RAIL - Back On Track Forum

QuoteLNP Brisbane lord mayoral candidate Graham Quirk pledges free river ferry trips in tourism push

    by: Sarah Vogler
    From: The Courier-Mail
    April 22, 2012 12:47PM

A FREE ferry service will be offered to both Brisbane residents and tourists under an LNP plan to boost usage of the historic form of river transport.

Lord Mayor Cr Graham Quirk said if re-elected at Saturday's council poll he would convert the inner-city ferry service into a free tourism loop.

The new ferry service will be painted red and run every half hour from 6am to midnight, seven days a week.

The free service, named the city hopper, is expected to cost rate payers a maximum of $6 million over four years and will service stops in New Farm, South Bank, North Quay, South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point and the Brisbane CBD.

"This will be a great economic boost for the city," Cr Quirk said.

"It's about tourism, it's about making sure that our old historic monohull ferries have a refresh, a re-brand and a new life ... and be an important part of the economic development of our city."

About 330,000 trips were taken on the inner city ferry service last financial year.

Cr Quirk said the free service could be up and running from July.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/lnp-brisbane-lord-mayoral-candidate-graham-quirk-pledges-free-river-ferry-trips-in-tourism-push/story-e6freon6-1226335444913

Hey, if they want to fund it 100% and offer it free as a non Translink service, why not?

Quote
The free service, named the city hopper, is expected to cost rate payers a maximum of $6 million over four years and will service stops in New Farm, South Bank, North Quay, South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point and the Brisbane CBD.

Gargh!! This is the waterborne version of Maroon CityGlider!
SIX MILLION! You could fund one, possibly TWO BUZ services / CityGliders for that price.

Will Hamilton Hovercraft be making an appearance this election?!

Quote
"It's about tourism, it's about making sure that our old historic monohull ferries have a refresh, a re-brand and a new life ... and be an important part of the economic development of our city."

If you want economic development, how about fund decent Bulimba services etc so that people can actually get to work on time? So that they can get to the actual Bulimba restaurants at night? So they can get to the Cinema with their friends? So that developers can keep building along riding and thynne roads? Maroon Monohulls will do none of this.

As Gazza would say, 'sucked in by the romance'.

QuoteSIX MILLION! You could fund one, possibly TWO BUZ services / CityGliders for that price.

How.
6 mil over 4 years (As per the article) is 1.5 mil per year.

CityGlider costs $5 Mil per year (Source: http://www.busnews.com.au/news/articleid/73260.aspx ) so you could only fund say 1/3 of a BUZ/CityGlider with that money.

I like this. Compliments the free loop bus quite nicely, too.

Operating hours aren't too bad at all, though 1/2 hour frequency is a bit woeful. It's free, so can't expect too much...

   Providing it is able to be used by all non-Brisbane residents, as well as tourists don't have a major issue (it could be argued that non-Brisbane residents are tourists anyway), other than the too-cute name ... City Hopper ..

This confuses, how about Free City River Ferry service ...

Quote
CityGlider costs $5 Mil per year (Source: http://www.busnews.com.au/news/articleid/73260.aspx ) so you could only fund say 1/3 of a BUZ/CityGlider with that money.

Disagree. You don't need 100% of the funds because a) you'd incorporate funds from amalgamating the 230 or 235 to that pile of cash plus you'd add in any extra TL contribution on top of that.

Quote from: tramtrain on April 22, 2012, 15:46:59 PM
Disagree.

You always say that.

I still can't believe the River Plaza ferry stop remains.

Brisbanetimes --> Quirk pledges to take ferry commuters for a free ride

QuoteYou always say that.

Disagree. Often, but not always. 

Ugh. Why can't they just spend it on something that has decent utility (Bulimba CityGlider etc.) rather than spend that money on high cute-animal branded visibility one-election-wonder stunts. We already have a bus with a possum on it and now a ferry with a kangaroo on it. I have one with a sloth in mind...

Well, 1.5 million per year is not going to pay for much is it? Why were you saying $6 Mil in the first place? Forget to divide by 4?

I mean Cityglider was 5 mil for 138 "high frequency operation" hours per week of operation, over 7.5km of route from scratch.

Call it 1035 'units' of frequent route needing funding.

The 'unit' represents the resources needed to run a route. For the same funding basically, you could be twice as long, but half as frequent (Think of that planning  game Jarret Walker runs )


Doing what you said, and rolling all of the resources of both the 230 and 235 together to form a BUZ...Well to start with its a combined half hourly frequency right?

