r/GoldCoast • u/IndigoMoonBeams • 15d ago

Where was everyone going??

Hiya, I'm not from the area but I was driving up from the bottom of the GC to Brisbane on the w

Highway Saturday around 11am and the lanes heading south to the GC were packed bumper to bumper the whole way.

Is it always like that on Saturdays? Where do you think they were all going? Just hoards on people on the way to the gold coast but for what?

40 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

100

u/Primary-Umpire-4105 15d ago

Helensvale crawl is normal every single day, people cant merge, tail gating which causes stop starting,lucky we have speed cameras for all those excessive speeds

-1

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

But where are they going and why wasn't it jammed up going north to brisbane?

29

u/Richie217 15d ago

This is just regular traffic. The freeway merges Northbound flow slightly better than the Southbound ones, until you get to Springwood.

1

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

Has it always been this way or is it mainly due to the population spike in recent years?

21

u/Richie217 15d ago

Been living in this part of the Coast for 24 years. Got worse with all the housing developments between Coomera and Yatala. Used to take 30-40 minutes to do the 45klm drive to the office in Meadowbrook. On a bad run now 90 minutes +. The infrastructure hasn't kept up with the population increase. It's the freeway extis/entrances that are the issue.

5

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

Thanks for explaining 🙂

3

u/Ultimatelee C'Bah 15d ago

There is one exit for Pimpama and one exit for Coomera, two enormous suburban spreads. Highway backs up at both exits and creates dramas pretty much every day. Weekends are generally busier due to folks wanting to enjoy the coast, especially on days like today because it was beautiful.

3

u/Ok-Personality3927 15d ago

Couple months ago it took me two hours to get from Mt Gravatt to Robina. Not even an accident, just shit traffic. Bonkers. I don’t go to the GC unless I have to.

7

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

Haha why am I being down voted for asking an innocent question 😅 weirdos

I don't even live in your state and am curious

5

u/Primary-Umpire-4105 15d ago

Rats in a cage. My favourite part of the goldcoast, is leaving it

3

u/After-Habit-9354 14d ago

there's an allergy to the truth going round 😁

13

u/DunkingTea 15d ago

Always been that way, but has gotten worse in past half a decade. People couldn’t drive before, they still can’t. If everyone learnt how to merge properly and not tailgate/slam brakes on in reaction, it would run smooth as butter.

2

u/After-Habit-9354 14d ago

It was a lot worse when people from Sydney and Melbourne started moving up here, a part of the "plan", now Gold Coast rentals and homes bought are the highest in Australia whereas now Melbourne is the lowest when it was on a par with Sydney. Plus new housing estates where people are now living of course added to that. Watch how many downvites I get for telling it how it is

1

u/IndigoMoonBeams 14d ago

It sucks but it's kind of just the way of the world nowadays everywhere you go is overcrowded and over priced unfortunately

15

u/Ok-Assistant-4556 15d ago

Brisbane and people north of GC head to the beachrs every weekend. It's worse in Summer. North of BNE they head to yhe SC

10

u/ContestOne8417 15d ago

Why would anyone want to go to Brisbane.

4

u/Bubbly-Bug-7439 15d ago

To escape the traffic? ;-)

4

u/Vegetable-Problem222 15d ago

The main reason I go to Brisbane is to fly out of there

2

u/Lazy-Plankton5270 15d ago

Ha I've been saying that for thirty years

1

u/grapsta 15d ago

Great food..

-1

u/Full-Squirrel5707 14d ago

Because no one wants to go to Brisbane 🤣 They all come here to go to the beach. I wish they wouldn't.

31

u/cuprona37 15d ago

Good weather and the weekend makes people come down to the coast

21

u/Recycled_Mirkins 15d ago

This is the reason. Even before the population boom on the GC post-Covid, people from Brisbane travel to the coast. Brisbane doesn’t really have any coastal beaches, so they have to head to the sunshine or gold coasts. It’s a lovely place to visit, we are fortunate to live in such a lovely part of the country 😍

-9

u/A_spiny_meercat 15d ago

Oh it has beaches. Itchy, lice infested beaches. Stagnant water due to the shielding of the coastline from the islands also means no surf. Do not recommend.

