New Brisbane West bus system proposal

[somebody]

I have thought about a revamp of the 4xx routes.  Here is my proposal for the full time routes, including day time routes.



Basically:

• 444 uses Queen St Bus Station rather than King George Square Bus Station, remains as a BUZ.
• BUZ the 425.  Co-ordinate with the 444 for an 7-8 minute frequency as far as Indooroopilly School
• 430, 435, 445 no longer serve the city and have major changes
• 412 extends to cover all stops south of Benson St, Toowong and also covers 411 Hawken Drive service as 412 extension
• 402 serves limited stops
• Extends 433 to cover Kaliua St and Upper Brookfield part of 435 service on hourly trips, add 1 more trip per hour to current terminus for half hourly frequency on current route.
• 470 is broken up and western part is placed into King George Square Bus Station, and extends to cover 415's Stanley Tce service
• Longer operating hours remaining part of 435
• 476 trips converted into 475s
• 471 uses Ann St outbound for consistency with 475, and 475 uses Park Rd and Adelaide St inbound (eastbound)
• Extra trips on 468

New routes:

• BUZ Green Centenary route to City via Freeway, Milton Rd, King George Square
• BUZ Red Centenary route to UQ via Indooroopilly Shoppingtown Interchange, which subsumes 428
• Kenmore Rd bi-directional route to Indooroopilly Shoppingtown Interchange serving Lone Pine, Mandalay and Fig Tree Pocket Rd on half hourly frequency replacing 430 & 445 service

Removes:

• 411, 427, 428, 430, 445, 450, 451, 453, 454, 460, 463, 476, Western part of P88

Leaves alone:

• 414, 417  Not sure if there is any percentage in messing with these services

Costs:

• Add 2/hour 425 until 7pm Mon-Fri, 3/hour 7pm-11pm Mon-Fri and 3/hour 6am-11pm Sat-Sun.  Subtotal: 13*2*5 + 4*3*5 + 17*3*2 = 130+60+102 = 392
• Add 8/hour Centenary routes. Subtotal: 8*17*7 = 952
  
• 470 extension at 2/hour.  Subtotal = 238
  
• Longer 433 at 1/hour.  Subtotal = 119
  
• 430/445 loop at 2/hour.  Subtotal = 238
  
• Longer 412 (slightly) at 4/hour - compensated by removing the 411.
  
• Extra 4 operating hours on 435 per day.  Subtotal = 4*1*7 = 28
  
• Extra 468s.  Say 1/hour * 17 hours * 7 days.  Subtotal = 119
  

Total = 2058 extra trips
Savings:

• Remove 411 - roughly even with 412 extension
  
• Remove Western part of P88.  4/hour 13 hours x 7 days.  Subtotal = 364
  
• Remove 450 and 453 + evening 454: 2/hour equivalent.  Subtotal = 238
  
• Remove daytime 454 2/hour 13 hours x 5 days.  Subtotal = 130
  
• Remove 460.  2/hour x 6 days x 17 hours.  1/hour x 1 day x 14 hours.  Subtotal = 218
  
• Remove 427 and 428.  2/hour x 7 days x 15 hours.  Subtotal = 210
  
• Remove 430.  1/hour x 7 days x 17 hours.  Subtotal = 119
  
• Remove 445.  1/hour x 6 days x 12 hours.  Subtotal = 72
  
• Remove 451.  6/day x 5 days.  Subtotal = 30
  
• Remove 463.  22/day x 6 days.  Subtotal = 132
  

Total = 1513 less trips
  Net = 545 extra trips per week.
Potential opposition:

• 444 users beyond Indooroopilly who don't want to have to put up with the bus turnaround or who want to go to Roma St.  These people will now need to interchange at Toowong for a train service or possibly on Coronation Drive for a 412/433/417 service.
  
• 411 users on or near Gailey Rd who need to interchange or go via UQ to get to the city.  BUZ frequency may make up for this, or may not.
  
• Kailua St and Upper Brookfield (current 435) people need to interchange at Misty Morn for a 444 or take a massive detour around Kenmore South.  I'm not convinced about messing with this one.
  
