The Sunshine Coast MUST have a Mass Transit Solution

There’s no question about the growth that the Sunshine Coast is experiencing. The question is, how do we manage it?  What we MUST have for the growth and good of the community is an integrated mass transit system.

In a recent article from Sunshine Coast News, the various options for mass transit were explored with plenty of community comment to follow.

Those who are opposing light rail and say “we don’t want to be another Gold Coast” need to ask themselves and answer the question – what is it they don’t really want?

Is it just the type of rail? Is it the overhead powerlines? Because those things aren’t set in stone and new technologies are providing a range of efficient options that the Council are considering in this planning stage.

Is it the population? Is it the increase in urban development? Well, that’s less easy to change and probably shouldn’t change. You can’t just put up a wall and stop people from coming. People will keep coming because it’s a great place to live and you can either halt all development (which won’t happen) and see prices skyrocket with a great imbalance of supply and demand, or you can make proper plans for suitable development and well-organised transit options to enable more affordable housing for more people to live in and effective ways to move about the Coast.

But don’t panic, building more homes doesn’t mean crazy urban sprawl.  We’re essentially land locked in those areas where the transit is proposed and we have parkland and waterways that are protected. What the proposed transit corridor gives us is the opportunity for infill development. We have to accept that infill development is a solution. It can either be towers on our beachfront or further inland around transport lanes. The question is what’s our preference? I know for most people it’s the latter, and it makes sense.

We must have a solution for housing and transport. You can’t simply say ‘we don’t want that’. We need to properly consider the valid options presented to solve what we are going to do about the growth that will not, and we cannot, change.

Growth is not the problem most people think it is. Growth is not a negative. Growth is opportunity. Growth is great for business, the economy, experiences, improvements, learning and sharing. It is a particularly good time for property investors to build their portfolios while providing much-needed housing solutions to support communities.

Growth is not the issue. The real issue is information, education and robust discussion.

The Sunshine Coast is going to be the most connected regional city in the world due to the incredible amount of infrastructure and investment here with the subsea broadband cable and state of the art CBD just to name a few. With the world’s eye on us, we should be looking at tomorrow’s solutions, not yesterday’s and lead the way in intelligent community design.