Palmer United Party - Palmer party promise to extend train line to Victoria Pt

[STB]

http://www.baysidebulletin.com.au/story/1704520/palmer-party-promise-to-extend-train-line-to-victoria-point/?cs=212

Palmer party promise to extend train line to Victoria Point
By Judith Kerr Aug. 14, 2013, 10:30 a.m.

PALMER United Party's John Wayne said he would push for duplication of the Cleveland train line and its extension to Victoria Point.

Mr Wyane, a former Gold Coast councillor said continuing the line with a new train and bus interchange at Victoria Point was crucial.

Dunwich oyster farmer and graphic designer also advocated upgrading the barge connections to the southern bay islands, which he said was "long overdue".

He also said he wanted to investigate opening new public marinas and ramps at strategic locations.

"Getting in and out of the area is getting beyond a joke," he said. "Intersections such as Tilley Road and Old Cleveland Road need an elevated flyover, to release the congestion we face every single day."

Just a few comments - this has been local talk for a little while in the Redlands, but really belongs in the fantasy foamer file for a few reasons:

One, the area is fairly low density (Thornlands and Victoria Point);

Two, it's far more effective and efficient for Victoria Point and Redland Bay passengers accessing the city to use routes 279, 280 and 281 rather than taking the 'Cook's Tour' of the Northern Redlands through to Cooparoo. There's only a few that I know of that actually do that, drive and park at Cleveland station for the train simply for the reason that they hate buses, even though it takes longer (side note: there is quite a few in the Redlands who also hate going via train and kicked up a massive stink over TransLink for getting rid of a direct bus to the city that overlapped with the catchment area of the train *cough* Route 257 *cough*, the reason - they felt safer on a bus and were able to treat it as a taxi service with the drivers taking shortcuts and dropping them off in front of their homes)  .

And three - a decent bus corridor can be provided along that section north/south between Cleveland and Redland Bay with upgrades to route 250 over time that at least better serves the demand and dispersed geography of the area.

[SurfRail]

[Fares_Fair]

[SurfRail]

I'd also reserve a corridor for the future (+2030 after Trouts Rd is done) of a route cutting across from Thorneside mostly as a Viaduct through the wetlands/green area in NW direction through Manly West reconnection around the Gateway (unfortunately there is a large factory right on the best location to connect).

Existing line would then terminate at Lota and potentially removed between the two stations.

If you were going to do this you would probably spend money doing some things properly (eg closing the existing Cannon Hill and sinking the line to sub-surface level, building a new station adjacent to Creek Road with street level access down to platforms there, driven tunnel from here to east of the Gateway then as much surface running as possible, then stations at Tingalpa and Manly West.

Existing line would be retained to Thorneside where you would just have a cross platform interchange.

If you set this up, you are bypassing 8 stations on an old winding alignment in favour of 2 stations on a direct alignment, so I suspect you could run both patterns all stations to the CBD without getting into trouble from the Redlands commuters.  Also makes the case for extending south of Cleveland more compelling seeing it is no longer as indirect, and in the long term the Cleveland (or beyond) route can feed into a new cross-city rail line running from say Cannon Hill/Morningside through the city and out to the western corridor.

Long term serious foam though.

[petey3801]

I'd go one step further and say that if you're going to be tunneling, might as well make it worth it and go from Coorparoo/Norman Park area and completely cut out the long, winding 40km/h bank from Norman Park to the other side of Morningside.

[James]

I think a tunnel from Cannon Hill/Murrarie skirting the southern side of Wynnum/Manly to Thorneside is a reall good idea. Ideally then you would have feeder buses feeding the Cleveland line all the way in, and you would close the line between where the freight line branches off and Thorneside - leaving the Murrarie - Port section solely for freight.

The issue with the Cleveland Line right now is that it is not competitive. 250 is probably one of the best examples in SEQ of where the failure of successive governments to integrate rail and bus really comes out. In any other state, we'd have the 250 terminating at Carindale and nobody would use the single-seat trip from Victoria Point, instead changing to rail at Cleveland.

