The absence of a publicly available cost benefit analysis for the proposed Bus and Train (BAT) Tunnel project in Brisbane raises a couple of obvious questions. The first is the simplest.
The previous Cross River Rail (CRR) proposal was expected to cost around $6.4 billion to construct. At this stage the BAT Tunnel is expected to cost around $5 billion. Queenslanders save $1.4 billion right?
Financially they do. But without a full CBA we cannot know what benefits are being left on the table. If more than $1.4 billion in benefits under CRR are not realised in the BAT Tunnel we are actually reducing the net economic benefit of getting a decent public transport solution.
How would we know?
