Is the new Motorway out of date?
THE upgraded Ipswich Motorway is only a few months old, but there is already evidence it is well on the way to being out of date.
Crowds of cars particularly in peak hour have the Transport and Main Roads department already talking of the need for more lanes.
But the department says the motorway will be able to handle twice the vehicles it carries now before it gets to that point.
The motorway upgrade from Dinmore to Goodna was designed to increase capacity, improve traffic flow and reduce congestion.
But while it is a big improvement on the 'car park' conditions of its previous incarnation, there are signs that traffic snarls aren't far away.
As an example, all three lanes are full of cars around Goodna heading towards Brisbane around 7am on weekdays.
A Transport and Main Roads spokeswoman said about 90,000 vehicles used the Ipswich Motorway between Dinmore and Goodna each day.
The spokeswoman said the motorway would be able to carry "almost double that number from Dinmore and Goodna, which we're not expecting to reach until about 2032".
"The upgrade was also designed so it could be expanded to eight lanes in the future by changing the current line markings and adjusting the lane widths," the spokesman said.
The State LNP has called for the full upgrade of the motorway including the section from Darra to Rocklea, which Labor promised before the 2007 federal election.
"Just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, Ipswich motorists are hitting a brick wall and stuck in a slow crawl when they get to Darra," Member for Ipswich Ian Berry said.
"It is time for Shayne Neumann to honour his promise to the people of Ipswich by committing immediately to providing federal funds for a full upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway.
"Anything less will mean that tens of thousands of Ipswich residents who commute to Brisbane every day will continue to sit in traffic jams because of Labor's broken promise."
Mr Neumann said he had "lobbied the Prime Minister very hard to do the Darra to Rocklea section of the motorway".
He also said Transport and Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese "strongly wants to look at that in the next funding round in the Nation Building Program".
"It's too blocked up and so I am lobbying very hard - as is Bernie Ripoll - for that final section to be completed," Mr Neumann said.
"The other aspect is it gets very busy between 6.30am and 8.30am between Dinmore and Goodna."