By shaving 5-8 minutes off the trip time (and diverting it away from its current terminus down to Victoria Point), you could really make the Cleveland Line a very strong patronage generator. Right now once you get beyond Thorneside it really isn't very useful due to the circuitous routing and competition from buses. Long-term, I think that the Cleveland Line should link up with Trouts Road via a CRR2 which comes in via Bulimba, New Farm and Kelvin Grove. But that's enough foam for now.

[Fares_Fair]

Palmer party promise to extend train line to Victoria Point
By Judith Kerr Aug. 14, 2013, 10:30 a.m.

PALMER United Party's John Wayne said he would push for duplication of the Cleveland train line and its extension to Victoria Point.

Mr Wyane, a former Gold Coast councillor said continuing the line with a new train and bus interchange at Victoria Point was crucial.

Dunwich oyster farmer and graphic designer also advocated upgrading the barge connections to the southern bay islands, which he said was "long overdue".

He also said he wanted to investigate opening new public marinas and ramps at strategic locations.

"Getting in and out of the area is getting beyond a joke," he said. "Intersections such as Tilley Road and Old Cleveland Road need an elevated flyover, to release the congestion we face every single day."

It's not a promise at all if you read the story. He just says he will push for it!

[James]

I wouldn't propose a tunnel for 1 more metre than required as tunnels are project killers, especially this low lying area. Most of the line would be on ground or viaduct (to reduce impact on wetlands). The tunnel would be near Murarrie.

Capacity wise the Hemmant to Lota moves roughly the same as Thornside to Cleveland, so I wouldn't propose to close the current route to Lota. Maybe cut it to Manly if not Lota (229/AM peak), but Lota has plenty of space for set stowage etc. With the new route alone I'd expect to pick up some more bodies from nth of Thornside, but even with dual track maybe 20% more would be a wish list number.

I know the Cleveland line gets alot of flake for its route, but it does move bodies than Moorooka south on Beenleigh line.

I say tunnel as a conceptual thing. It could be anything. Ideally it would be surface level, but the huge issue is there is no reserved corridor there.

The thing is, Hemmant to Lota can all be covered effectively by feeder buses feeding a new station on the revised alignment. The big deficiency with the current alignment is that it is not effective to feed customers to rail along most of the route. The bus review said to feed buses into Cannon Hill - I didn't like this idea either, but that's not the point of this thread. Closing Hemmant is no huge loss, the main losers are Manly station and the stations around Wynnum (which in my opinion, need urgent consolidation to two stations). I also don't like line branches like that - having the line branch constricts capacity to 10tph on each branch. The existing corridor could also be sold off, funding resumptions that would have to occur for the new line. I think it is just better to have the 20tph capacity all the way from Cleveland (or beyond) and feed customers to rail.

There is a lot of potential for Thorneside - Cleveland if the alignment between Lota and Cannon Hill was improved. And as the point of this thread was - the straightening then allows for an extension of the line south. At the current time, the alignment just encourages people to use Route 250. As I've mentioned in many places - buses are not made to travel long distances. The longer a bus route gets, the more unreliable it gets and due to its increased catchment area, the more capacity it requires.

The reason the Cleveland line does so well is because it hasn't had its patronage generators sucked up by a truckload of BUZ routes. The 130/140/150's success effectively vacuums up most passengers between Sunnybank and Kuraby, and the patronage survey shows that. Rocklea and Salisbury are all in industrial areas, and Bethania to Holmview is not densely populated either. When you have a railway line without BUZ competition (e.g. inner Beenleigh Line), it can, and does, do well.

Compare this with the Cleveland Line, which so far, past Buranda, has remained untouched by any frequent routes. Morningside sort of has CFN frequency if you look at the spaghetti of routes going past it, but aside from that, there are no HF alternatives. Hence, the line does better.

[Old Northern Road]

What's the population of Victoria Point and Redland Bay? Certainly not enough to justify spending billions of dollars building a train line.

If an east-west metro is ever built it could connect up with the Cleveland line at either Morningside or Cannon Hill providing a much quicker trip to the city. In the meantime they should be looking at removing some of the fat from the timetable. Of course they should be doing this for all the lines but the Cleveland line is particularly bad. Why on earth do off peak trains take 4mins to travel from Buranda to Park Rd while most peak hour trains take 2-3mins?