• Green route people heading to Indooroopilly who now need to interchange for the red route.  Not sure if this is a problem.
  
• Red route people who don't have a direct CBD route anymore.
  
• 430/445 people who need to interchange to get beyond Indooroopilly shop.  Not sure if they will be upset because they are getting a better service.
  
• 435 people who are losing their daytime single seat to the city.
  
• 451 and 463 people who need to use an alternative service.  I am open to being convinced that these routes are required.  However the 468 + Mt Ommaney services seem to cover Sinnamon Park, and I'm not sure why you'd want to head to Goodna from Forest Lake.
  

-

Suggested costs are very approximate.  However, I find it hard to envisage that this proposal wouldn't boost patronage massively.  The extra fares would probably pay for most of if not more than the extra costs.  This isn't really a proposal assuming a clean sheet, it mostly sticks with existing stop locations, except for the Centenary revamp and probably one more stop on Clarence Rd, Indooroopilly, or Westminster Rd.

Attached is a Google Earth file which shows the routes more clearly.  Only one direction is shown for any given route.

EDIT: maths

[ozbob]

Marvellous, thanks for doing this and sharing.

[Golliwog]

Looks pretty good, although my nit pick is whats with removing the link between Indooroopilly and UQ? You've only left the 432 (which from the looks of it wasn't intentional, it was just forgotten about)

[somebody]

Looks pretty good, although my nit pick is whats with removing the link between Indooroopilly and UQ? You've only left the 432 (which from the looks of it wasn't intentional, it was just forgotten about)

The red route from Sumners Rd, Riverhills goes to UQ via Indooroopilly.

[#Metro]

Do you have the attached file.
A lot of work there! Thanks for sharing!

[somebody]

Do you have the attached file.
A lot of work there! Thanks for sharing!

Of course, but it's attached at the bottom of the OP. You can just click it to download, so I'm not sure I understand the question.

[aldonius]

I can't see the Google Earth file, I assume tramtrain is having the same problem.

[ozbob]

Right click and save the file.  It is a compressed KML file.  You need Google earth to read it.

See --> http://code.google.com/apis/kml/faq.html

[#Metro]

I can't see it. Sorry!
It might be blocked. Oh well. maybe it could be hosted on an external site...

[ozbob]

Right click and save the file.  It is a compressed KML file.  You need Google earth to read it.

See --> http://code.google.com/apis/kml/faq.html

Download Google earth here --> http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/

Then open the kmz file you have saved locally.

[somebody]

So long as you have Google Earth installed, you should be able to just double click the link and select "Open".

[Golliwog]

I get the whole google earth thing, but I can't see any link or attached file. I don't mind though, I'm not looking for it.

As for the UQ-Indro thing, ok looking closely I can kind of see that on the map now. Apparently I'm red-green colour blind but its never really effected me before. And as it turns out if I read the OP properly it was mentioned in there too.

Ok that works. But I just wonder, if the red BUZ is going to UQ what would be wrong with changing the red BUZ to be an extension of the 412 BUZ? the 428 route to Indro which the red BUZ would be following covers most of the 411 route but instead of terminating at Toowong, it would provide an interchange at Indooroopilly. I'm just not a big fan of the 1 way loop where going one way it heads all the way into the City but the other way you have to interchange to get there. You would still have to interchange at Indro, but you would at least add a new destination to the route.

[Gazza]

I have the same problem too...where is the actual link in the post? I cant see anything. Is it meant to appear at the bottom or something?

[somebody]

Link circled in image below.  Note that you need to click on the real link, not the one in the image below.



Does that help?

Ok that works. But I just wonder, if the red BUZ is going to UQ what would be wrong with changing the red BUZ to be an extension of the 412 BUZ? the 428 route to Indro which the red BUZ would be following covers most of the 411 route but instead of terminating at Toowong, it would provide an interchange at Indooroopilly. I'm just not a big fan of the 1 way loop where going one way it heads all the way into the City but the other way you have to interchange to get there. You would still have to interchange at Indro, but you would at least add a new destination to the route.

