Brisbane City Council has decide to scrap the $20 million tidal flow traffic monitoring system which automatically switches the traffic direction for the middle of Coronation Drive's five lanes. Nt only will the $20 million be a waste of tax payers money, but it will also cost between $500,000 and $1 million to remove the system.

This announcement follows stories that the traffic flow system guiding 30,000 vehicles a day was breaking down three times a month and costing ratepayers $600,000 a year in maintenance. Infrastructure Committee chairman Cr Graham Quirk said the decision came as Brisbane City Council faced a $3 million overhaul of the system in the next three years.

"In the longer term we will be reverting one of the lanes inbound to a T2," he said. Cr Quirk described the tidal flow system, introduced by the Labor administration in 2002, as a "costly failure". "We know that three times in a month the system fails in the peak hour and that has caused great frustration for Brisbane motorists and knocked out a lane out through the whole corridor."  Cr Quirk said there was also anecdotal information of motorists getting confused between the traffic lights and the tidal monitoring system.

Council Opposition Leader Cr Shayne Sutton questioned the impact on the increased traffic along Coronation Drive caused by Hale Street Link project. "We are expecting 50-minute delays on Coronation Drive during the construction phase," Cr Sutton said.

She asked why a T-2 lane was being re-introduced when Lord Mayor Campbell Newman removed the T-3 lane last year against the advice of council officers. Cr Quirk response is that Brisbane City Council's research showed buses would flow better with a T2 lane in place than with a T3 lane. "It is because where the buses are being delayed are not in Coronation Drive, but back in High Street and Moggill Road (in Toowong)," Cr Quirk said.