There was talk of closing down one of the Wynnum stations (probably Wynnum) a while ago however I can't see that happening nowadays as closing down a station would probably cause more outrage than removing a bus route.

[Old Northern Road]

If you were going to do this you would probably spend money doing some things properly (eg closing the existing Cannon Hill and sinking the line to sub-surface level, building a new station adjacent to Creek Road with street level access down to platforms there, driven tunnel from here to east of the Gateway then as much surface running as possible, then stations at Tingalpa and Manly West.

I think they should build a new Cannon Hill station at Creek Rd anyway. Remove the Barrack Rd level crossing and close down Murarrie while they are at it.

[aldonius]

Why on earth do off peak trains take 4mins to travel from Buranda to Park Rd while most peak hour trains take 2-3mins?

The Beenleigh-bound service comes through Park Rd a minute prior, so there is a good reason for the fat: it gives them the option to go into PR (ahead of the BL's departure) and pause, if running early...

Assuming there was a good reason to schedule the ex-Cleveland train at that time in the first place! I expect this to go with Sector 2.

[STB]

I'd just thought I'd jump in, given that I've been a passenger of the line for the past 20+ years.

The most popular, well used stations on the line (both peak and off peak) is Morningside, Manly, Birkdale and Cleveland.

The crowded trains out of the city in peak (namely the 5:25pm ex Central), loses the majority of its standing load at Morningside.

Route 250 currently gets standing loads in the middle of the day on weekends.  The majority of these people are coming from Carindale and heading to Thornlands, Alexandra Hills and Capalaba.  At Victoria Point, route 250 tends to get a new load comprised mostly of the SMBI residents heading to Redland Bay to pick up the ferry. 

Under the current route 250 timetable when they cut a significant amount of time out of the old timetable, which was there to account for paper ticket sales and the popularity of the route, including adjusting for traffic conditions throughout the day, it now generally runs up to 7mins late off peak, and greater during peak. 

I personally met with the TransLink Planners and Management prior to the last lot of changes and the reasoning for the timetable change on route 250 was that passengers were demanding a consistent timetable all day long, and that it was dwelling for long periods at The Sleeman Centre mainly to catch up on time as it ran early, as the Go Card uptake had absorbed that amount of time to sell paper tickets.  Unfortunately they took a bit too much time out of route 250, and with the clockface timetable all day, it doesn't adjust for various traffic conditions throughout the day, so the actual times are varied.  I'm hoping that will be addressed in the next round of changes early next year. 

As a side note, they also destroyed the 'Pulse' system brought in back in 2005 that allowed a proper feeder/trunk route in the network, where you could get off the feeder bus and onto the long haul trunk route with only a 5min wait.  Now it's all over the place at Capalaba in particular, where you can wait up to 20mins just to continue your journey - was apparently due to them wanting to reduce dead running at the expense of passenger convenience.

In terms of express patterns on the Cleveland line, I've done some testing and an express Lindum to Park Road with a stop at Morningside, seems doable based on what they did for the sector 1 timetables, with even spacing between the Cleveland, Beenleigh and Gold Coast trains over the Merivale Bridge, overlaid with all stations trains from Manly.

By the way, there is more development planned for south of Redland Bay into Carbrook (was in the local papers recently).  Victoria Point itself for the time being isn't being developed, greenies wanting to hold onto the green space for wildlife.  Although an industrial estate was talked about a few years back south of Boundary Road / Springacre Road areas in Victoria Point.

[STB]

Why on earth do off peak trains take 4mins to travel from Buranda to Park Rd while most peak hour trains take 2-3mins?

The Beenleigh-bound service comes through Park Rd a minute prior, so there is a good reason for the fat: it gives them the option to go into PR (ahead of the BL's departure) and pause, if running early...

Assuming there was a good reason to schedule the ex-Cleveland train at that time in the first place! I expect this to go with Sector 2.

The Network Planners at QR have already indicated that this is on their agenda.

Oh, and I know the reason behind the 4min/2min Buranda to Park Road, I was told a few years ago from some insiders.  Basically what happened is that the Planner in charge of the 2008 timetable changes accidentally made the off peak 4mins and the peak 2mins, it was meant to be peak 4mins, off peak 2mins between Park Road and Buranda.  He reportedly refused to fix the error, and its stuck.  The only amount of time needed is 3mins between those two stations.