Problem with that is that Hawken Drive is then only connected to Toowong via UQ.

[#Metro]

See. We actually don't see that. We see nothing where you have the circle.
Might be better to be externally hosted on a filesharing site.

[aldonius]

--begin pitch--
With regards to file sharing/hosting sites - Dropbox is wonderful. 2GB free, extra if you refer new users, or are an education user. It can sync and back up files, Mac/Windows/Linux/iOS/Android etc.
--end pitch--

[somebody]

http://www.4shared.com/get/vkpMrOM8/West_Brisbane_Bus_Routes.html

[Golliwog]

It may only be connected with Toowong via UQ, but as was pointed out when Tramtrain made the thread about changing the 411 so it permanently ended at Toowong, making a passenger transfer that close to their end destination isn't popular. At least if it never did that, you would only get complaints about the slightly longer trip time (Toowong-UQ on 412 is 8 minutes, Toowong to UQ on 411 is 10 minutes) so all things considered probably an increase of 5-10 minutes which isn't bad when they would be getting a bus every 5-10 minutes in peak and 15 minutes off peak, which if they catch in the other direction could also take them to Indooroopilly and on to Centenary.

As an aside this could alleviate the red route people no longer having a one seat trip to the city. They would, but it would probably be faster if they change service.

[#Metro]

Personally I don't have strong feelings either way. Though remember that 411 is an all stops and 412 is an express...

The original survey was a hypothetical devised to test the tradeoff of frequency vs direct service. The result is that most people would prefer
frequency over direct service. This has now also been supported by external non-RAILBOT information as well http://westside-news.whereilive.com.au/news/story/survey-supports-bus-rail/

http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=4416.0

On the real-world question on whether 411 should be direct service, looped or a frequent feeder my universal answer is: it depends.
IMHO go ask the residents, lay out both options fairly and without bias and then they will pick one.

[somebody]

It may only be connected with Toowong via UQ, but as was pointed out when Tramtrain made the thread about changing the 411 so it permanently ended at Toowong, making a passenger transfer that close to their end destination isn't popular. At least if it never did that, you would only get complaints about the slightly longer trip time (Toowong-UQ on 412 is 8 minutes, Toowong to UQ on 411 is 10 minutes) so all things considered probably an increase of 5-10 minutes which isn't bad when they would be getting a bus every 5-10 minutes in peak and 15 minutes off peak, which if they catch in the other direction could also take them to Indooroopilly and on to Centenary.

As an aside this could alleviate the red route people no longer having a one seat trip to the city. They would, but it would probably be faster if they change service.

I couldn't recommend such a strategy.

Personally I don't have strong feelings either way. Though remember that 411 is an all stops and 412 is an express...

Addressed in the OP.

This has now also been supported by external non-RAILBOT information as well http://westside-news.whereilive.com.au/news/story/survey-supports-bus-rail/

Not really the correct question.  The correct question, IMO, is: would you use PT more if there was a bus/rail interchange at Indooroopilly rather than through services?  I think the answer to that is a resounding NO.

[#Metro]

This is a permanent point of disagreement, separate from the issue in this thread.

There are people who would gladly interchange if it meant getting off Coronation Drive and they actually built
half decent facilities to accommodate that. By the same style of argument, I could suggest that people overwhelmingly
support cars (80%+ of trips in Brisbane is done in car) and public transport can never approach this level of directness,
walking to the bus stop and waiting was an unacceptable inconvenience and thus the entire public transportation system of Brisbane should be shut down
in favour of the "direct express, no stopping" trip that only car could offer.

(of course I don't support that idea, neither do I support the idea that we should continue to operate a huge number of buses down coro drive when all that is really needed is BUZ 412/BUZ450/BUZ444 and perhaps one or two more routes (all stoppers?) and that's it.).

I'm happy to agree to disagree on that one.

[somebody]

The major limitation with my proposed revamp to the 412 to replace the 411 is the lack of an 8/hour rail frequency at Toowong.

