ALP - Transitway proposals - bus priority

[ozbob]

Twitter

Kim Flesser ‏@FastFless 4m

New Northern TransitWay will be a great boost to Public Transport on the Northside. Well done @Rod4Bris @RJNeil !

[ozbob]

Twitter

Rod Harding ‏@Rod4Bris 7m

Excited to announce the Northern & Eastern bus & car TransitWays on Gympie Rd & Old Cleveland Rd. #congestionbusting

[bcasey]

I can't make out what that link is on the poster. Doing a quick google search, I found this from a few years ago http://infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/projects/files/QLD_Brisbane_TransitWays_Brief.pdf. I'm guessing this is what they are announcing?

[SurfRail]

Poor man's busway basically.  Better than nothing, and in my view better than the full blown thing given how capital intensive they are for such limited benefit.

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Labor unveils plans for Northern and Eastern 'Transitways' for buses

Labor would convert parking spaces along Gympie Road to dedicated peak hour bus lanes as part of a $91 million council election commitment announced on Tuesday.

There would also be intersection upgrades along Old Cleveland Road to improve bus flows, Labor lord mayoral candidate Rod Harding said, as part of his proposed Suburban Congestion Busting Fund.

Mr Harding said the so-called "transitways" would improve peak hour flow on the two arterial roads.

"Fundamental to busting congestion in the suburbs is a fast and reliable public transport system," he said.
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"In order to drive a new public transport culture in Brisbane we need to be investing in critical projects like these transitways.

"At the moment, Chermside and Carindale are the only two principal activity centres not linked to high quality public transport connections.

"The transitways will deliver efficient, cost-effective solutions to help ease peak hour traffic woes for both motorists and bus commuters."

The $66 million Northern Transitway would connect the Northern Busway to Chermside through three-kilometre inbound and outbound bus lanes along Gympie Road, between Sadlier Street, Kedron and Sparkes Street, Chermside.

The $25 million Eastern Transitway would provide "bus priority measures" along Old Cleveland Road at five intersections – Cavendish, Bennetts, Boundary, Gallipoli and Creek roads – to "extend the benefits of the Eastern Busway" to Carindale.

Labor would fund the transitways, along with other suburban road projects, by scrapping Lord Mayor Graham Quirk's $650 million Kingsford Smith Drive upgrade.

The RACQ has come out strongly against that project, but Cr Quirk said on Tuesday he was determined to deliver the upgrade and was happy to disagree with the motoring body.

"The RACQ support a tax on people who drive in congested areas and I don't support that either," he said.

Cr Quirk said he was simply following a course of action that previously had the support of Labor's opposition leader in the council chamber, Milton Dick.

"The reality with this is that Cr Dick in the council chamber called on me to get on with Kingsford Smith Drive way back and there are more cars on Kingsford Smith Drive today than there was when he called for me to get on with it," he said.

"So we're getting on with it. There's no waiting, no delay around this project.

"We are not just building a road, we're building a city and this is going to be an entry statement project."

There have been parallels made to Melbourne's East West Link tunnel, which cost Victorian taxpayers $339 million in compensation when it was scrapped by an incoming Labor government that had campaigned heavily against the project.

The RACQ has urged Brisbane City Council not to enter any pre-election contracts so as to avoid a similar situation in Brisbane, but Cr Quirk would not be swayed.

"The Victorian situation was an utter waste of money for taxpayers and it was wrong that that project was cancelled," he said on Tuesday.

"But that is no reason why we should be slowing down.

"We've committed to this project, we've got bidding tenderers out there and we will be announcing a successful tenderer within the next couple of months."

Cr Quirk said the "real answer" for Brisbane public transport was dedicated busways.

[ozbob]

LM Quirk is looking silly ...

Ummm  bus network reform, bus priority on augmented surface roads will work wonders LM Quirk ..

There are simply not billions of $$$ for rolled gold busways, particularly when there are other cost effective and logical options.

[#Metro]

Will need to look at this more closely - seems to have merit.

The other possibility is to simply turn on the bus priority for buses at traffic lights. Which apparently is switched off atm.

