U/C» AirportLink Tunnel + Northern Busway [Bris Connections]

[bne123]

Originally Posted by Brisbane Child

No! I am a doctor in RCH Herston

I aint letting my kids going to hospital there

[-spam-]

Hmm... looks like I missed out on a bit of fun today. One moment the kid says he is going to become an architect, the next that he works for QLD Health at Kedron and now, he is a doctor at the RBH

Is it just me or has he been shown one of these?



Oh and in a lame attempt to bring us back on topic, even my mum had something to say about the Bris Connections share fiasco yesterday (when does she not...). Interesting that there was a bit of a delay in it becoming a report worthy news story. Personally, anyone who bought shares at the reduced price should have known about the future instalments and if they didn't bother to find out, then they shouldn't be trading on the stock market.

[aussieguy2001]

Sensor stuff-up floods tunnel

A faulty sensor has been blamed for flooding Brisbane's Inner City Bypass this morning, leaving motorists stranded, vehicles under water and causing traffic gridlock.

Brisbane City Council has confirmed a telemetric sensor system designed to detect water in the tunnel and activate a series of pumps failed, leaving the tunnel defenceless as 11 megalitres of water poured inside.

A council spokesman said the cause of the failure had not yet been determined.

Emergency crews will spend all day draining the major arterial thoroughfare, which will be closed for at least 10 hours.

It is understood construction giant Leighton Contractors, which built the ICB, is responsible for maintaining the sensor system.

Comment is being sought from the company, whose offices are based just several hundred metres from the bypass, on Milton's Coronation Drive.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said the ICB's sensor system early this morning indicated water removal pumps were working when they were not.

A spokesman said civic authorities were not expecting any major structural damage to the ICB, however the clearing of mud may take some time.

It is not expected to reopen until at least 9pm.

The incident only added to the pain felt by peak hour commuters across Brisbane and the south-east corner, where scores of road closures and rail disruptions made for a horror run in to work.

The council's landmark Clem 7 tunnel, underneath the Brisbane River, escaped unscathed, however.

"Tunnelling continued last night and continues today," a spokesman for contractor RiverCity Motorways said earlier.

"Some of our guys are actually over helping council with the Inner City Bypass."

Premier Anna Bligh said she had "no idea" where water removed from the flooded ICB would be taken.

"That's the main question indeed," Ms Bligh said.

"I imagine it could end up in the Brisbane River, as it is that close."

I said this would happen from the very start and the fact that we are still willing to piss away insane amounts of money on tunneling underground is just phenomenal. I just cant think of a bigger waste of money!

[SoulVision]

Driving past the Airport entrance of the tunnel. Things are happening.







Northern busway driveby...

[SoulVision]

WIND-up bid ... Airport Link rebel unitholder Nick Bolton.

Fallback plan for BrisConnections Airport Link project
Tony Grant-Taylor and Patrick Lion | March 26, 2009 11:00pm | CM

THE Bligh Government has finally admitted it is making contingency plans in case the beleaguered Airport Link toll tunnel project goes belly up.

Premier Anna Bligh yesterday admitted for the first time the Government was considering all potential outcomes relating to the nation's largest infrastructure project.

A rebel unitholder, faced with a massive $154 million liability on the partly paid units of BrisConnections, the Airport Link owner, has requisitioned a unitholder's meeting in a bid to wind up the group.

The Victorian Supreme Court was told this week that if investor Nick Bolton was successful, BrisConnections' $4 billion-plus funding package would collapse.

Mr Bolton has argued that winding up the company would leave unitholders, who face a $1 a unit call on their investment on April 29 which many will not be able to pay, better off.

BrisConnections, by contrast, has said such a move would wipe out any value in the group, while not relieving the unitholders of their liability to meet the April call on the units and another due early next year.

"We are giving consideration to all of the possible outcomes of this," Ms Bligh said yesterday.

"But our legal advice indicates the financial underwriting of (Airport Link) is secure.

"It is fully financially underwritten by major banks. But given that there is legal action occurring, you'd expect the Queensland Government to do everything in our power to protect every part of this project.

"That's what we're doing. We're not leaving anything to chance."

She gave no details of what the state's "plan B" might entail.

BrisConnections brought this week's case, the result of which is not expected at least for a week or so, to try to block Mr Bolton's winding-up attempt, which is currently scheduled to be put to a unitholders' meeting on April 9.

Even if the meeting goes ahead, he will need to get 75 per cent of votes cast - not an easy task - to wind up the company.

If he is successful, however, the Government will almost certainly have to step in to keep the project, which is well under way, going.

Airport Link already employs about 1200 people directly and was expected to create as many as 10,000 direct and indirect jobs through to planned completion in 2012.

If BrisConnections goes under, the state can take back its 45-year concession to run Airport Link and call for new tenders for the project.

But it would undoubtedly not get the same deal it got from BrisConnections, which funded the project before the global credit crisis really bit.

New bank funding, even if it could be found, would be much more expensive, banking sources say.