5 Sep 2013: SEQ: Public Transport Death Spiral Enters Terminal Stages

[ozbob]

Media release 5th September 2013

SEQ: Public Transport Death Spiral Enters Terminal Stages



RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers says SEQ's Public Transport system will break down in peak hour with the almost certain cancelling of Cross River Rail.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"Tony Abbott's costings today shows clearly that NO urban passenger rail projects - including Cross River Rail - will be funded. Thus the rail system servicing suburbs adjoining the Cleveland, Gold Coast and Beenleigh lines will congest in 2016. Passengers are likely to spill over into the bus network which also cannot cope with more passengers due to the gross inefficiency imposed on it by Brisbane City Council's reaction to bus network reform. If the Federal Government won't fund rail, it seems safe to say that the Federal Government will also not fund the Mayor's bus link proposal either."



"TransLink must take back all bus network planning functions from BCC and so there is no ambiguity, legislation altering The City of Brisbane Act 2010 needs to be passed explicitly stripping BCC of all public transport functions - bus and ferry. This will allow bus network simplification to proceed along the South East Busway without BCC political interference. BCC should focus on roads, rubbish, rates and redevelopment."

"Queensland Rail should be instructed to consider high capacity signalling or other emergency measures (such as seat stripping) to prevent catastrophic system overload in 2016."

"The present policy of pricing people off public transport is about to come crashing down as petrol prices soar!"

"No amount of spin is going to cover up this mess. Chronic overcrowding and inconveniencing of tens of thousands of morning peak hour commuters on the Gold Coast, Beenleigh and Cleveland lines is likely to snowball into a potentially electorally fatal proposition for the incumbent Government in a similar way as the Frankston Line did in Victoria."



Contact:

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

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

7th September 2013

Re: SEQ Public Transport Death Spiral Enters Terminal Stages

Greetings,

From a public transport perspective, things possibly could not be worse.   As has been observed in Queensland following the election of the LNP State Government there has been a paralysis of policy and kowtowing to the political hierarchy when it comes to public transport.

Who is to blame for the perilous state?  A number of factors.  Incompetent ALP state Government that set up the failure.  The present LNP Government that seems content to let the mediocrity continue.  The common thread, a transport bureaucracy more concerned with self absorption than promoting and convincing the political masters of sound policy development and its implementation.

The failed bus reviews is a good example also of poor media feeding a nonsense community hysteria.  It didn't help that both TransLink and the Assistant Minister for Public Transport were apparently gagged.  But what that failure did highlight well, it is time for Brisbane City Council to get out of public transport.  SEQ is a lot larger than BCC, we need a proper connected network. Something that the TransLink bus review would have done well.

An excellent example of policy failure is the non-duplication of the North Coast Rail line north of Beerburrum. Absolutely essential from the freight and passenger perspective. Massive bang for the buck, but we see ever worsening road congestion, damage, massive trauma and injury costs as the consequence of not driving sensible transport policy.

A fare system that in SEQ is remarkable as it is one of the best examples of the worlds worst fare structures.  Look at the TransLink data, affordability is the worst 'customer'  satisfaction index by a long shot. Premier Newman indicated the 6 month action plan in January 2013 that a new fare structure would be rolled out. Still waiting Premier.  Simply following on with the flawed ALP fare system has been an insult to all Queenslanders.  Rationing  and forcing people off public transport by price control is actually costing many times over.  Getting people onto public transport around the clock is very beneficial from an economic perspective.

With our new Federal Government clearly of the view that public transport simply does not matter, congestion  and transport failure is going to get a lot worse in all of Australia.

Brisbane is very low placed relative to other cities on the liveability indexes.  Rather than screaming "It's wrong ... "  accept that fact that public transport is one of the important components of liveability, failing road transport is not.  Fixing public transport is not necessarily expensive. It takes a little bit of commonsense and 'courage' ...

Enjoy the snags!

