I browsd through this the other day and unfortunately it appears that the State Government has only asked for road bucks as well. Can anyone confirm this? Ben Elthakm is right on the money, politicians are obsessed with roads and they cant see any transport solution outside of that. Consider their growing insistence on adding even more buses to already overcrowded roads – in all Australian cities. Guys, the idea is to get vehicles of all kinds off the roads to reduce congestion – and you all want to jam even more buses in there? Get frickin real! The success of this behavior is obvious each and every peak hour. Vehicles not going anywhere – including the buses.

Seriously, the sooner they wake up and realize that light and heavy rail, much of it underground is the only affordable way to provide for urban transport needs the better off we’ll all be. Oh, and stop subsidising trucking companies by making them pay for the actual costs of the damage they do to highways – then we may find that a lot more freight goes by rail too.

Perhaps he should consider a municipal buy-out of BrisConnections.

At this price, it might be cheaper than the bail-out package when the inevitable happens and the receivers are called in.

Well, if a housewife can buy 8% for $32K, it’s probably not such a silly suggestion. But this obsession with roads is horrendous – but understandable in Brisbane. For decades it has been allowed to expand at the seams – something that should’ve been stopped in the 80′s – and you’re now paying for it.

We bailed out in 2000 – it was clear then that Brissy was slowly strangling itself and it’s only got worse since. I can remember even in the late 80′s driving down to the Gold Coast and spending most of the trip admiring the lush surrounds – you’d struggle to see a tree these days (okay, an exaggeration, but still).

Question is – “is it too late to save Brisbane”? In the 80/90′s we should’ve ring fenced Brisbane’s expansion, put in fast rail links to GC, SC, Toowoomba and Beaudesert and allow these centres to expand instead. Would it have made a difference? Possibly not as the GC and SC expansion has been equally OTT and Toowoomba’s water crisis is far worse than Brisbane’s. Either way, we’re probably 20-30 years too late in making the right decisions.

Maybe the solution is to move the “Capital” away from the South East? I nominate Charters Towers. Plenty of land, plenty of water, close enough to the Coast to be considered “urban” but behind the Great Divide enough to be considered “rural”. Lets pack up parliament tomorrow and ship ‘em North – I’m sure they won’t be missed…