Fraser Coast Integrated Transport Strategy, planning

The region has a diverse and expanding community and economy. As the region grows, the people who live, visit, and work in the region are changing their travel patterns and their expectations of the transport system.

The scope of this planning project is to identify the communities' current and future transport priorities. These short, medium and long-term priorities will be identified from technical assessments and public feedback.

The Fraser Coast population is predicted to grow from 118,505 to 151,070 people over the next 25 years. The community is welcoming large numbers of retirees and new families to support growth in advanced manufacturing, construction, tourism, and other industries.

This planning project will help the department and council respond to the challenges and opportunities for this growing community by prioritising future planning and investment needs for transport infrastructure over the short, medium and long-term to 2050. The strategy will consider the constraints of the current transport network, land use, how to maintain liveability, and facilitate all transport modes including freight, passenger, public transport, and active transport.

Developing a community informed transport strategy takes time and community engagement. Current land use and transport studies for the Fraser Coast indicate that a wide range of transport needs are present in the community and that there are many options available to meet the community’s transport needs into the future. To ensure all transport options are considered, it’s important to understand how community members move around the region, and what they think the community needs.

Outcomes from community engagement activities (including a survey) will inform the strategy. In turn, the strategy will be used by both the department and council to inform and prioritise future transport and land use decisions aimed at improving community connectivity and support population and economic growth in the Fraser Coast.

The department is in the first stage of the community engagement and consultation, which will be followed by further stages to develop a feasible strategy by:

• developing our understanding — community conversations to explain the project and a survey to understand how we move now and how we will move into the future
• analysing the feedback — preliminary findings shared with our community and key stakeholders to confirm our focus on feasible options
• refining and confirming our understanding – draft strategy published for community and key stakeholder feedback
• reporting our understanding — final strategy published.

We are committed to 5 yearly reviews of the strategy to 2050. The strategy needs to be revised regularly to respond to emerging issues.