11.18 pm, Thursday May 24 2012

Ex-mayor, meter maids against light rail

16:17 AEDT Thu Feb 9 2012
Tony Bartlett
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A bunch of bikini girls, a former Elvis impersonator and an ex-mayor have joined forces to halt the Gold Coast's $1.8 billion light rail project.

Mayoral candidate and former Elvis impersonator Dean Vegas wants to rip up the contracts and build a monorail instead.

The man who would be king of the coast says light rail would choke traffic through the heart of the tourist strip.

The city's meter maids have also joined the fight, threatening to chain themselves to Surfers Paradise palm trees to stop construction going ahead.

The girls have thrown their gold bikinis behind former mayor Lex Bell, a candidate for Surfers Paradise in the coming local government elections.

Mr Bell, who organised a protest on Thursday, wants to put the scheme on hold for 12 months and hold yet another study to find an alternative route that wouldn't disrupt businesses.

Mr Vegas says the whole scheme is a white elephant and should be scrapped.

"If we do not stop this project now, it has the potential to be the biggest waste of money in the history of the Gold Coast," he said.

The fact that construction began more than a year ago would be no obstacle because the work so far has been to move infrastructure, and the light rail could easily be replaced by a monorail, he says.

Gold Coast Tourism boss Martin Winter represented community interests on the committee that assessed options for the light rail project, which will create around 6300 jobs.

While it's inevitable the construction phase will cause some pain, he said he could personally guarantee light rail was the best long-term solution to the city's future traffic management and passenger transport needs.

"One only needs to visit any number of progressive 21st century cities around the world to see what a fabulous transformation it will make," he told AAP.

 

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