Port tram faces its final stop
The Entertainment Centre tram stop. Photo: Nat Rogers/InDaily
The long-touted Port Adelaide tram extension looks like a dead proposition with the Transport Department approving a plan to build a café at the end of the Entertainment Centre tram stop.
A $520 million plan to extend the tram down to Semaphore and West Lakes was put on the agenda by Premier Mike Rann in 2010 – but it was later scrapped in the 2012 Budget.
On Thursday state public transport head Bill Fragoulis hinted the café proposal signified the extension might never be put on the agenda again.
“We’ve just given approval to build a cafe right at the end of the Entertainment Centre, so I don’t know what that means in terms of continuing that tram line,” said Fragoulis, the executive director of Public Transport Services at the Department of Planning, Transport, and Infrastructure.
Asked at a public transport forum whether the department had any plans to extend the tram line, Fragoulis said he personally would like to see the service extended but the café probably meant that wouldn’t happen.
“With the tram network, that’s why I was really careful in saying we’ve just given approval at the Entertainment Centre to build a cafe right at the end.
“I don’t know what that says. I’d like more extensions to the tram network, and we’re still evaluating whether tram is the way to go all the way out to Outer Harbour, to Port Adelaide.
“I’ve heard tram to North Adelaide, I’ve heard tram up to Norwood Parade, but at the moment nothing concrete has come of it.”
Port Adelaide Mayor Gary Johanson described the café decision as woefully short-sighted.
“Anyone that would consider putting a cafeteria against the end of a tram track, to me that would be just ridiculous,” he said.
“That’s so short-sighted it doesn’t even hardly rate a comment.
“They’ve gone completely quiet on the whole thing. Mike Rann had such a passion to create this for the Port. I can remember the launch of it down at Semaphore.
“With them (Rann’s administration) out of the equation effectively, there just appears to be no interest at all in it.”
Entertainment Centre management told InDaily they were unaware of the café proposal and they not involved in the plans.
The Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure did not respond to questions from InDaily before deadline.
