The City of Stirling has released its anticipated and award-winning trackless tram business case report, revealing an estimated $860 million cost, which is now in the hands of the Federal Government to consider.
The extensive 675-page report was passed by council at Tuesday’s meeting 10-1 with Cr Elizabeth Re the sole voter against.
The report was developed by urban planners Urbis, following a $2m Federal Government grant to the City of Stirling in 2021 to develop the business case report. The city listed it had spent $1.98m on costs, including the report and trackless tram trial last year.
Stirling CEO Stevan Rodic will now share the business case with the State and Federal governments to advocate for the implementation of the project and city officers will continue to work with State Government agencies to improve public transport options in the Scarborough Beach Road Activity Corridor.
The Scarborough Beach Road Activity Corridor extends 7km from Glendalough to Scarborugh Beach and was noted in the report as “one of Perth’s most congested and under-developed urban areas”.
In the report, the mid-tier transit option of a trackless tram with priority lanes was indicated as the “greatest transformational impact versus cost and construction”.
The report also noted that transport and related issues in the activity corridor cost a total of $50.8m per annum, which is considered a “problem of national significance”, according to Infrastructure Australia, with the trackless tram system noted as having a $586m value over 30 years.
A base price was estimated at $567m, growing as high as $860m, including an estimated construction cost of $274m.
Cr Re spoke against the business case, arguing that “the bus system we have now works very well down Scarborough Beach Road, very rarely full”, and also stated the money would be better spent in the community.
However, her comments regarding the spend was shut down by mayor Mark Irwin, who stressed the money would not come from the city.
“This is a $2m business case, funded by the Federal Government, because it’s seen as a project of national significance,” he sad.
“There is no intent for this council to spend money, the council has never said it is going to implement any sort of public transport system, this is an advocacy piece for better transport for our community.”
Mr Irwin praised the council, city and its officers in pushing the business case forward by lobbying the Federal Government for innovative transport solutions.
“It was this council that, in an eight week period, with your support went to China and bought the first trackless tram back to Australia here to the City of Stirling,” he said.
“Within eight weeks, our team discussed with two local organisations who developed an off-grid charging system in our carpark to charge a piece of Chinese infrastructure.
“A vehicle that had never been in a southern hemisphere had now been submitted for national certification so it can go on Australian roads.
“The business case has been developed, and it is shown that something like a trackless tram could be delivered. While $800m sounds like a lot of money to us, put that in comparison to a current light rail project of the same magnitude, which is between $4 billion and $6b.”
The business case proposed an operational start of 2030-2031.
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