Before a second Walter Taylor Bridge is built, the congestion at the Indooroopilly roundabout must first be addressed. This is the reaction of Councillor Julian Simmonds (Walter Taylor) after a #Taylor2 campaign was launched recently by Labor MP for Yeerongpilly Mark Bailey.
Some 100 people gathered at Graceville to voice out their demand for a secondary Walter Taylor bridge to handle the growing volume of traffic in the area.
Cr Simmonds maintained that constructing the duplicate Walter Taylor Bridge without fixing the Indooroopilly roundabout would only create a bigger bottleneck. He said that the council is already in the process of providing a solution for the heavy traffic in the one-lane Walter Taylor Bridge.
An integral part of resolving the traffic issue is the acquisition of the Witton Barracks site from the Department of Defence in 2015. The rehabilitation and development of the old Witton Barracks is a prerequisite to the duplication of the bridge.
Cr Simmonds explained that planning did not commence earlier because they first needed to get hold of the Witton Barracks location. The councillor is currently consulting residents to aid them in coming up with a draft plan of turning the former barracks area into a public park.
The council has also started to transform the Indooroopilly roundabout into a T-intersection to improve its traffic capacity. Cr Simmonds believes that completing this upgrade is needed to avoid worse congestion when eventually the duplicate Walter Taylor bridge is built.