Logan City councillors have questioned a Council Officer’s plans during this weeks City Infrastructure committee meeting, saying Council would be leaving over 500 bus stops without shelter, for the sake of an advocacy planning study.
Back in 2015/2016 the Committee of the Whole supported a Mayoral initiative to set aside $4,000,000 via a service enhancement to fund improved public transport services for Logan. Of the allocated funds only $2,548,410 was spent, which has left Council $1,451,590.
There are approximately 780 bus stops in Logan city with no shelter, however Council Officers wanted to use roughly $250,000 of the allocated public transport funds to develop a planning transport study; which would mean only delivering 200 bus shelters.
Various councillors spoke out against this decision and questioned what a planning study would actually be doing for the local community.
Councillor Miriam Stemp was the first to speak out and question the transport study.
“The study is managed by the state,” Cr Stemp said.
“So how is that likely to benefit our community? I’m just trying to look from that point of view when spending this money.”
The Council Officer insisted the study was about ‘having infrastructure that supports what is needed’ in Logan City.
Councillor Jacob Heremaia was the next to speak out, and he asked if Council had the capacity to put the full $1.45 million towards providing more bus shelters in Logan City.
The Council Officer said because they had not conducted an audit, they didn’t even know whether every Logan City bus stop actually needed a shelter.
Deputy Mayor Jon Raven was also unimpressed with the proposal.
“My experience with large sums of money being spent on advocacy is they don’t often get any outcomes,” Cr Raven said.
“I’d rather use that funding to deliver more bus shelters.
“I’m sceptical of whether any amount of money spent on a plan….will ever get any meaningful benefit for the community. Whereas an extra $250,000 spent on bus shelters in locations that didn’t have them would make a meaningful difference to our community.
“It’s basically a quarter of a million dollar punt.”
Councillor Lisa Bradley said she would like to see the list of bus stops in need of shelters before making a decision.
Mayor Darren Power said he’d love to get a study done on studies, to see how many studies Logan City Council has done that have created no result.
“I’ve been here for a long time and I’ve seen so many studies. I’m not convinced, like Cr Raven, that we get an outcome we would like,” Mayor Power said.
“Is there a cap on how many shelters we can do?”
Council was informed there is no cap, and the only restriction is money.
“I don’t think there’s any better time to roll out these bus shelters,” Mayor Power said.
“There’s nothing worse than driving past (a Logan City bus stop without a shelter) and seeing kids getting wet (rained on).”
Mayor Power said he would like to see Cr Raven’s recommendation play out, and have all of the $1.45 million of funding go towards delivering bus shelters within Logan City.
“I want to see some rubber hitting the road, some outcomes delivered, and our residents better off,” he said.
Councillor Natalie Willcocks said she would like to be sent the list of bus stops to review.
Councillors Tony Hall, Laurie Koranski, and Teresa Lane also spoke out in support of more bus stop shelters.
An amendment was made to the motion, and instead councillors voted to spend all of the allocated funds on new bus stop shelters. However, this is only if Council is met with state funding. If the State Government won’t provide funding for more than 200 bus stops, the plan is to revisit the motion and Logan City Council’s options.