Other than that, I'd be inclined to recommend that the CBD bit be chopped off entirely, which would make the service easier to understand - a clockwise loop around St Lucia and an anti clockwise one.

[somebody]

As for peak hour, I don't see much reason to mess with the 426/431/446 except for having a consistent Milton Rd versus Coronation Drive route (which is better?  Use that!), extending to Margaret St in the AM and getting rid of the ridiculous loop from QSBS B to George St in the PM.  A Charlotte St start in the PM would sort the last of these issues, and this could be done with the 443, if it would use Milton Rd.  If Coro, then another route in the PM, perhaps Margaret/Creek/Ann Sts would be more appropriate.

For the Centenary routes, I'd keep the 455, re-route the 456 along "Red" route lines starting from Mt Ommaney.  From the Centenary bridge, similar comments to the above re: CBD routings, although I could go along with the idea that needing to use the Moggill Rd exit from the Centenary Highway could swing these routes to use Milton Rd while other routes might prefer Coro.

[Gazza]

This isn't a criticism obviously since I agree with it, but why the change of heart in terms of some passengers having to transfer between services?

[somebody]

This isn't a criticism obviously since I agree with it, but why the change of heart in terms of some passengers having to transfer between services?

I feel the the case for a loop service in St Lucia outweighs the negatives of inflicting the transfer.  Particularly the frequency increase for the 411 people, and it doesn't force a transfer.  If you don't want to transfer, or if Adelaide St stop 16 is near where you are going, you can easily catch the route towards UQ and stay on it until the CBD.

With the red/green Centenary routes, the bit where you can take the freeway and Milton Rd therefore bypassing Coro makes the positives of doing it this way outweighs the negatives.  It wouldn't work out too well if either route was less than a BUZ.  Also, a number of people head to UQ so it removes a transfer for these pax.  I don't expect there would be enough pax to have both red & green routes go via the freeway and Milton Rd, and you need to do something to allow connectivity to Indro shops and UQ with relative ease.

I still don't support transfers without having a good reason.

[dwb]

If you were to blue sky re-evaluate western routes, would you not connect any across the Green Bridge??

[edited to add emphasis on blue sky]

[#Metro]

It's banned unfortunately. All bus routes must turn around at UQ Lakes and return to Dutton Park once they have off loaded its passengers.
UQ did not want to be used as a de-facto busway.

[mufreight]

It's banned unfortunately. All bus routes must turn around at UQ Lakes and return to Dutton Park once they have off loaded its passengers.
UQ did not want to be used as a de-facto busway.

Taxpayers paid for the bridge and the comunity benefit outweighs the NIMBY attitude of the University, the ability to through route services would in fact lessen rather than increase congestion.  Time for the Government to show a bit of spine here and connect the Green Bridge to Hawken Drive.

[dwb]

IMHO you can't reorganise west side buses without achieving connection through UQ.  The Govt just needs to buy them (ie UQ) off. $200mil for a new research centre is cheaper than building a tunnel and would result in a better outcome for western/southern Brisbane, a more cohesive network as a whole, UQ students, UQ researchers and UQ itself.

I'm not sure how you'd get the Lord Mayor to agree... but perhaps the State could just "resume" the bridge then override the tripartite deal having bought off UQ?

[#Metro]

Any decision needs to be done in a real-world context. UQ may reconsider, but running buses through its campus will degrade it, just like running a congested road or freeway would. If there were a tunnel that may be a different option.

I vaguely remember looking at some road plan- maybe it was TransApex, but there is this fantasy Buranda-Toowong road tunnel like Clem 7 (heaven help us!) that IMHO goes under this area.

East-West Link

The East-West Link is a proposed cross-river tunnel linking the Pacific Motorway and O'Keefe Street at Buranda with the Western Freeway and Toowong. This link will:

   * offer suburbs west of the Central Business District an alternative for cross-town travel, relieving traffic congestion on the Captain Cook and Walter Taylor bridges
   * improve travel for main trip generators on both sides of the river, including Toowong, Indooroopilly and the University of Queensland at St Lucia in the west and Woolloongabba, Princess Alexandra Hospital and Boggo Road in the east
   * cater for low traffic volumes – about 20,000 vehicles per day in 2021.