[petey3801]

There is a lot of potential for Thorneside - Cleveland if the alignment between Lota and Cannon Hill was improved.

As I said earlier, extend the realignment to Norman Park at least. Just realigning (read: tunneling) the Norman Park - Cannon Hill/Morningside section part of the route will save a good 3 or 4 mins in itself.
Currently, trains take 5mins to travel less than 3.5km (rail), crow flies would be less than 3km. Tunneling this section, you be able to make a new Morningside/Cannon Hill/Murrarie combined station closer to where it would serve more people. The current 40km/h speed limit that runs for around 2km is simply painful.

[SurfRail]

I think it's doubtful they would ever realign inbound of Cannon Hill because even if you do that, it locks in the big loop via Coorparoo/South Bank/Roma Street to the city.  The long term better upgrade is to run directly across the river into a new tunnel - I suspect that would have better cost-benefit.  The inner part of the route is not ideal but if you only have trains potentially going as far as the Cannon Hill/Murrarie area then there is little point worrying about it.

[STB]

Extension beyond Cleveland will come, Redland Bay region is growing. The SIMI (for which I am a property owner) are a major growth option (read increase in govt revenue) if faster and better connections to the city can be realised. Currently the tripple modal connection is painful esepcially off-peak a few years back where I now only use a taxi. Issue of course is the current and 3rd Cleveland station is in the wrong location for extension south.

Perhaps the single track section between Lota and Thornside is probably left as if if not a major impedment for 15min operation if one day it was to be closed.

So RTT, you don't think that that region (Victoria Point, Redland Bay) is better serviced by the Mount Cotton Road / SE Busway corridor?  Or via Logan Hyperdome? Which is much faster than the Cleveland line.

By the way, whenever there are closures on, the rail replacement bus actually gets to the city about 15-20mins faster than the train!  Same with the Gold Coast line actually, caught the rail replacement bus to Robina once last year and it ended up arriving 30mins quicker than if I had caught the train all the way down there.

[ozbob]

Bus replacements are usually on weekends etc.  And if the bus stopped at all the stations as for the train would no doubt be longer. Doubt would be quicker during the peak days etc.  An all stopper bus Corinda to Ipswich is a nightmare of the worst sort .. lol

[James]

For the proposed route, you can get away with mostly using the green space and where you cannot is where you would probably have a station. Hence I think there would be strong opposition to a ground railway, but a viaduct will be more easier to pass, even if only a few metres off the ground.

I see your point on the bus option for the remaining stub. However my issue is that its there, its paid for, buses puts more vehicles on the road, perhaps some rationalisation as you mention, however as a short stub line, station rationalisation makes less economic sense as you are not saving much time for those who travel past.  The current route runs right through the heart of suburbia that will progressively get more dense, so my thinking is the walk up traffic must be strong compared to many other parts of the Brisbane network where the railway is remote from the 'burbs. I also wonder how popular this line would be for weekend users to the foreshore. Brisbane only has Shorncliff for easy foreshore access, if this was cut. The bus connection to rail option would also probably be slower than the current rail option.

its sort of Suprising that on the better routes they are hell bent on busitution conversion to BUZ, but leave CL line, the twisted route? Still it does fairly well bringing in 6+ crowded trains an hour in peak and I've used it often enough on weekends to see its still popular on the 30min timetable. A more direct route for the southern end + a few more stations should fill 8 trains an hour in peak, provides a two tier operation if required by pulling some of the inner stations on the CL line which would shave some more time off the outer stations.

I say get Translink to reserve the ROW today!

The current line leaves a large area (which is already being developed) which can only be effectively served by a BUZ running all the way to the CBD, and the diversion makes the line uncompetitive past Lota. In fact, under the current alignment, it could be said the line is only really useful to residents as far as Manly who live in the direct catchment area. Psychologically, it is not good practice to bus people to a railway station which is further away from their destination than when they started. The realigned Cleveland line will still pass through suburbia, but will provide opportunities for feeder buses as well.

