The South East Transit Project is a $520 million signature project of the Integrated Regional Transport Plan (IRTP) for South East Queensland, to increase public transport usage and vehicle occupancy rates, which includes the provision of a busway and transit lanes. The South East Busway provides public transport users with a dedicated roadway between Brisbane's Central Business District and Eight Mile Plains. The Vulture Street Tunnel is part of Section 1 of the Busway project. The crossing of the railway line at Vulture Street Railway Station represented one of the significant risks to the Section 1 programme, as Queensland Railways suburban network uses the tracks at Vulture Street for most of its services. The innovative planning, design and construction techniques used resulted in the construction of a tunnel with demonstrated ability to support the railway station and Southpoint building above, providing social, economic and environmental benefits. The program for this part of the works was driven by the need to effectively provide a public transport facility to the Brisbane Cricket Ground where the qualifying soccer games for the Sydney 2000 Olympics would be held. It was decided that the most flexible and dynamic delivery mechanism would be to break the project into packages to effectively expedite the project delivery. As a result, Section 1 was also divided into separate packages, including several early works packages. (a)
Samenvatting