CANDIDATES from electorates in the Jimboomba district have been urged to share their views on upgrading the Mount Lindesay Highway.
The candidates were questioned at a second Highway to Hell meeting hosted by the Logan Country Safe City Group at Jimboomba on Saturday.
Meeting chair David Kenny said that at the first Highway to Hell meeting attendees said they were concerned there was no plan for the Mount Lindesay Highway.
However, the state government had released a plan for the road in 2010.
Mr Kenny said the highway was an issue for people in the Logan, Jordan, Scenic Rim, Algester and Waterford electorates.
Questioning the candidates, one attendee said the 35 kilometre drive from where he lived at Cedar Vale to Hillcrest was “an abomination of a goat track”.
“Why can’t we even get the basics done?” he said. “We can’t even get this pothole-ridden, hell-hole fixed.”
Mr Kenny said they needed to advocate for the plan to be costed and put into budgets.
He said that he referred to the Jimboomba region as the Cinderella area.
“We’ve got the wicked step-mother in town, the wicked sisters in Ipswich and down the Gold Coast and they’re getting everything and we’re not getting a lot,” he said.
“...You look at what we’re getting, we are definitely the Cinderella area.”
Logan MP Linus Power said when he got into government there was no money in the four-year budget for the Mount Lindesay Highway north of North Maclean.
He said there was money budgeted to extend the four-lanes in Park Ridge South, work was planned at North Maclean and the intersection at Camp Cable Road and the Mount Lindesay Highway had been upgraded.
“We’ve got results in getting some funding on the forward plan,” he said.
“It is a slower process than I would like.”
Logan councillors encouraged residents to rally for state and federal government funding.
Mayor Luke Smith said if people put on enough pressure they would get results.
“It’s about what we want as people, to let our representatives know so they have a clear picture and a clear understanding of what to fight for when they go to their party,” he said.
Councillor Trevina Schwartz said there were treacherous intersections along the Mount Lindesay Highway.
“This is a highway that is to feed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people; something has to be done with this highway,” she said.
Councillor Phil Pidgeon said planning for the Mount Lindesay highway needed to progress.
”There’s a massive transport hub south of here that’s going to be putting more and more trucks on the roads and it will become a problem in the future if not now,” he said.
“There really needs to be some clever planning here because council’s view is that the infrastructure needs to match the development.”
The next Highway to Hell meeting will be on November 25.
