The lord mayor told 612 ABC breakfast host Spencer Howson he would be among the first motorists to venture through on Thursday night. An artist impression of the western entrance of Legacy Way "I will go through but I won't be the first one through," he said. "I'll be there to give a little bit of a wave through in the first instance." Work on the $1.5 billion tunnel started in April 2011 and had been expected to be open by late 2014.

Speaking to Fairfax Media on Wednesday, Cr Quirk appeared frustrated by the delay but said he had been encouraged by "whispers" from the tunnel's certifiers that its opening was imminent. About 80,000 systems checks needed to be performed before Legacy Way could be opened to the public. "There's too many players and it only takes one of them to hold you up and it blows you out of the water," Cr Quirk said. The tunnel will be Brisbane's most expensive toll road. Motorists will pay $4.85 for the four minute trip by May next year, however as an incentive to try Legacy Way, car drivers will initially pay $3 a trip, with an increase to $3.90 by November.

The tunnel is expected to significantly relieve congestion on two of Brisbane's most notorious commuter bottlenecks, Milton Road and Coronation Drive. "Milton Road and Coronation Drive will be the beneficiaries of this facility but whether it will come as early as tomorrow morning, I don't think so, but certainly in the coming days as people get familiar with it," he said. Legacy Way's opening will bring to an end the LNP administration's TransApex program of tunnels and bridges, which formed the centrepiece of former lord mayor Campbell Newman's 2004 election pledges. The Clem7 was opened in March 2010, the state government took on Airport Link and opened it in July 2012 and the Go Between Bridge was opened in July 2010. The proposed East-West Link, between the Western Freeway at Toowong and the Pacific Motorway at Buranda, would have been the final TransApex project, but it has been shelved in favour of upgrades to Kingsford Smith Drive and Wynnum Road.

Cr Quirk said while the East-West Link had not been entirely removed from the city's future infrastructure plans, it was unlikely to occur any time in the near future. "It won't happen in my political lifetime, that's for sure, there is just no business case for it," he said. "It won't be removed from the books but it won't be any time soon, that's for sure. "There needs to be enough evidence to say there will be a reasonable take-up of the facility and at this stage it's just not there." With Cameron Atfield