[SurfRail]

Gympie Road can easily accommodate near-continuous bus lanes between Federation Street and Truro Street and again from Kedron Brook to Chermside. 

Inbound between Cartwright Street and the entrance to the busway might not work due to the on-ramps for the tunnels. 

Same again between Somerset Road and Kedron Brook, but that could be solved by spending a modest amount of money on making the northbound only tunnel bi-directional by reconfiguring the portal a bit or just living with redesigned signals set up for "single track" at the northern portal like the bus lane at Ross Street and Nerang-Broadbeach Road.  Rest of the tunnel is already designed for normal 2-way running ostensibly when the busway to Chermside or beyond is "finished".

Outbound between Kuran/Wallace Sts and Hamilton Rd, the bus lane would slide over to become the lane closest the median with a bus jump phase to allow them to slide over, a la Ann Street in the Valley - for access to Chermside.

Old Cleveland Road can accommodate permanent T2 lanes for the entire length between Capalaba and Bennetts Road without any issue - no different to Frank Street through Labrador, where the lanes were only pulled out for political reasons.  There is probably a case for building the full busway as far as Bennetts Road but if funds are not forthcoming then the same treatment could apply.

On both corridors - full bus priority signalling.  Also for Mains Road, and possibly some others.

[verbatim9]

Lnp don't like Transit Corridors gone are the ones on Corination Drive and M1. Labor brings them in, LNP takes em away.

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

7th October 2015

Greetings,

TransitWays - a good start!

RAIL Back On Track welcomes Brisbane Lord Mayor Candidate Rod Harding's proposal to implement bus priority along Gympie Rd and Old Cleveland Rd.

Getting buses out of congestion doesn't just mean faster, more reliable services. It also frees up driver time, which can be reinvested into more services overall, or banked as cost savings.

RAIL Back On Track suggests similar measures should be implemented along Lutwyche Rd between Federation St and Truro St, filling in the Northern Busway's missing link. We also suggest implementing bus priority along Mains Rd, which is Brisbane's busiest non-Busway corridor.

'Public transport is at least twice as energy efficient as private cars; a full bus produces 377 times less carbon monoxide than a full car. Each full standard bus can take more than 50 cars off the road while a full train can take more than 600 cars off the road.' *

* http://translink.com.au/about-translink/what-we-do/benefits-of-public-transport

Best wishes
Robert

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org

Reference:

Labor unveils plans for Northern and Eastern 'Transitways' for buses
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/labor-unveils-plans-for-northern-and-eastern-transitways-for-buses-20151006-gk29ib.html#ixzz3nld7mCMt

[ozbob]

Twitter

Robert Dow ‏@Robert_Dow 16s

Latest: ' TransitWays - a good start! '

> http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=11398.msg162275#msg162275 ...

#qldpol @Rod4Bris @Team_Quirk

Excellent proposal.

[ozbob]

Twitter

Rod Harding ‏@Rod4Bris 27m

The new Northern TransitWay - peak hour bus lanes where cars are parked now - it's so money.

[ozbob]

Twitter

Stephanie Serhan ‏@stephserhan 8m

Commuters are keen to hear about  the new Northern TransitWay. Delivering efficiency for Marchant residents.

[ozbob]

Labor --> Suburban Congestion Busting Fund

[Simon]

Brisbanetimes --> Labor unveils plans for Northern and Eastern 'Transitways' for buses

It has been suggested that there is a need to do something to connect the northern end of the northern busway to Chermside interchange. An extra lane for two blocks with a B signal is my suggestion.

[verbatim9]

Just questioning the Transit ways along Gympie road. Having the lanes on the outside will make it difficult for bus drivers to negotiate lanes during peak hour traffic to turn into the bus way at Kedron Brook or the 330 to utilise the Airport link tunnel from Kedronbrook to RBWH. The only way around this is to tunnel underneath Gympie road at the Northbound Busway exit then have Southbound busses enter the Busway by looping right underground and connecting with the existing tunnel structure at South Kedron. Northbound busses may need an off ramp/flyover overpass from the outside transit lane at Gympie and Hamilton roads shared with regular traffic, turning right into Hamilton Road and Bus Station @ Westfield Chermside.