23 Jul 2011: SEQ: Legacy Way continues legacy of transport insanity for Brisbane

[ozbob]

Media release 23 July 2011

SEQ: Legacy Way continues legacy of transport insanity for Brisbane's Western Suburbs

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport commuters has slammed calls to widen the Centenary Motorway after the news that Legacy Way will induce an extra 33,600 vehicles per day on the Western Freeway.

RAIL Back on Track spokesperson, Robert Dow said:

"One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results (1). Our members are not surprised that there are now calls to now widen the Centenary Motorway at State Government expense to cope with increased traffic volumes."

"Contrary to published comments by BCC's infrastructure chair, Cr Margaret de Wit, widening the Centenary Motorway is possibly one of the worst ways to ensure free flow traffic. Our members have a special word for these type of irrational low-capacity, high-cost, high-pollution schemes - Car Rapid Transit. Simply put, it's the wrong mode of transport for mass transit the Western Suburbs (2)."

"Each year, transport planning for the Western Suburbs looks more and more illogical. Removing T2 lanes to create more delay for buses on Brisbane's worst roads, running buses in direct competition with, and in parallel to, trains (which are faster and separate from traffic), failing to build proper Perth-style interchanges and connections at Indoorooopilly rail station, and one of the most audacious publicly obvious failings in Western Suburbs transport planning - boasting about making a $300 million dollar 'saving' on Legacy Way and then claiming that $50 million dollars could not be found for a bus interconnection to the busway to allow council's own buses to use the Legacy Way (Northern Link Tunnel)!"

"The only way our members will agree to any addition of lanes to the Centenary motorway would be if they took place as a world-class busway, completely separate from traffic to allow buses to feed into Indooroopilly train station, Darra train station, Milton Road and Coronation Drive (3). The South East Busway, using just two road lanes, carries 150,000 passengers per day, and up to 18 000 passengers per hour in peak (equivalent to about seven freeway lanes of traffic). It carries more trips than all the lanes on the Western Freeway combined in an entire day and it does so using just two traffic lanes.

"RAIL Back on Track again calls for the total abandonment of 'balanced transport' policies and a shift to 'rebalanced transport' based around walking, cycling, buses, ferries and rail. 'Car Rapid Transit' is a low capacity, high-pollution, expensive-to-construct, high user toll rapid transit mode inappropriate for mass transit purposes."

References:

1. Definition of Insanity
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html

2. Bottleneck worries for Legacy Way, Brisbanetimes
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/bottleneck-worries-for-legacy-way-20110722-1hssl.html

3. In the interim, for the low cost of paint and signs which could be done virtually overnight, T2 lanes
could be placed back on Coronation Drive and considered for the Western Suburbs.

Contact:

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org

[ozbob]

Roads discussion thread --> http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=4767.msg62953#msg62953

[#Metro]

Appeared in Radio this morning, just after 9 pm
http://www.4bc.com.au/blogs/4bc-blog/latest-4bc-news-bulletin/20110322-1c4cw.html