While buses do put more vehicles on the road - these are buses which would be around regardless (in the form of P-rockets serving the area, Wynnum BUZ etc.) Lets say you live in Manly West. You either spend 10 minutes going by bus to rail and then about 40 minutes by train, or about 40 minutes on a bus going all the way to the CBD under the current network. Naturally, people will use buses. Thus, a Wynnum Road BUZ out to Wynnum/Manly is required. Alternatively, you can put a feeder there. It takes around 5-10 minutes by bus and 35 minutes by train. This allows resources to be saved as a BUZ route is not running all the way to the CBD, duplicating a railway line and Bulimba BUZ between Cannon Hill and the CBD. This money could then be used to fund a TUZ of the Cleveland line, not only benefiting the residents of Wynnum/Manly, but residents as far away as Victoria Point who now enjoy a more reliable trip via rail.

And that is just the start. Now the 250 can only run to Carindale - and only Carindale (no peak hour extension). There is no longer a need to link Cleveland and the CBD by bus, as with the trip now taking 50 minutes, you'd be stupid to use the bus, which takes longer. This can be done to a whole lot of other routes too.

Weekend vists to the foreshore in my opinion is pretty irrelevant. You do not see anywhere near significant loads on the Gold Coast line on the weekends, and that would probably be the first to see any kind of 'weekend peak' load. We do not need rail going to the foreshore. And lets face it, this isn't Bondi, this is Moreton Bay. It is not a large patronage generator. There are buses which run there anyway.

The reason why I don't like two-tier operations on the Cleveland line outside of peak is because expresses eat up train paths and complicates timetabling significantly. It is much easier just to stick to two tracks and avoid express patterns completely.

Need to be careful about running buses and changing to save a few minutes on a winding railway or switch to a metro for same. By the time you modal change, you have lost min of 3min and how much faster would be the alt to the current option. For 5-10min saving each day, if I had a seat, I'd probably stay put! Now save me 15-20min or longer which would probably mean realised leaving home later/getting home earlier, then I may consider, but you won't get that saving over a 20-30km route. The CL follows the historic and current population so while its a bit of the way for the southern end of the line, they fought long and hard to get that re-opened so obviously people are happy and the line is well used.

We could make them even happier and get the line used even more if it was even faster. We can make feeding to rail at Cleveland competitive. We can make PT better for the residents of Wynnum West and Manly West.

By the way, whenever there are closures on, the rail replacement bus actually gets to the city about 15-20mins faster than the train!  Same with the Gold Coast line actually, caught the rail replacement bus to Robina once last year and it ended up arriving 30mins quicker than if I had caught the train all the way down there.

I do not believe that. Rail from Roma Street to Robina is 1 hour 13 mins, car is 51 minutes - and that is a car, starting on the Riverside Expressway (no stuffing around serving Roma Street/South Brisbane/South Bank) and running non-stop to Robina. No Coopers Plains, Loganlea etc. To save 30 minutes would require a miracle.

[STB]

Bus replacements are usually on weekends etc.  And if the bus stopped at all the stations as for the train would no doubt be longer. Doubt would be quicker during the peak days etc.  An all stopper bus Corinda to Ipswich is a nightmare of the worst sort .. lol

Obviously the bus will be quicker if they don't have to stop all stations.  The ones I've caught stop all stations Cleveland to Birkdale, then run express to Central station, terminating at Roma St station during full shutdowns.

In terms of going via Eight Mile Plains for Victoria Pt and Redland Bay residents, traffic isn't really generally a major problem, even in peak hour, so is still far quicker (at least 20mins quicker) and more efficient to go via that way, which is why I'm wondering where RTT's thought is coming from.  I know this as I did it for two years while living in that area, and occasionally go that way after university.  The only hot spots for traffic is on approach to Grieve Road and on the busway at Garden City (Upper Mt Gravatt), the rest is pretty smooth sailing.  Even moreso now they have added more lanes for a significant part of Mount Cotton Road.

[STB]

By the way, whenever there are closures on, the rail replacement bus actually gets to the city about 15-20mins faster than the train!  Same with the Gold Coast line actually, caught the rail replacement bus to Robina once last year and it ended up arriving 30mins quicker than if I had caught the train all the way down there.