The TransApex prefeasibility study found the East-West Link should be viewed as a project post 2026 with a review of traffic demand in 2011.

http://bi.mipo.jsadigital.com.au/Major_Infrastructure_Projects_Office/Transport_projects/TransApex/TransApex_projects.aspx

[somebody]

If you were to blue sky re-evaluate western routes, would you not connect any across the Green Bridge??

[edited to add emphasis on blue sky]

Possibly.  I guess the best candidate would be the Hawken Drive service.

But this is completely hypothetical isn't it?  It could be done with an act of parliament to overrule UQ of course, but I would be surprised if that happened.

Interesting suggestion about buying them off to not need to legislate.

Major problem with through routing buses over the Green Bridge is then you would face demands from the road lobby to allow regular traffic to use the bridge.

[dwb]

@tramtrain

Any decision needs to be done in a real-world context. UQ may reconsider, but running buses through its campus will degrade it, just like running a congested road or freeway would. If there were a tunnel that may be a different option.

nb... my emphasis applied to quote.

How's this for real world thinking??

UQ currently has in the order of 5-6000 car spaces on campus with plans in their masterplan for I think upto 8000 car spaces (or maybe even more).

If a surface road were to be used as a busway extension, it would:
a) (slightly) reduce carparking on campus (ie you'd remove it from road sides)
b) reduce carparking demand due to more alternatives and
c) improve services for students and the general community.

A two lane road for buses (and/or still used by UQ staff/students/servicing) would not be the end of the world for UQ. It would be less busy that the existing roads on campus.  For example if the 109 was extended to Toowong Centre/ Indooroopilly shopping centre at the current service level, that would only result in 112 buses over the course of 14.5hrs a day... or roughly one quiet natural gas bus every 7min 46secs.

Assuming that the level of service vastly improved, say three fold, that would still be less than one bus every 2mins (each direction), hardly the end of the world.

Let's take this a bit further and assume that the 109 service was doubled in frequency and extended through UQ... there would be 224 buses each direction a day. Assuming that over the day an average of half of the extra seats on a doubling of services to UQ of the 109 are utilised and that half of those are by UQ students who previously drove and the other half by through travellers (ie 1/4 of new seats taken up by UQ students), then...

224(total services one direction)
*0.5(to get new services)
*2(to get both directions)
*60(bus capacity)
*0.5(daily avg occupancy)
*0.5(uq proportion of capacity) = 1680 more UQ pax not driving
I don't believe many students carpool but for arguments sake we'll use the state average for car occupancy of 1.4 pax/vehicle.
1680 pax/1.4= 1200 UQ cars not on campus... but replaced instead by 448 buses per day (ie both directions) or still only 1 bus every 1min 56 secs and hardly the end of the world for UQ.

Keeping this bus route on service through campus would likely save building roughly 800m of tunnel... how much would that save the tax payer... even if the Govt gave $200mil to UQ as a sweetener. Plus, UQ would be able to remove 1200 spaces of surface carparking from their beautiful campus and/or not have to lay out the cash to pay for the new multilevel car parks in their masterplan.

Both UQ and the Govt could redirect their funding to more important things. I believe this is real world thinking as we don't have the cash not to think like that! Or as I recently heard from the guy in Curitiba, "If you want creativity take a zero off your budget, if you want sustainability take two zeros off your budget".

[dwb]

Major problem with through routing buses over the Green Bridge is then you would face demands from the road lobby to allow regular traffic to use the bridge.

I don't believe this. And even if lobbying did occur you just say no. It's barely harder than the current lobbying to put 50m of asphalt there now and allow it to happen.

[somebody]

Major problem with through routing buses over the Green Bridge is then you would face demands from the road lobby to allow regular traffic to use the bridge.

I don't believe this. And even if lobbying did occur you just say no. It's barely harder than the current lobbying to put 50m of asphalt there now and allow it to happen.

