A $500,000 business case is now underway to examine options for duplicating or replacing the E.G.W. Wood Bridge at Tingalpa Creek on Rickertt Road, a project that residents and commuters across the northern Redlands have been calling for across multiple decades of suburban growth.
The state funding puts a formal investigation into motion for one of the region’s most stubborn traffic pinch points.
A dedicated project team is leading the business case to examine the cost and complexity of both duplicating the existing bridge and upgrading the single-lane sections on the southern Redlands side and the northern Brisbane side of the creek, assessing what a full corridor solution will actually require and cost.
A bridge that was never built for this much traffic
The E.G.W. Wood Bridge carries Rickertt Road across Tingalpa Creek at the boundary between Thorneside in Redland City and Ransome on the Brisbane side. The surrounding corridor has long been a notorious bottleneck for the northern Redlands.
Commuters describe it as a crucial route out of the northern Redlands that becomes highly congested during peak hours and vulnerable to severe weather.
Prior preliminary corridor assessments have been explored over the years, but the project has not advanced to construction. The state commitment to fund the business case sets the process back into motion with a formal and fundable brief.
Some community members note that the bridge’s most significant contribution to Capalaba congestion relates specifically to where Rickertt Road meets the broader arterial network at Greencamp Road, rather than the bridge itself in isolation.
Previous analysis shows that duplicating the bridge alone without addressing the Greencamp Road section risks moving the bottleneck rather than eliminating it, which is precisely why the business case scope covers the full corridor from Thorneside to Greencamp Road.
The next steps for planning and design
The scope of the business case will determine the cost-benefit analysis of either replacing or duplicating the existing bridge and upgrading the single-lane sections on both the southern side in Redland City and the northern side in Brisbane. Representative Julie Talty said the purpose is to give key decision-makers a clear picture of the challenges and costs involved before committing to construction.
That is the function of a business case: to build the evidence base for a funding decision and give planners the technical information needed to design a solution that actually works. For a corridor that crosses two local authority boundaries, that complexity is real and the analysis genuinely matters.
The business case is now underway. Construction timelines and costs will follow once the analysis is complete.
Published 8-May-2026
Featured Image Credit: Google Maps
