Car-dependent Gold Coast faces a public transport 'pivot point' amid growing congestion.
Professor Burke said the Gold Coast is "no longer a teenage city", with a growing population of about 640,000 making congestion "pretty serious".
He said the light rail as an alternative mode has been "the most spectacularly boring success story in Australian public transport".
Shannon said public transport along the Gold Coast Highway has been "pretty good" but "if you want to go anywhere else on the Gold Coast don't even bother with the bus it'll take too long".
Gold Coast City Council has committed $11 million to subsidise new bus routes in the north while a $600,000 study will investigate connecting more public transport links from the light rail service to the western suburbs.
"If all they see public transport as being is the light rail down the Gold Coast Highway, then their attitude would be towards 'we need better road upgrades to reduce congestion so I can continue driving my car'.".
"That means you accelerate light rail stage four all the way to Coolangatta, [while the] east-west connection should happen at the same time," he said.
A PhD scholarship run by Griffith University's Transport Research Group has been funded by the City of Gold Coast
A spokesperson for the Department of Transport and Main Roads said the study into east-west bus routes would "consider options to enhance east-west connections between heavy rail and light rail and improve reliability of public transport"
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