Tony Moore reports in the Brisbane Times (6.2.15) that:
‘For the third time in eight years, and with its fourth premier, the Queensland government has to start from scratch to find a new cross river rail line for Brisbane.
‘South East Queensland has a growing rail congestion problem because it has only one rail bridge across the Brisbane River.
‘In 2007 Beattie unveiled SEQ’s Inner City Rail Capacity Study which clearly said the region needed a new rail bridge by 2016 because the Merivale Rail Bridge could not cope.
‘In 2009 Anna Bligh’s government put together the $7 billion cross river rail twin-tunnel project and released the first concepts in 2010.
‘In 2012 Campbell Newman scrapped Labor’s Cross River Rail plan and introduced the Brisbane’s Bus and Train (BaT) project, a single tunnel concept that included buses and trains underground.
‘And, now Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has ditched the BaT Plan, with Infrastructure Minister and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad confirming on Thursday that model would not go ahead.’