Highway at a bargain

KAP candidate backs $350m alternative

A FORMER giant of the Far North construction industry says he has found a way to duplicate the Kuranda Range road for a paltry $350 million – and he already has one political party’s support.

CEC Group chief Roy Lavis, whose empire once boasted more than 600 employees, told the Cairns Post the billion-dollar cost estimates flaunted by state and federal governments were easily avoided.

Those calculations were based on building an exhaustive line of 29 bridges rather than cutting into the mountain along the existing route.

“I’ve only put it together in the past couple of weeks,” Mr Lavis said.

“It would basically follow the existing alignment, straightening it out to some degree, and in some places having a split-level road.

“You would have one side of the road at one level, and the other two or three metres above or below it.” he said. “And it would have a barrier between the two directions of traffic so you can eliminate the issues we have with head-on crashes.”

Mr Lavis said he had compared his calculations against the Department of Transport and Main Roads’ quantities from previous studies and arrived at the same figures.

Construction would take two or three years, with two lanes of traffic open about 95 per cent of the time, Mr Lavis said.

The crucial test would be whether the option would pass the environmental court of opinion, let alone stringent controls that apply to the World Heritage area.

“No matter what way you do it, that factor exists,” Mr Lavis said.

Katter’s Australian Party candidate for Leichhardt Daniel McCarthy backed the proposal while unveiling his fourpoint plan to take the National Highway all the way to Weipa.

“We can have two lanes up, two lanes down on the existing alignment for $350 million,” he said.

Economist Bill Cummings said there would be an excellent cost-benefit ratio for a $350 million price tag.