Transport trouble brewing in the west

Big population growth numbers are par for the course in Queensland. For most of the past 30 years, the state has boxed above its weight in growth.

So much so, that it is easy to become parse about the implications.

With this in mind, it is important to cast our eyes west of Brisbane.

The city of Ipswich, a major regional metropolis that scrapes Brisbane’s western border, is seeking our attention.

In a nutshell, the city is experiencing off-the-chart growth, and the current infrastructure pipeline will not come close to addressing the emerging bottlenecks.

This is not an issue just for Ipswich. If the current projections play out, the whole SEQ traffic feeder system will be impacted negatively.

Commutes will become intolerable, freight will slow down, family life will be disrupted and the system will frankly fail.

In particular, the so-called Western Corridor, taking in the mega-growth areas of Springfield, Ripley and Redbank will keep feeding people in cars into the system.

Already the Cunningham, Warrego and Centenary Highways traversing the area are becoming choked and dangerous.

The Amberley interchange, in particular, has long been a dysfunctional mess.

The area desperately needs a commitment to address the choke points and a commitment to kick off planning for a major public transport/mass transit system between Ipswich and Springfield.

The numbers are stark:

·?????? The Ipswich population is forecast to double to 533,000 by 2046.

·?????? Without a major investment in improved transport systems, the morning commute time from parts of Ipswich to the Brisbane CBD will increase 81 percent by 2036 to over two hours.

·?????? Despite Ipswich being one of Australia’s fastest growing areas, it rates about 11th in SEQ per capita in the State transport infrastructure spending forward pipeline.

·?????? More than 70 percent of the Ipswich local government area growth is expected to occur along or adjacent to the corridor predominantly concentrated around Springfield and Ripley.

·?????? Ripley Valley is projected to grow from 4767 people in 2016 to 45,153 people by 2026. This represents 8.8 percent of the total growth of Greater Brisbane over this time period.

·?????? The Greater Springfield population grew by 6.8 percent between 2011 and 2021 compared to growth of 1.5% across Queensland.

Ipswich City Council analysis shows that, without urgent action, by the 2030s Ipswich’s traffic system will “fundamentally fail”.

Growth is everywhere and everyone wants more money for everything. But the situation to the west just looks like a future transport train wreck in progress. The residents say it is bad enough already and dread what is ahead without the necessary commitments.

It takes a lot of time to build stuff. Queensland has placed a lot of stock in the Ipswich area taking a big part of the load in catering for the region’s population growth.

That has to come with an ongoing commitment to a functional transport system. The highways are genuinely dangerous and people who have settled in the region in good faith should be able to expect functional transport options.

Some infrastructure is a need, not a want.

There is no point everyone looking back on 2024 in 10 years and thinking “if only we had done something 10 years ago”.

There is more information on the We Can't Wait website - https://wecantwait.com.au/.

Shane Rodgers grew up in the Ipswich area. He is a former State Head of the Australian Industry Group.