I do not believe that. Rail from Roma Street to Robina is 1 hour 13 mins, car is 51 minutes - and that is a car, starting on the Riverside Expressway (no stuffing around serving Roma Street/South Brisbane/South Bank) and running non-stop to Robina. No Coopers Plains, Loganlea etc. To save 30 minutes would require a miracle.

I did it last year when I had to head down for the Gold Coast Writers Festival at Robina.  We departed Dutton Park station after waiting around for about 5mins for pax and arrived at 11:15am after going non stop via the Motorway (I remember that time quite well - as I arrived at the place 45mins early for what I was doing down there), if the train was in operation, it was going to be 11:45am.

[James]

I did it last year when I had to head down for the Gold Coast Writers Festival at Robina.  We departed Dutton Park station after waiting around for about 5mins for pax and arrived at 11:15am after going non stop via the Motorway (I remember that time quite well - as I arrived at the place 45mins early for what I was doing down there), if the train was in operation, it was going to be 11:45am.

This is me being pedantic - but the train would have arrived at 11:40am. Non-stop via the motorway is around 20 minutes quicker.

[James]

So in summary, what you guys are saying is Sir Joe was right? Lets shut down the Cleveland line beyond Manly. Buses which have a far more direct route and can more easily manage express operation will provide a far better service to the end user. You would need to educate the current rail users that they are lossing up to 30min a day using rail and the bus is best as it can deliver then closer to home, probably closer to work and faster to get there. To better handle peak flow, we have the buses run into an inner line station or Buranda where the cattle can migrate onto rail and/or busway. Thus saving each of the current pax beyond Lota 10-20min per day and probably a billion dollars in rail infrastructure upgrades for the SE corner of Brisbane.

But buses are not the solution. There is something we need to get straight in this city - buses should not be used for 20-30km trips. It is simply not cost effective! Buses going all the way to the CBD get caught in traffic. This is why you build a railway line with a good alignment and then you provide frequent feeder buses. It costs less to run a train which has a frequent feeder buses running to its stations vs. a multitude of rockets which do not encourage connectivity.

I disagree with near-terminating routes because it isn't attractive to force interchange close to the CBD. And over time, the roads will get worse and worse - especially as more development takes place. As we've seen on the Mains Road corridor, there are only so many buses you can throw at a corridor before it just turns into madness and you need to put in a railway line.

In some Nth American cities, Heavy rail PT only runs in peak hour in peak flow for the reasons you have stated why buses should be used over rail, ie off-peak the rail system is usually very under uterlised (as is Brisbane) and infrastructure is alot cheaper if you don't need to have to factor in reverse flow traffic. It will cost $1B to finish the Quad and improve the BL line corridore, but this buys nearly 50 train sets that could run on the reverse flow track for 30 years and cover all costs and probably still save money. Buses and cars during off-peak can use the major roads that are now lightly loaded. Trains and track can be maintained during the day much more cheaply and the maintainence costs are much lower due to much less use

This is because the American mentality is dominated by cars in most cities. Los Angeles is the brilliant case - it is just hundreds of kilometres of never-ending low-density suburbia. And as such, the place is one gridlocked mess.

Heavy rail can be used effectively. We just need to start feeding buses to it and making it more direct. Right now, aside from between Northgate and Darra, the rail network is just one giant welfare network. There are two main ways to boost PT patronage: make it more frequent, or make it faster. Right now we don't feed most buses to rail, so we end up with a rail network which relies on its immediate catchment area. With that not being significantly larger than a bus, no longer our off-peak network is abysmal.

By shutting down corridors like rail off-peak, you effectively require passengers to make bus-bus transfers or run buses all the way to the CBD. Not an effective use of resources.

[ozbob]

Right on James.  Sector 2 will finally start to see improvements.  Despite the bus review failures, attention is being given to better support for the rail network.

[techblitz]

No james....with the mains rd corridor..theres only so many cars you can throw at a corridor before it turns to madness..
Buses from the cbd are doing there job quite well through this corridor thanks to the properly built busway which doesnt have to interact with any cars up to klummp and where some peak 130s are turning passengers away before it arrives at the university.