230 is 13.6km of route, with say a minimum of ~70 extra "high frequency operation hours needed" (I got this figure by weighting it at 1 for periods when no service exists (Eg after 9pm on a Sunday) and 0.5 for hours when it needs to change from 2 to 4 bph (Eg daytimes)

Call it 925 'units' of frequent route needing funding.

Even when you pool together the 230/235 resources, I estimate it would be around $4.45 Million of additional funding per year, to give the area one high frequency route.

4.5 Million represents the costs that cant be plugged by redistributing buses in the area.

If we take the 1.5 million per year from the free ferry proposal, thats still $3 Mil per year TL or someone needs to fund.

Back to the topic...I think cross river ferries are something that could be free (rather than travel 'along' the river like this proposal)
Point is, there are a lot of places where bridges wont be viable/are years off and ferries are the only option for people taking active transport.
Except you have to pay a full zone fare for only a short distance of travel. On Go Card its equivalent to $12 per km to Go From Norman Park to New Farm.

QuoteWell, 1.5 million per year is not going to pay for much is it?

I'd rather have it go towards something decent rather than this. Even if it were partial!

Quote
I mean Cityglider was 5 mil for 138 "high frequency operation" hours per week of operation, over 7.5km of route from scratch.

Call it 1035 'units' of frequent route needing funding.

The 'unit' represents the resources needed to run a route. For the same funding basically, you could be twice as long, but half as frequent (Think of that planning  game Jarret Walker runs )


Doing what you said, and rolling all of the resources of both the 230 and 235 together to form a BUZ...Well to start with its a combined half hourly frequency right?

230 is 13.6km of route, with say a minimum of ~70 extra "high frequency operation hours needed" (I got this figure by weighting it at 1 for periods when no service exists (Eg after 9pm on a Sunday) and 0.5 for hours when it needs to change from 2 to 4 bph (Eg daytimes)

Call it 925 'units' of frequent route needing funding.

Even when you pool together the 230/235 resources, I estimate it would be around $4.45 Million of additional funding per year, to give the area one high frequency route.

4.5 Million represents the costs that cant be plugged by redistributing buses in the area.

If we take the 1.5 million per year from the free ferry proposal, thats still $3 Mil per year TL or someone needs to fund.

I still think it is a silly idea, regardless. I just don't value stuff like this. SERIOUSLY.
It's a tourist ride! It's amusement! There are many better ways to boost the economy than this, that's not the real reason.

Will Lord Mayor Graham Quirk be paying me money so I can have discounted ferris wheel rides at South Bank or get discounts to QPAC?

Quote
Back to the topic...I think cross river ferries are something that could be free (rather than travel 'along' the river like this proposal)
Point is, there are a lot of places where bridges wont be viable/are years off and ferries are the only option for people taking active transport.
Except you have to pay a full zone fare for only a short distance of travel. On Go Card its equivalent to $12 per km to Go From Norman Park to New Farm.

Free decent-frequency cross-river ferries might be an idea. Like at Bulimba-Tenneriffe. Every 5 minutes.
Bit steep to ask for $5 or whatever it is for something so short. To be honest, I'm not even sure the free city loop is really worth it either - only the high frequency is the savior for it, if it wasn't provided, most people would happily walk. It competes directly with walking, and when CityCycle gets linked to GoCard, it will compete with CityCycle too. It might even be faster to swipe and ride than wait 10 minutes and then more for the journey.

But a loop monohull service that runs every 30 minutes? It's a tourist ride, not real public transport. And I'm not really that interested in spending council money for tourist rides...

Why don't they sell/contract it off to a tour operator, serve food on it and do a cruise and have people pay for it? You could make the ferry free and recoup costs on food and wine or whatever. That costs the city nothing. The frequency is so low that it is not worth waiting 30 minutes to cross the river when the CityCats come every 15 and buses too.

Circus 

PS: I am still waiting for Hamilton Hovercraft! 

Quoteonly the high frequency is the savior for it, if it wasn't provided, most people would happily walk

I think its worth having. I think it will become essential if we are to rationalise how CBD stops are set up.
Plus people don't like walking from Central down to Parliament apparently so you need it for that.
I'm happy for it to exist.

QuotePlus people don't like walking from Central down to Parliament apparently so you need it for that.
I'm happy for it to exist.

Agree. This is a good point.

Cityferry doesn't serve the QUT ferry stop.

http://translink.com.au/resources/travel-information/network-information/maps/120123-ferry-network-map.pdf

I think we need to:

1. Amend the City of Brisbane and Local Government Acts to expressly prohibit councils from doing anything mass-transit related on an operational basis (other than giving TMR or TransLink funding for public transport services, fixing bus stops etc); and

2. Take all those functions off the local governments.

Would make it so much simpler.