How many times have you seen Brisbane politicians back down to completely unreasonable demands from the public?!

Case in point: the ridiculous fuel subsidy scheme.

[#Metro]

I am being descriptive here, not prescriptive.
UQ's wishes must be respected. It is their campus. They made it very clear from day 1 that there must never be a through connection and that any change to this requires their explicit permission.

They also make money from the car parks too.
Maybe they will be swayed by your arguments. Or maybe they won't. It is still a road carrying vehicles to them IMHO.

There have been demands to open up the Green Bridge to car traffic, so it is entirely possible that the roads lobby would ask for cars through there and a downgrade of the busway to a T3 or T2 status. We should learn lessons from Coronation Drive's bus lane saga.
They may be different to a rail-based connection as that is incompatible with cars driving on it, although this means that once the tunnel opens up to the surface to connect to say, Schonell Drive, you need rails all the way or a transfer (whereas a busway, buses could just drive on existing streets)

People even drive on the busways all the time, when it is illegal.
A through-connection would make illegal driving on the busway even more attractive to do.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/open-green-bridge-to-traffic-councillor-20100929-15x9a.html

[dwb]

UQ's wishes must be respected.

You told me to be real-world. I learnt at a young age to question things I think are wrong. I think this is an example.

[#Metro]

In theory land the government can do whatever it likes and the public good is effortlessly increased.
100% is achieved, situations are devised where everyone is a winner and there are no losers.

In the real world, the government can't do whatever it likes, and it takes time to get anything done. Some things might have to be negotiated or compromised. 80% or lower is achieved. It is impossible to devise a situation with only winners and no losers.

I'm not saying "don't do it". Maybe a connection is in the public interest.
If you can convince UQ of your arguments, then go for it- don't let me stop you, but it needs UQ's permission though; You have pointed out the benefits and I am just pointing out that they are unlikely to be receptive and the problems likely to follow from that.

[Golliwog]

I'm going with dwb here. Even if there was a lobby from the pro car people, tell them where to shove it. And go into discussions with UQ, don't just tell them "This is what is going to happen" it may be that once you explain that its bus only and will always be that way then maybe they'll accept it. From a connectivity side it really is needed.

Oh and another thing I had forgotten to mention. If you're redoing the Western buses, what about providing a bus link along Frederick St/Boundary Rd to Bardon/Ashgrove/The Gap? Not sure where you'd want to terminate at either end though. I would think either Indro or UQ in the south (no point in Toowong, its a stones throw from UQ, and not a very good interchange point) and in the north if it goes to The Gap then probably just follow the 385 or if going to Ashgrove I would think maybe a bit furhter north to at least the Enoggera station bus interchange.

[somebody]

I'm going with dwb here. Even if there was a lobby from the pro car people, tell them where to shove it. And go into discussions with UQ, don't just tell them "This is what is going to happen" it may be that once you explain that its bus only and will always be that way then maybe they'll accept it. From a connectivity side it really is needed.

This has already been tried in the negotiations to build the bridge in the first place.  I don't know why anything would have changed, perhaps new blood on the UQ Senate.

[#Metro]

I agree with somebody, but I won't stop people from trying or discussing such ideas.

I'm going with dwb here. Even if there was a lobby from the pro car people, tell them where to shove it. And go into discussions with UQ, don't just tell them "This is what is going to happen" it may be that once you explain that its bus only and will always be that way then maybe they'll accept it. From a connectivity side it really is needed.

Oh and another thing I had forgotten to mention. If you're redoing the Western buses, what about providing a bus link along Frederick St/Boundary Rd to Bardon/Ashgrove/The Gap? Not sure where you'd want to terminate at either end though. I would think either Indro or UQ in the south (no point in Toowong, its a stones throw from UQ, and not a very good interchange point) and in the north if it goes to The Gap then probably just follow the 385 or if going to Ashgrove I would think maybe a bit furhter north to at least the Enoggera station bus interchange

Would a BUZ 599/598 plus one transfer at Toowong cover this one?