A planning expert has reignited debate about the Riverside Expressway, telling members of the business community it should replaced by a tunnel to open up the north bank of the Brisbane River.

AECOM Australia and New Zealand design and planning managing director James Rosenwax said the Riverside Expressway was "strangling the city" and needed to go underground.

AECOM design and planning managing director James Rosenwax says Brisbane's Riverside Expressway should be put underground. Credit:Bradley Kanaris

And, while no formal study had taken place, he said it would likely pay for itself.

"I could almost put my life on the fact that if you pull that thing down, you would recover the probably $5 billion it would cost … in the transformation it would make to the city," Mr Rosenwax told a business lunch in Brisbane this week.