BORDER BATTLE FOR OUR BYPASS
The road to progress is never easy but the decade-long fight to get the Tugun Bypass was particularly brutal
IT’S no secret the southern Gold Coast is becoming an increasingly popular place to live. From increasingly congested roads to more tourists and residents, the border region is feeling the growing pains.
The Bulletin this week revealed The once-sleepy border suburb of Coolangatta, which takes in Kirra and Rainbow Bay, has become one of the biggest development hubs across the city, with 13 luxury projects under construction or selling, with many more on the way for the sites surrounding some of the world’s most famous surf breaks.
Big name developers, including Sahba Abedian and Melbourne-based rich lister Max Beck have projects waiting in the wings while prolific Gold Coast builders Paul Gedoun and Spyre Group already have towers coming online.
It’s become so busy that Coolangatta has been dubbed “the new Main Beach” by real estate figures.
With so many towers coming, debate has turned to how the light rail will transform these streets when it eventually is extended to the border via the Gold Coast Airport
It comes 25 years after the last time a southern Gold Coast decongestion project sparked enormous debate.
Newer Gold Coast residents will be surprised to find that the announcement of the Tugun Bypass was greeted with horror by many locals and led to a long-running and politically charged battle to prevent its construction.
Jump back 25 years ago and the Gold Coast was a dramatically different place, but was already facing heavily congested roads.
It was also a very different political era, with John Howard newly installed as Prime Minsiter and Rob Borbidge’s Coalition Government in power up in Brisbane.
Then-transport Minister Vaughan Johnson lobbied the Howard Government for more than $250m to upgrade the Pacific Highway.
Yet to be renamed the M1, the state government of the day wanted to widen the entire Gold Coast-brisbane stretch to eight lanes by 2006.
It was expected to cost $1bn. The Gold Coast – NSW border section was to include a four-lane Tugun Bypass built to the west of Coolangatta Airport.
“While it is clear the biggest portion of the highway is in New South Wales, southeast Queensland is one of the fastest growing areas in the county,’’ he said.
“The population here will grow 100 per cent over the next 20 years. Road infra structure has to grow with the population.
“This is a vital corridor for
both local and through traffic whereas the highway from the border to Newcastle has not the same population.’’
This lobbying was ignored by the federal government in both its 1996 and 1997 budgets.
By 1998, no progress had been made, sparking demands from the state opposition and Gold Coast councillors for action to make the Bypass a reality.
Deputy Opposition Leader Jim Elder said “political grandstanding and posturing’’ by the Borbidge Government had been a “waste of time”, while Coolangatta councillor Sue Robbins, who was contesting the seat of Currumbin in that year’s state election for the Na
tionals attacked NSW Transport Minister Carl Scully.
She declared he was “negative, arrogant and un-australian” after Mr Scully told an economic development meeting that NSW would not contribute to the cost of the bypass even though two thirds of it would be in that state.
Mr Elder said: ``The Pacific Highway is a road of national significance – not a NSW road or a Queensland road – and the Tugun Bypass is therefore the responsibility of the Federal Government.
“Mr Borbidge should be too ashamed to show his face on the Gold Coast … if he fails to raise this important funding issue with Mr Howard in Can
berra.’’ Months out from the 1998 state election, Mr Vaughan proposed to Cabinet two potential routes for the bypass.
One proposal involved a road-rail tunnel through the airport grounds.
The other route, running further west, involved a road through the airport grounds.
It was to cross a corner of the Cobaki Broadwater.
The seven kilometre bypass, he said, was needed to cut out a traffic bottleneck between Tugun Heights and Tweed Heads. Proposals to the east of the airport were ruled out. Opposition immediately erupted, with the Tweed Shire Council, voting to oppose a
western bypass rout, while environmentalists also announced they would fight the project, citing its impact on the Cobaki Broadwater.
The same Cabinet meeting also saw the Borbidge Government endorse a plan to extend the Gold Coast railway line to the NSW border with five stations along the way.
Neither were approved by the Borbidge Government’s downfall. NEXT WEEK: How Indy changed the Gold Coast IN TWO WEEKS: The battle to stop the Tugun Bypass