Light rail fix in limbo

Mayor doubts tourism hub can boost transportation

CAIRNS Mayor Bob Manning is not convinced the State Government’s amorphous “global tourism hub” casino proposal is the answer to the city’s public transport prayers.

The $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility last week revealed it would write to potential developers of the integrated resort with an offer to help bankroll an expansion of their plans.

The letter obtained by the Cairns Post explicitly listed light rail as a potential project NAIF could support if the money stacked up, alongside communications networks, port upgrades, roads and other infrastructure.

Cairns Regional Council has long dreamt of creating a light rail corridor linking the city and the suburbs or at the very least a scaled-down “green train” version of the mass transport system.

But Cr Manning said there was very little detail about what the global tourism hub project entailed, except that 4.4ha of state-owned waterfront land in the Cairns City Port precinct had been set aside.

The land parcel is not set in stone either and tenderers can make bids elsewhere within a 70km radius of Cairns.

“Until someone can define what it is and give us an idea of its scoping and whether or not it fits where they say it will, how can anyone say it might facilitate light rail,” Cr Manning said.

He said the council was committed to pursuing some sort of improved public transport link, whether it be electric buses or lanes gazetted for buses so they can move faster than normal traffic.

“That remains on our order book but we’ve always said it would take a while to do,” he said.

“We’re at about the bottom of the scale as to whether the city’s big enough to carry it, but we say it is.”

Cr Manning wanted more details before he started heralding the proposal as a traffic saviour.

“Unless it’s located somewhere else, I don’t see the global tourism hub being a driver of that,” he said.

“But let’s wait and see what comes out of it.”