REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Saturday, April 12, 1997

THE Brisbane-Gold Coast rail link was to be extended to Coolangatta at a predicted cost of about $190 million.

Two possible routes were being considered and were to be included in a paper which was to be released for public consultation by May 1997.

A spokesman for Transport Minister Vaughn Johnson said a consultation period for the proposed route would last for three or four months and a final report to be given to the Minister before January 1998.

He said the routes being considered were preliminary and in no way final.

The issue paper was drafted by a Brisbane engineering firm.

The company was asked in January that year to undertake a $1 million state and federal funded feasibility study to identify a corridor for public transport from Robina to Coolangatta and Tweed Heads.

It was to investigated the extension of the rail line to Coolangatta, associated interchanges and bus feeder locations, and a new route for western bypass of the Pacific Highway at Tugun.

It was believed there were two possible routes, with one involved extending the rail from Robina alongside the Pacific Highway south to Tugun Heights on either the eastern or western side of Coolangatta Airport.

If terminated on the western side of the airport, the option also would include a light rail system, incorporating trams or upgraded bus lanes running parallel with the Gold Coast Highway between Coolangatta and Mermaid Beach.

Now, more than 19 years later, the heavy rail has not moved past Varsity Lakes.