Qld: Tunnel takes its toll

Courier Mail
May 05, 2007

JOHN Harris says he bought his wooden two-storey home in Bowen Hills five years ago because it was close to transport and located in a "quiet street".

The area is anything but quiet now, having become a transport focal point. His home is located near the northern end of the North-South Bypass Tunnel

Like other residents there and at the southern end of the tunnel near Woolloongabba, he bears the brunt of Brisbane's $3 billion construction project with drilling, blasting and trucks rumbling by or beeping with reverse alarms ...

Traffic rumbles past his home now since tunnel work diverted vehicles to his small street.

"When the trucks go past you can't hear, you can't talk," the 68-year-old retiree says.

It gets so loud he has trouble hearing a complaints phone hotline for the joint venture 4.8km tunnel, which is being overseen by RiverCity Motorway.

Residents such as Mr Harris have made almost 160 complaints to the hotline since work began eight months ago.

The complaints, documents of some earlier ones having been obtained via freedom of information laws, range from pipe damage to excessive dust and work starting too early ...

"Workmen starting before 6.30am. This is waking him up," was one complaint recorded in September.

Preparation work was being done for a sound wall but it was "not completed when promised" because "sub-contractors failed to supply materials to continue work" ...

Other complaints are about trucks using roads. It got so frustrating that one resident threatened to stand in the street ...

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