Surfrail, that was pretty much the reason for Translink forming in the first place but it appears they left open too many loopholes and so when Newman was Lord Mayor they used those loop holes to their benefit which I think they did brilliantly just because of the BCC backing BT. They built up the fleet (partly through the state), they get funding from the sheer amount of advertising space available on buses/bus stops/inner city bus stations, chartered services, BCC rates (I can't remember where I read it but the BCC got an average of $350 per household just from rates that went towards BT) and general advertising/editorials/media exposure. Sunbus does get funding from GCCC but not to the same extent that BT has. For a long time Logan Council didn't fund a cent to Clarks as they relied on the state to fund those services. Now Quirk is doing the exact same thing because they have the backing to do so.

Translink should just do their job, design a proper network, make a minimum network wide frequency/service hour span (for trains it might be minimum every 15 min and buses are minimum every 30 minutes along with 2 timetables being weekday services and weekend services. Public holidays run as a weekend timetable as there are routes that don't have services on Sundays) and give out tenders for operators to conduct bus routes. Rail should be treated differently in some parts as there are factors that Translink can't easily be responsible for such as infrastructure restrictions/maintainence conflicts-costs/assigning running patterns etc but Translink should make heavy rail the main pt backbone for transport and then work with QR/state govt. at acheiving them even if it means running shuttles to some parts as in interm measure eg Beenleigh-Varsity Lakes 2tph + Brisbane-Varsity Lakes 2tph to acheive 4tph along parts until track mods such as duplication/tripple/quad, longer platforms, realignments etc can be made in conjuction of planned future growth of new corridors such as Sunshine Coast/Trouts road etc.

Quote from: SurfRail on April 22, 2012, 22:14:31 PM
I think we need to:

1. Amend the City of Brisbane and Local Government Acts to expressly prohibit councils from doing anything mass-transit related on an operational basis (other than giving TMR or TransLink funding for public transport services, fixing bus stops etc); and

2. Take all those functions off the local governments.

Would make it so much simpler.

If its a non Translink service, and free, I don't see the issue?  So long as the timetable is loaded into the journey planner.

BCC is always putting their foot in the pie. Go look at Graham Quirk's campaign site - it's not the City to Suburbs bus link any more, no it's The Lord Mayor's City to Suburbs bus link. Oh, and they haven't even done it but they've already determined it seems that it will be BUS.

Maroon CityGlider and even the first CityGlider and the fracas over that, including potential privatisation and non-integration in the initial stages of rollout is another one. 

Quote from: Simon on April 23, 2012, 07:33:05 AM

Quote from: SurfRail on April 22, 2012, 22:14:31 PM
I think we need to:

1. Amend the City of Brisbane and Local Government Acts to expressly prohibit councils from doing anything mass-transit related on an operational basis (other than giving TMR or TransLink funding for public transport services, fixing bus stops etc); and

2. Take all those functions off the local governments.

Would make it so much simpler.

If its a non Translink service, and free, I don't see the issue?  So long as the timetable is loaded into the journey planner.

Possibly.  The distinction would be the difference between the free 99C loop in Adelaide and the free Adelaide City Council-run loops operated with Tindo (the solar powered electric bus) and some Mitsubishi Rosas.  If they want to fund it, fine - but it really shouldn't be seen as anything other than touristy.

I think the service on this route is so rubbish that effectively they have given up trying to collect fares for it, and they are making the most of that failing by dressing it up.  But with so many other problems on the network, it really is just a case of bread and circuses.

I would much prefer if they got the City Loop running every 10 minutes again (which would require a few more than the 4 buses currently and traditionally used to run it) and maybe on weekends too - plus weekend Spring Hill Loop would not go astray given the non-existence of PT to the top of the hill outside the very limited Saturday only 321 trips.

Quote from: Simon on April 23, 2012, 07:33:05 AM

Quote from: SurfRail on April 22, 2012, 22:14:31 PM
I think we need to:

1. Amend the City of Brisbane and Local Government Acts to expressly prohibit councils from doing anything mass-transit related on an operational basis (other than giving TMR or TransLink funding for public transport services, fixing bus stops etc); and

2. Take all those functions off the local governments.

Would make it so much simpler.

If its a non Translink service, and free, I don't see the issue?  So long as the timetable is loaded into the journey planner.

and the service does not casue problems for the non-free services, congestion, confusion or just stupid duplication