Clearly rail is no longer enticing on this corridor as is evidenced by the lack of people connecting at altandi.
To this station alone in peak the 131 has 6 minutes timesaving over rail and the off peak 140s/130s have 10 minutes over rail. Even in peak with the ridiculous car congestion on mains (thats right...blame the cars not buses) ...travel time is similar to rail.

There is something your failing to understand..and some others for that matter.....if rail cannot offer decent time savings over buses then pax will prefer a single connection bus due to their ease of access in and around the cbd. Eg: preferring not to walk all the way to central / roma st station or fartarse around on the cbd loop services to get to those stations. With a paying translink customer...its all about less hassle connecting and saving time in any way possible.

[ozbob]

Tough.  It is time all our resources were properly used.  The active transport component will do them well, and actually further save health costs.  I have little doubt that will see the progressive roll-out of a connected frequent network in the next few years.  The present cost explosion cannot continue.  TransLink bus review has not been for nothing.

[STB]

What about the busway?  I don't see that as being an overall failure in terms of patronage gains, even though it's being done by buses and not light rail or heavy rail.  The only major flaw is the capacity of the busway is now approaching to outdo the demand, mainly Culture Centre and on approach to Culture Centre from the Southbank, and to a lesser extent Buranda.

If I was living on the Mains Rd corridor, I'd choose the bus over the train simply because it's far more direct and faster via the busway.  And have done so quite a bit in the past purely for those reasons.  For me directness and speed overrides anything.  That's one thing I hate about the Cleveland line, the indirectness and slowness of the route.  Just a shame that the forefathers of Brisbane didn't have the foresight to take the modern view of public transport, although I do understand why they built the route in the way that they did (thank you to the QR Historian).

[SurfRail]

There is something your failing to understand..and some others for that matter.....if rail cannot offer decent time savings over buses then pax will prefer a single connection bus due to their ease of access in and around the cbd. Eg: preferring not to walk all the way to central / roma st station or fartarse around on the cbd loop services to get to those stations. With a paying translink customer...its all about less hassle connecting and saving time in any way possible.

And what commuters overwhelmingly don't understand (and I don't expect them to) is that the idea that everybody can have high-frequency non-stop buses single-seat bus trips to a CBD as small and constrained as Brisbane's without things starting to go very wrong is a fantasy.  The needs of the system at large and of the largest possible number of commuters will need to be measured against the needs of certain commuters who might be disadvantaged.  That's called "medicine" in my book, something that Brisbane very childishly refuses to take.

In the future, a transfer time penalty will be SMALLER than the time lost through congestion which the inner city will go through.  We are already seeing signs of that everywhere.  If people don't start getting used to that now, they are in for a shock in 10 years time when (almost certainly now) there won't be any new rail infrastructure in the network core to fix things.

[James]

No james....with the mains rd corridor..theres only so many cars you can throw at a corridor before it turns to madness..
Buses from the cbd are doing there job quite well through this corridor thanks to the properly built busway which doesnt have to interact with any cars up to klummp and where some peak 130s are turning passengers away before it arrives at the university.

Clearly rail is no longer enticing on this corridor as is evidenced by the lack of people connecting at altandi.
To this station alone in peak the 131 has 6 minutes timesaving over rail and the off peak 140s/130s have 10 minutes over rail. Even in peak with the ridiculous car congestion on mains (thats right...blame the cars not buses) ...travel time is similar to rail.

There is something your failing to understand..and some others for that matter.....if rail cannot offer decent time savings over buses then pax will prefer a single connection bus due to their ease of access in and around the cbd. Eg: preferring not to walk all the way to central / roma st station or fartarse around on the cbd loop services to get to those stations. With a paying translink customer...its all about less hassle connecting and saving time in any way possible.

You are already listing a reason why the Mains Road corridor needs heavy rail now. The current system is at capacity. If you keep expanding capacity along the 130/140 corridor in the bus-madness style which we have been doing, it will be bus mania - there will be a bus running past every 30 seconds, perhaps less. And where does this all feed into? The already congested busway! Buses are not an effective medium of hauling large amounts of passengers. Lets say each bus holds 50 passengers. Each 6-car train can hold 1000. Thus, 1 train can take 20 buses off the road. Or instead of having 20 staff, we have two. Instead of running twenty services, we run one.

