Border traffic snarls ‘trap’ locals at home

BORDER residents who had enjoyed shorter queues to cross Queensland’s border again faced lengthy delays on Monday but Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is making no apology for it.

Wait times blew out after another change to the border declaration pass. Commuters were required to apply for a new border pass by 1am on Monday after a ban on visitors from Sydney’s new hotspot Fairfield kicked in.

Tweed locals who live in Ducat St, where one of five border checkpoints are set up, shared their frustration on Facebook about being “trapped in their own home”.

Resident Jan Collier said: “Long delays everywhere. Just took 15 minutes to do two kilometres to get home from Kennedy Dve, along Ducat St.

“Trapped in own home. What a joke for locals.”

Congestion from the Griffith St, Coolangatta, checkpoint caused “considerably lengthy delays” for school buses trying to drop off students on Monday morning.

Tweed Heads Public School principal Peter Nichols said traffic through Tweed had been free-flowing for the past week except for Monday.

“It certainly had an impact on buses. We had one that was an hour late and one that was an hour-and-a-half late.

“It’s not ideal for (students) to be sitting on a bus that long. I have a new-found respect for bus drivers. They’re the ones trying to navigate this traffic and get around tight bends. They’re doing a really great job.”

Gold Coast Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler said push notifications alerting cross border residents to renew their border pass were sent on Friday but police were still seeing people with expired passes on Monday

Supt Wheeler said there was localised congestion around Miles and Ducat streets and at its peak, it was taking drivers 45 minutes to cross the main border checkpoint on the M1.

“We are seeing an impact on commute times today, which was to be expected, but in the coming days as people renew their passes, there will be less requirement to intercept so many vehicles.”

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said: “There will be delays at the border, there is nothing I can do about that. We are protecting Queenslanders.

Ms Palaszczuk said if the state wanted to keep its restrictions eased, Queenslanders needed to keep up social distancing and hand washing. “Complacency is our enemy. Anything can happen at any time,” she said.