NIGHTMARE ON RANGES
HELLISH DAY OF CLOSURES SPARKS HIGHWAY DEBATE
CAIRNS leaders have demanded action on the Kuranda Range and say it is seriously impacting business and tourism after it was shut for more than 10 hours due to a crash.
A mini-van and truck collided near the top of the range about 6am yesterday, forcing both vehicles down an embankment.
Cairns Mayor Bob Manning and Advance Cairns boss Kevin Byrne both said the range had been ignored for years and yesterday’s incident was just the latest in a string which have caused major economic and social issues for the city and the Tablelands.
Barron River MP Craig Crawford acknowledged it was a problem, but said the Smithfield bypass and Cairns North bottleneck were both higher on his list of priorities to fix.
“I accept that on the Kuranda Range we have issues, I accept that when it closes it causes people problems, but when you’re talking about pri- orities, I think we’ve got bigger ones down here,” Mr Crawford said.
He said technology, such as remote traffic monitoring, rather than costly upgrades was the strategy to manage the range.
But Mr Byrne labelled yesterday’s closure as “dreadful”, particularly during peak tourist season, and said it needed to be widened to four lanes.
“If we don’t do something about improving that road and four-laning it, we’re going to have more and more of these events occur,” he said.
Cr Manning said futureproofing was essential.
“You can put your head in the sand and not look, but the problem doesn’t go away. Every day the problem gets bigger,” he said.
The former LNP government had promised a $50 million upgrade to the road prior to the last election, including 9km of widening, but this would have been funded by asset leases.
Leader Tim Nichols, in Cairns yesterday, would not recommit to the plan.