A BIDDING war has erupted over the Mount Lindesay Highway, with the state government and opposition each promising work on the busy thoroughfare.
Labor has promised $20 million to continue upgrading the highway, building on $51 million of works already under way.
The LNP has upped the ante, promising $60 million to improve safety and flood resilience and ease congestion.
LNP leader Tim Nicholls said planning work for upgrades would start immediately if they won the November 25 election.
“The $60 million will be for packages of road upgrades, including identified high risk areas where there are real dangers, so intersection upgrades, passing lanes and also some minor flood resilience works,” he said.
Beaudesert MP and Scenic Rim LNP candidate Jon Krause said the $60 million was in addition to what was already in the budget.
“That means is in the next three years or so, there will be about $100 million committed to the Mount Lindesay Highway,” he said.
“Because of the failure of the government to actively plan works, we have set aside these funds but we obviously need to go and plan and design the works.”
Mr Krause said his priorities included passing lanes from Beaudesert to Woodhill and works from Stoney Camp Road to Crowson Lane.
Logan MP Linus Power said Labor would duplicate the highway to four lanes between Camp Cable Road and Tamborine/Johanna Street intersection and raise the road level to improve flood immunity.
“In 2013 flooding closed this section of the highway for three days isolating Jimboomba,” he said.
“We don’t want to see that happen again.”
LNP Logan candidate Gloria Vicario said residents had told her there had been inadequate consultation over upgrades to the highway.
“(Highway upgrades are) a priority for the Logan area and we’re getting some commitments and doing it in the right way,” she said.
“Instead of sitting around talking about building infrastructure like Annastacia Palaszczuk, the LNP has put its money where its mouth is and will actually deliver the roads, bridges and dams we need.”
Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said the highway was a major regional road and a key freight route that provided a critical north-south link in the Logan road network and connectivity to NSW.
“We know that traffic is expected to double to over 40,000 vehicles per day over the next decade on the highway between Camp Cable road and Jimboomba due to adjacent developments, so this upgrade is vital,” he said.
Mr Power said the $51 million spent or budgeted by Labor was for a planning study, duplicating the road between Rosia Road and the Stoney Camp Road interchange, the service road from Chambers Flat Road to Greenbank Road and signalised intersection at Greenbank Road, traffic lights at the Camp Cable Road intersection; works on Veresdale Scrub Road, the Gleneagle State School access and Undullah Road, Woodhill; and a channelised right turn into Worendo Street, Veresdale.
Mr Power said the Newman-Nicholls government had cut $600 million out of roads funding while in office.
“A total of $187 million of that was cut from the Mount Lindesay Highway,” he said.