In a bid to encourage more Gold Coasters off the road and onto public transport, Coomera Station is getting a huge upgrade which will see over 1000 car parking spaces available to commuters.
An extra 74 spots are about to open, with stage 1 of the project to be complete by next month.
While stage 2 will deliver 435 spaces in a brand-new car park, and Stage 3 will reconfigure the existing car park to lift the available spaces to over 1000 by early 2023.
State Transport Minister Mark Bailey says the upgrades are incredibly important to keep up with the City’s booming population.
“A big part of encouraging more people onto public transport is providing options for accessing frequent train services,” Minister Bailey says.
“The availability of car parking spaces to get on the train network is really important, we’ll only see more and more passengers using the trains and being able to conveniently drop the car and get on the train – it’s something really important to keep cars off the M1.”
The upgrades are part of the $17 million dollar package, jointly funded by the State Government and the Commonwealth.
The project will also include increased disability parking, a new bus layover, a secure bike shelter and lockers, safer footpaths and upgraded lighting as well as improved CCTV.
It comes as new census data shows that around 68% of Gold Coasters don’t use public transport, with the local and State Government desperately trying to change that.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate says it’s important to make transport easily accessible, especially to the growing area of the Northern Gold Coast.
“An initiative like this shows that we really want people to utilise public transport post covid, the confidence is back,” Mayor Tate says.
“Understandably, with the pandemic, people are standoffish and wearing masks, but now that’s over, we’re getting on with life,
“So the key initiative now between the State and City Council is that we want people to use public transport.”
Delivering the upgrades in stages allows the existing spaces to stay available and minimise the impact on the nearly 15,000 commuters who use Coomera station each week.
