IT’S NOT ABOUT SPEED, IT’S PRODUCTIVE USE

POLITICIANS love to tempt us with visions of faster trains.

The Queensland and Federal Governments want to fast-track transport projects to revive the economy from its COVID-19 slump.

Fiscal stimulus that includes infrastructure spending might be the right prescription, but should that extend to regional rail plans hatched before the pandemic?

Faster regional trains were never likely to take much pressure off Brisbane, nor revitalise regional cities and towns. And a new Grattan Institute report shows that that’s even more true now.

Some regional upgrades might be worthwhile, but the label of “fiscal stimulus’’ is not a licence to abandon costbenefit discipline.

The Federal Government is overseeing the business case for an upgrade to the Sunshine Coast-to-Brisbane rail link, and the Queensland and Federal Governments are funding business cases for upgrades to the lines to the Gold Coast and Toowoomba.

One argument for these upgrades is that they will take pressure off Brisbane by enabling people to live elsewhere while keeping their city job. Another is that they will boost jobs and tourism in the regions. Neither argument stands up well to scrutiny.

Tweed Heads and the Gold Coast form the regional area with the most Brisbane commuters, at 29,000. After that, the next largest area, the Sunshine Coast, has about 7000 Brisbane commuters. Toowoomba has fewer than 750.

It might sound as though the Gold Coast could be a great place for Brisbanites to move to, while still keeping their current jobs. But a faster train service is not likely to have much impact. That is because people who currently live on the Gold Coast and commute mostly don’t take the train – and that is not likely to change. Only 13 per cent of the Gold Coast’s 29,000 Brisbane commuters get to work by public transport. Once you factor in that many workplaces outside the CBD have free parking, and some people have tools and equipment to carry, it is no surprise that people commuting from the Gold Coast tend to drive.

The overwhelming majority of commuters who do take the train from the Gold Coast to Brisbane work in the CBD. There are 3000 of them.

But even if a faster train service encouraged another 3000 Brisbane residents to move to the Gold Coast but keep their city job, that would account for just 5.8 per cent of Brisbane’s population growth last year. It is far too small a number to have an impact on Brisbane population pressures.

Meanwhile, parts of metropolitan Brisbane remain very poorly serviced by public transport. It can take more than an hour to get to the CBD from Burpengary, Redcliffe, Beenleigh and parts of Ipswich. More people would benefit from fixing blackspots in Brisbane, such as Centenary.

The other argument for regional rail upgrades is that they will boost the regions; that faster trains to Brisbane would mean more jobs in Toowoomba or in towns along the Sunshine Coast. But