THE Mandurah City Council will need to come up with an additional $500,000 to get the proposed pedestrian bridge spanning Mandurah Road off the ground.
At a Special Council meeting on Tuesday night, councillors voted in favour of sourcing $500,000 from within the City’s budget to get the project started.
“It is so important to get people safely from one point to another without having to dash across the road,” councillor Lyn Rogers said.
The Mandurah Road Footbridge is intended to provide safe, convenient pedestrian and cyclist access between the east and west sides of Mandurah Road and the Mandurah Train Station.
Given the Central Park affordable housing development is currently under way on the east side of Mandurah Road, the proposed footbridge has been flagged as a “major benefit” to those new residents.
Councillor Dave Schumacher questioned why the initial budget had blown out by $500,000 while Cr Rogers suggested approaching Landcorp for the funding given their interests in the Central Park development.
Mandurah City chief executive said he was “not hopeful” Landcorp would provide the funding and said by entering into a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) agreement with McConnell Dowell Constructors (Australia) Pty Ltd, the selected supplier for construction, that the price could be maintained.
The $6.1m construction figure would take into account $150,000 in a rail shutdown for the works to go ahead, but Mr Newman said he was still hopeful the City could avoid that fee altogether.
Should the outcome between the City of Mandurah and McConnell Dowell Constructions result in the GMP, the City would commit a total $1.15m to the project, given $615,000 was already promised earlier this year.
According to the City’s Strategic Community Plan 2013-2033, the footbridge is essential to help build the community’s confidence in Mandurah as a safe and secure City and facilitate the provision of an integrated and expanded public transport network.
With the current parking crisis the Mandurah Train Station is facing, the footbridge could potentially ease that problem with more commuters electing to arrive at the station by foot or on a bike.
