No time for tunnel vision

This changing travel context has important implications for Brisbane. Strategic oil and transport risks need to be considered so residents can make reasoned and informed choices about our city. Potential risks of alternative planning strategies need to be laid out.

In this context the Brisbane CityShape plan is cause for concern. The biggest projects in the plan are the TransApex toll tunnels. Yet this barely receives a paragraph of discussion, while discussion of other features such as urban villages, "identity" or parks fill pages.

Nor does the plan provide discussion of different transport planning choices. How can residents make decisions about our city's shape when options, costs and benefits are not presented clearly and openly? What about public transport, walking and cycling? CityShape gives us little information.

TransApex may have seemed feasible in 2004, but subsequent oil insecurity and changing travel behaviour suggest it is a very risky investment. Can we instead invest in public transport and support already changing travel demand? The CityShape plan does not offer this choice.

Small fluctuations in traffic numbers or shifts to public transport can translate into massive implications for the financial viability of major road projects. With a cost of $5-8 billion we should reconsider whether toll tunnels can be automatically included in current plans without an open and transparent public process of risk assessment.

The Brisbane City Council should recalibrate its models to publicly account for how residents may respond to tolled roads in the face of rising costs.

Saddling our city with risky road debt in uncertain oil and transport times needs far more consideration than any planning documents have so far provided.