'Rail or fail': Sunshine Coast levy increases as light rail plan progresses
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.
An artist's impression of the proposed Sunshine Coast light rail project.Credit:Sunshine Coast Council
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.Credit:Sunshine Coast Council
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.
Proposed route map of the Sunshine Coast light rail.
"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."
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.
Cameron Atfield is PM editor at the Brisbane Times