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So What Does this Mean for the Sunshine Coast?

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• Stage 1 is identical to the Gold Coast:

• 13km Light rail track

• 16 Stations

• Public-Private partnership Model

If the Gold Coast cost $1.4 billion back in 2014, what will the Sunshine Coast project cost in today's dollars and how much will the Sunshine Coast Council have to put up for this first stage?

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Everyone is already paying for this. 

 

In 2017 the transport levy went up 56% specifically for the Mass Transit project.  Everyone now pays $44 annually. (The Gold Coast pays $133 annually)

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To date, over $12 million dollars has been spent on the Mass Transit project. 

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And for what?  A report that ignores Community feedeback and rates light rail, costing billions of dollars, in a 13km stretch where only 8% of the population live, as the preferred option for the region? A report that proposes to put up to 5 times the amount of people we currently have along our beach corridor?  Everyone is paying but where is eveyone's benefit?

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The mass transit project has now been handed to the Queensland State Government and a further $5million of our rate payers monies will go toward it. That will be at least $17 million of our money that has been spent on this project. In the same time just over $200,000 was spent on heavy rail investigations.  A project that would benefit the whole of the Sunshine Coast. WHY? 

 

Council acknowledges they will need $100million to fund the Mass Transit project

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Below is from the Council's Transport Levy Annual Report 2019/20.  It shows that the amount in the futures fund is currently $14,324,295.

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Following questioning from Cr O'Pray at the SCRC Ordinary Meeting September 17th, Cr Baberowski indicated that based on the experience of the mass transit solution implemented on the Gold Coast, the Council is aiming to accumulate around $100,000,000 in this fund as the Council's potential contribution to Stage 1 of the implementation of a mass transit solution that it hopes will be predominately funded from the other tiers of government.

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Mtag thinks this 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟬 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 $𝟭𝟰 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻.

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Is it the Council's intention to significantly increase the annual Transport Levy each ratepayer is charged with their rates or will the shortfall, given the present rate of growth in the Fund, be funded through borrowings?

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Even if you do not live in the light rail corridor, it will still affect you.  Every ratepayer will have to pay for this for years.  It does not mean less congestion...it means more cost, more people, more cars and more high-rise. 

Is this what you want?

 

Brisbane Times Article July 20 2017

 'Rail or fail': Sunshine Coast levy increases as light rail plan progresses

By Cameron Atfield

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Sunshine Coast ratepayers will have to shell out an additional $15 a year as the city adopts a "rail or fail" plan that would emulate the Gold Coast's light rail. With its population expected to grow to 560,000 by 2041, light rail for the growing region has been identified as a future "backbone" to the Sunshine Coast's public transport system.

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Sunshine Coast Council endorsed the increase in the annual transport levy, which would bring it to $42 a year, at its meeting on Thursday. The increase to the levy would add about $2 million to the council's Transport Futures Fund coffers.  A $15 increase to the council's transport levy will help fund the Sunshine Coast light rail project.

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The council's transport portfolio councillor Rick Baberowski said the TFF would focus on delivering the Sunshine Coast light rail project, which was hoped to be up and running between Maroochydore and Caloundra within a decade.

"We have 200,000 new residents coming here over the next 20 years and we are making a very serious commitment to light rail," he said.   "Providing public transport and the major infrastructure it requires is a state and federal government responsibility and we need them to step up to join council in finding solutions to cope with our growth.

"Through the Transport Futures Fund, we will be putting a contribution on the table as tangible evidence of council's support for light rail – its planning and implementation.   "We are no less of a priority than other regions experiencing sizeable growth.  "We should not be left behind. It is at the point where it is rail or fail."

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Cr Baberowski said the levy would raise about $5.7 million this year, which would take the TFF to about $9 million.

That would primarily cover planning, as the project itself would be too ambitious to the council to pursue alone.

For example, the initial 13-kilometre section of the Gold Coast's light rail system, G:Link, cost an estimated $1.6 billion.

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Don't Let them Make us another Gold Coast