The reason why nobody changes at Altandi is because it is nonsensical to change at Altandi. What person with a brain would get OFF a bus headed to the City via a faster alignment, only to get ON a train headed to the City via a slower alignment, possibly incurring a 29-minute transfer penalty? It defies logic. If you realigned the railway line and sent the trains via CRR, I can guarantee you will see trip times to the CBD be similar to that via bus. In the end, the Beenleigh line is not FREQUENT, and the competing bus services ARE. As such, bus wins every time. End. As I have stated, without frequent rail, a frequent service must proceed to the CBD in order to be effective. And without frequent rail, EVERY frequent service must proceed to the CBD. Long term, this is not an effective use of resources.

Regarding your saying about 'rockets all over the CBD'. I do not have a rocket to Alice Street, Spring Hill or a bus proceeding through the Valley. I have one City-bound bus which proceeds along Adelaide Street and terminates. Do you hear me throwing my toys out of the pram and demanding the UQ -> James' doorstep in St Lucia -> Alice Street P410 rocket? No, because it is a waste of resources and splits stop location. The City is not that bloody big. Brisbane is not New York. People need to harden up and learn to spend the time walking. Maybe the fact we demand express buses from our place of residence to our place of work is why we as a nation are so fat, because people refuse to walk 300m.

What about the busway?  I don't see that as being an overall failure in terms of patronage gains, even though it's being done by buses and not light rail or heavy rail.  The only major flaw is the capacity of the busway is now approaching to outdo the demand, mainly Culture Centre and on approach to Culture Centre from the Southbank, and to a lesser extent Buranda.

Long term, the busway in my opinion should only serve its direct catchment area and act similarly to light rail (aside from possibly in the core sections, where it may take BUZ routes like the Frequents set out in the bus review in the area north of the SE Busway). I don't see anything wrong with the busway continuing to be served by buses, I do see something wrong with not building a rail line down/near Mains Road within the next 20 years.

[#Metro]

Regarding your saying about 'rockets all over the CBD'. I do not have a rocket to Alice Street, Spring Hill or a bus proceeding through the Valley. I have one City-bound bus which proceeds along Adelaide Street and terminates. Do you hear me throwing my toys out of the pram and demanding the UQ -> James' doorstep in St Lucia -> Alice Street P410 rocket?

I have a rocket to my house. The 161 - It is wonderful. A pity not every citizen is as privileged as I and cannot readily avail themselves of Brisbane Transport's select (TM) personal home rocket services.

On my way home today I made a mistake and somehow caught someone else's personal home rocket - 157 Browns Plains Rocket - instead of the Paris Hilton (161) one. Nevertheless, despite it being the height of peak hour, there were only 21 great unwashed aboard out of a full capacity of 85 of the bus - just 23% capacity. It is good to know that Cultural Centre isn't the only place where fresh city air can leave the city and be delivered fresh to citizen's doors by the good charity of the Lord Mayor. Nobody seems to have measured how many of these air parcels make their way across the Captain Cook Bridge, to date, the only focus has been Cultural Centre.

[James]

On my way home today I made a mistake and somehow caught someone else's personal home rocket - 157 Browns Plains Rocket - instead of the Paris Hilton (161) one. Nevertheless, despite it being the height of peak hour, there were only 21 great unwashed aboard out of a full capacity of 85 of the bus - just 23% capacity. It is good to know that Cultural Centre isn't the only place where fresh city air can leave the city and be delivered fresh to citizen's doors by the good charity of the Lord Mayor. Nobody seems to have measured how many of these air parcels make their way across the Captain Cook Bridge, to date, the only focus has been Cultural Centre.

I agree with the P-rocket air parcels, although that's more an issue of capacity management. The 161 is nothing but a pure waste of resources - this is just another example of 'too many rockets fired at my doorstep'. Think the Centenary P-rockets, especially P458/P459. I never see them with any significant loads. In some cases, they can be useful. In other cases, it is simply a matter of reducing the number of services or consolidating stop locations.

There's a difference between stupid waste routes (MaroonGlider, 161, 314, 460 in its current form) and needless duplication (Centenary P-rockets, 130/150 series P-rockets, a 'P410' following the current 411 routing from UQ to North Quay etc.)

[ozbob]

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