Best wishes
Robert

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

Media release 5th September 2013

SEQ: Public Transport Death Spiral Enters Terminal Stages



RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers says SEQ's Public Transport system will break down in peak hour with the almost certain cancelling of Cross River Rail.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"Tony Abbott's costings today shows clearly that NO urban passenger rail projects - including Cross River Rail - will be funded. Thus the rail system servicing suburbs adjoining the Cleveland, Gold Coast and Beenleigh lines will congest in 2016. Passengers are likely to spill over into the bus network which also cannot cope with more passengers due to the gross inefficiency imposed on it by Brisbane City Council's reaction to bus network reform. If the Federal Government won't fund rail, it seems safe to say that the Federal Government will also not fund the Mayor's bus link proposal either."



"TransLink must take back all bus network planning functions from BCC and so there is no ambiguity, legislation altering The City of Brisbane Act 2010 needs to be passed explicitly stripping BCC of all public transport functions - bus and ferry. This will allow bus network simplification to proceed along the South East Busway without BCC political interference. BCC should focus on roads, rubbish, rates and redevelopment."

"Queensland Rail should be instructed to consider high capacity signalling or other emergency measures (such as seat stripping) to prevent catastrophic system overload in 2016."

"The present policy of pricing people off public transport is about to come crashing down as petrol prices soar!"

"No amount of spin is going to cover up this mess. Chronic overcrowding and inconveniencing of tens of thousands of morning peak hour commuters on the Gold Coast, Beenleigh and Cleveland lines is likely to snowball into a potentially electorally fatal proposition for the incumbent Government in a similar way as the Frankston Line did in Victoria."



Contact:

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

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> Fed-up commuters swap go cards for car keys as price hikes continue

TRAIN travellers are abandoning public transport at a rate of 1.5 million trips a year because of the rising cost, overcrowding on peak services and a host of other issues.

Figures obtained by The Courier-Mail show rail patronage has plummeted from 55.8 million trips in 2010-11 to a projected 51.07 million this financial year - up from 50.2 million last year.

In the same period, the cost of a zone two fare has climbed from $2.70 to $3.85 - a 42 per cent jump.

Next year the cost will rise by another 28 cents to $4.13 following an across-the-board 7.5 per cent fare hike in January.

The annual rises have resulted in widespread discontent among commuters with fewer than half rating train travel as "affordable" this year in any of the monthly customer satisfaction surveys ...


... Transport Minister Scott Emerson said affordability was one of the biggest issues facing public transport in southeast Queensland.

"That is why we've halved Labor's (15 per cent) fare hikes and introduced free travel after nine weekly journeys," Mr Emerson said.

But Robert Dow from commuter advocacy group Back on Track said he believed the falling patronage on trains was part of a deliberate strategy to ease pressure on the rail system.

"Falling patronage is artificial because it's induced by high-cost fares. I think that's been quite a deliberate strategy since 2010, to make it costly in order to control patronage," Mr Dow said.

"That's not going to last forever because we're looking at an increase in fuel prices, so patronage will climb."

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

Media release 8th September 2013



SEQ: Federal Election a Public transport catastrophe for Queensland Government

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers says SEQ's Public Transport system will break down with the cancelling of Cross River Rail.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"With Tony Abbott elected and his 'roads only' policies, SEQ faces a public transport catastrophe."

"Perth's trains already carry more passengers than ours and at cheaper fares and double the frequency on all lines to most stations all day."

"We continue to slip further behind in international city liveability rankings."

"Our bus network is a royal mess, the product of Brisbane City Council political interference. The fares are a mess and the fare price increase of 7.5% in three months time will be extraordinarily unpopular with the public."

"Affordability is already at rock bottom and continues to be at rock bottom despite all the fare gimmicks like 9-then free."

"The cycle of fare increases, patronage exodus leads to rising costs and falling revenues."

"Now with the new Federal government, it is safe to say both the Lord Mayor's bus tunnel project and Cross River Rail are both dead. When world leaders visit Brisbane for the G20, and Commonwealth Games, a perfect example of how not to run a city public transport network will be available for all the world to see."

