Ministers letter

 Australia's largest tunnelling machines on order for Airport Link

15th August 2008

Part extract

The two largest boring machines to ever operate in Australia moved a step closer to starting work beneath Brisbane streets following the signing of a $90 million contract today.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Planning Paul Lucas said the signing of the contract between Thiess John Holland and German company Herrenknecht was a major step forward for the massive Airport Link road and tunnel project.

"When complete, this project will allow motorists to bypass 18 sets of traffic lights between Bowen hills and the Airport, cutting the trip to as little as nine minutes,"  Mr Lucas said.

"Combined with the construction of the next stage of the Northern Busway from Windsor to Kedron and the Airport Drive connection flyover this is the biggest road and tunnel project in Australia's history."

Mr lucas said each of the tunnel boring machines would chew through around 85m of rock a week.

"These state-of-the art tunnelling wonders will be specially designed and manufactured in Germany for use on Airport Link."

Mr Lucas said both tunnel boring machines would be launched from Toombul and drill Airport Link's east-west connection to Kedron.

He said the final design for Airport Link featured significantly more tunneling than originally planned, which was good news for motorists and locals alike.

"Using more underground tunnels to build Airport Link reduces the amount of surface works, which means less disruption for local communities and less impact on traffic."

Unlike the North-South Bypass Tunnel, Airport Link has connections going east-west as well as north-south.  And work on the larger and longer tunnel that runs north-south from Bowen Hills to Toombul will start by the end of this year.

"The good news is that BrisConnections believes it can complete work on all three projects by mid 2012 - six months ahead of the State Governments original plans."