April 9, 2021
KAP Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, has joined dozens of Mareeba and Tablelands residents on Wednesday to protest the ongoing Barron River Bridge fiasco which is continuing to see intense traffic congestion and delays as viability assessment work continues.
“The rally was yet another demonstration of the people’s rage; over 60,000 people being trapped.”
At the rally, Mr Katter slammed the State Government for failing to act on alternative arrangements calling for immediate attention and resources to be thrown at developing engineering plans for the Bridle Track/Ron Reddicliffe Highway.
“What we need is $1.6 million from the feds and $1.6 million from the State Government to assess the project.
“There are 50,000 people on the Atherton Tablelands and another 10,000 on the Hinterland (Normanton, Georgetown and everywhere else) that live by ease of access to Cairns.
“At present it is about 55km to go through Kuranda but 10km of that is through suburban and industrial centres in Cairns. “
The current highway suffers dislocations and disruptions and very, very slow traffic times. It is more than an hour one way and what could be 20 minutes the other way is well over an hour now with the hold ups on the bridge.
“What in heaven’s name are we doing? We need to just build the Bridle Track where the highway should have gone in the first place. It’s a straight line from Mareeba to Cairns.
“Kuranda road should be a leisurely, beautiful, tourist drive but in its present state it is just a complete disaster.
“I don’t think anyone wants us to cut into the jungle to make that road all-weather and what we are proposing is a beautiful tourist road.
“The time has come; Shane Knuth has already got the ball rolling and anyone who stands in our way will be bowled over!”
The rally took place at Centenary/Hundreds Park in Mareeba and people attending wore hi-visual clothing, so they were not invisible in Brisbane.