,” Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner told the ABC.
“And so our investigation identified that any solutions to transport challenges in that part of the world should be underground, not as surface, not using the surface corridor, not bulldozing bushland, not putting threatened species at risk but going underground.”
Queensland’s Transport Minister Mark Bailey has yet to be convinced calling the plan for a toll road a “feeble fantasy”.
But regardless of the debate, locals who are tired of traffic pain are likely to agree with Cr Schrinner’s assessment that “doing nothing is simply not an option.”
Watch this space!
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