"Where else but Queensland!"

Contact:

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

Sent to all outlets:

7th September 2013

Re: SEQ Public Transport Death Spiral Enters Terminal Stages

Greetings,

From a public transport perspective, things possibly could not be worse.   As has been observed in Queensland following the election of the LNP State Government there has been a paralysis of policy and kowtowing to the political hierarchy when it comes to public transport.

Who is to blame for the perilous state?  A number of factors.  Incompetent ALP state Government that set up the failure.  The present LNP Government that seems content to let the mediocrity continue.  The common thread, a transport bureaucracy more concerned with self absorption than promoting and convincing the political masters of sound policy development and its implementation.

The failed bus reviews is a good example also of poor media feeding a nonsense community hysteria.  It didn't help that both TransLink and the Assistant Minister for Public Transport were apparently gagged.  But what that failure did highlight well, it is time for Brisbane City Council to get out of public transport.  SEQ is a lot larger than BCC, we need a proper connected network. Something that the TransLink bus review would have done well.

An excellent example of policy failure is the non-duplication of the North Coast Rail line north of Beerburrum. Absolutely essential from the freight and passenger perspective. Massive bang for the buck, but we see ever worsening road congestion, damage, massive trauma and injury costs as the consequence of not driving sensible transport policy.

A fare system that in SEQ is remarkable as it is one of the best examples of the worlds worst fare structures.  Look at the TransLink data, affordability is the worst 'customer'  satisfaction index by a long shot. Premier Newman indicated the 6 month action plan in January 2013 that a new fare structure would be rolled out. Still waiting Premier.  Simply following on with the flawed ALP fare system has been an insult to all Queenslanders.  Rationing  and forcing people off public transport by price control is actually costing many times over.  Getting people onto public transport around the clock is very beneficial from an economic perspective.

With our new Federal Government clearly of the view that public transport simply does not matter, congestion  and transport failure is going to get a lot worse in all of Australia.

Brisbane is very low placed relative to other cities on the liveability indexes.  Rather than screaming "It's wrong ... "  accept that fact that public transport is one of the important components of liveability, failing road transport is not.  Fixing public transport is not necessarily expensive. It takes a little bit of commonsense and 'courage' ...

Enjoy the snags!

Best wishes
Robert

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

Media release 5th September 2013

SEQ: Public Transport Death Spiral Enters Terminal Stages



RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers says SEQ's Public Transport system will break down in peak hour with the almost certain cancelling of Cross River Rail.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"Tony Abbott's costings today shows clearly that NO urban passenger rail projects - including Cross River Rail - will be funded. Thus the rail system servicing suburbs adjoining the Cleveland, Gold Coast and Beenleigh lines will congest in 2016. Passengers are likely to spill over into the bus network which also cannot cope with more passengers due to the gross inefficiency imposed on it by Brisbane City Council's reaction to bus network reform. If the Federal Government won't fund rail, it seems safe to say that the Federal Government will also not fund the Mayor's bus link proposal either."



"TransLink must take back all bus network planning functions from BCC and so there is no ambiguity, legislation altering The City of Brisbane Act 2010 needs to be passed explicitly stripping BCC of all public transport functions - bus and ferry. This will allow bus network simplification to proceed along the South East Busway without BCC political interference. BCC should focus on roads, rubbish, rates and redevelopment."

"Queensland Rail should be instructed to consider high capacity signalling or other emergency measures (such as seat stripping) to prevent catastrophic system overload in 2016."

"The present policy of pricing people off public transport is about to come crashing down as petrol prices soar!"

"No amount of spin is going to cover up this mess. Chronic overcrowding and inconveniencing of tens of thousands of morning peak hour commuters on the Gold Coast, Beenleigh and Cleveland lines is likely to snowball into a potentially electorally fatal proposition for the incumbent Government in a similar way as the Frankston Line did in Victoria."



Contact:

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