New Cross River Rail Alignment Leads to Boggo Road ‘Downgrade’

Updated documents of the recently revised Cross River Rail alignment show a serious connectivity deficiency at Boggo Road, dashing any hope of a seamless Boggo Road interchange hub.

The new EIS drawings show the revised station portal is now over 120 metres from the existing busway and surface rail overpass access point.

The Cross River Rail Delivery Authority was contacted for comment and denied any changes to the original Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) documents.

“The Boggo Road station has not moved further away from the existing busway and rail platform. It is in a similar location to the Reference Design, meaning there are no interchange impacts.” – Cross River Rail Spokesperson

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However, 2011 EIS documents clearly show the northern entry portal of the Boggo Road underground station has moved over 120 metres to the south when compared with updated 2019 EIS documents.

Transport planning experts compare the move to adding another one to two minutes to a journey time, and questioned why the authority isn’t looking at ‘best practice’ interchange connectivity examples in London or Hong Kong.

The realignment from its original location means that people connecting to the busway network or surface rail would need to do the following:

• Travel up three sets of escalators to the surface
• Walk up to 125m to the connecting overpass
• Walk up to an additional 100m to the railway platform (down another set of stairs)

Set to become ‘SEQ’s second busiest transport interchange by 2036’, one anonymous industry insider questioned why the revised location was chosen and said it resulted in quite poor interconnectivity to the existing busway and rail.

“For a brand new multi-billion dollar infrastructure project, the new Boggo Road portal location makes no sense for interconnectivity of the three stations. I do worry about the final outcome for users at that station, compared to international standards, it is a downgrade from what was planned”.

“What we need is better vertical integration whereby people can directly connect to the existing busway and rail via passageways, or at the very least a more appropriate portal location”.

According to the CRR Authorities figures, on average, nearly 23,000 people will use the new Boggo Road station by 2036.

Weeks ago it was revealed the alignment would also move the main portal at the Gabba 70m to the west in order to create more green space.

“The Woolloongabba station has moved further west by 70m to deliver a better design outcome and to facilitate the option of enhanced open space in the new Woolloongabba urban precinct once it has been developed.  There are no planned changes to passenger access to the busway.” – Cross River Rail Spokesperson

Additionally, the government announced that the Roma Street Busway station as part of the Brisbane Live redevelopment would be sunk underground as part of a $250 million transformation for seamless connectivity to the existing busway and rail at Roma Street.

A new station plaza is planned to be built on top of the Roma Street busway interchange with underground train and bus levels linked by lifts and escalators.

Demolition on the Brisbane Transit Centre is expected to begin late 2019.