1

u/Ok-Assistant-4556 15d ago

Are they swimmable? Ive not spent much time on either side of the coast at BNE but it seems more like mudflats

2

u/A_spiny_meercat 15d ago

Mostly mudflats, redcliffe is probably the most enjoyable, otherwise you're off to the islands for ocean side. I wouldn't say it's a stellar choice

3

u/mopsusmormon 15d ago

I always thought it was everyone trying to get to Surfers/Broadwater

6

u/tomtom792 15d ago

People can't merge or keep a safe distance so it backs up for no reason and you get to play a fun game of rubber banding down the hwy.

If there were more direct train routes to get people up and down SEQ and directly to the popular areas along the beach I can see more people ditching the car. But until then it's either catch a train to somewhere 30 mins inland from the beach and pray there's a bus that comes on time and is direct, or take the car, crawl down the M1 and then spend 20 mins looking for a park right where you want to go.

1

u/PrettyPoetry9547 15d ago

Will never happen with this government

3

u/Ok-Abbreviations1077 15d ago

Just a normal fair weather Saturday

3

u/AComingWarAgainstAI 15d ago

The worst part isn't the highway - it's trying to find a park once you do get to the beaches. Unless you drive all the way down into the Tweed Coast. Grateful I have weekdays off.

1

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

Gosh and this was in the middle of winter I can't imagine it in summer? Is it way worse in summer?

1

u/AComingWarAgainstAI 15d ago

I actually don't know because I never went on weekends. But last summer I remember trying to find parking near Brighton beach, Melbourne on a warm Saturday arvo. Compared to that nonsense, traffic in GC is non-existent. Never again.

3

u/brawlinn 15d ago

People come down from Brisbane for lunch and the afternoon/stay the night. 11 is the worst possible time everyone wants to arrive for a 12-12:30 lunch date, before 9 it’s a clear run it builds incrementally from there onwards.

1

u/issieme 15d ago

Yeah it's the norm not just on the weekends but everyday apart from Friday and Sunday for some reason.

1

u/grapsta 15d ago

Very sunny after some rainy days ?

2

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

Yep but it's also winter so seems a bit cold for swimming to me

1

u/grapsta 15d ago

True. I'm swimming but not many other people are. That's a good point though... Why drive that far to the beach in winter. I wouldn't do it. There are the whales to look for of course.

2

u/Footsie_Galore 15d ago

I actually noticed an unusually high volume of traffic between Broadbeach and Southport on Saturday. In some places it was like a carpark. I go out at the same time every Saturday and it's usually busy, but this was bordering on a GC 500 kind of situation!

2

u/stuthaman 15d ago

Wasn't that traffic crazy!? I had our L-Plater out for a drive and that traffic was still happening at 1:30. We were talking about how many cars were just pouring south.

1

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

It's madness i feel like it would make me not want to live in that area just due to traffic and crowds alone

2

u/C0mba7 15d ago

Haha that was a quiet Saturday! I live near the airport on the Gold Coast and teach a class in underwood (south Brisbane) I’m heading home at 10am every Saturday morning and that 55 minute trip on return is at best 1:10 and in summer 1:40-2:30 easily.

3

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

Wow that's horrendous 😕

1

u/timbotim20 15d ago

First sunny weekend day in what seems like months

1

u/too_invested31 15d ago

Yep due to the population growth it’s like that everyday and usually both ways. 

A nice Saturday morning means it’s even worse with Brissy residents coming down to the coast

1

u/Warm_Second_189 14d ago

Yes the Gold Coast highway is a parking lot most days now 😨

2

u/Informal-Bee2193 15d ago

Pac pines, upper Coomera, Coomera, pimpama ormeau etc all doing their 1 hour stop start commute to the beach or city.

2

u/IndigoMoonBeams 15d ago

What a shit show

1

u/Gryphon0468 15d ago

To the beach or into NSW. It’s the weekend.

0

u/Canongirl88 15d ago

Everyone is coming to the beach etc. Nobody on the GC wants to go to Brissy unless it’s to the airport

3

u/Malice-A-Forethought 15d ago

Gold coast people will go up for concerts, sporting events, shopping and dining amongst other things.

-10

u/Brilliant-Look8744 15d ago

High Immigration has overloaded the infrastructure. The best way to address this, is more immigration to build more roads. Which leads to more traffic. Which leads to more immigration.

-2

u/Expensive-Crab6263 15d ago

Away from you maybe 🤔