Underpasses, overpasses and UX

[andrewr]

I was thinking about the public transport pyramid and was thinking about a possible addition to it, being end-to-end user experience. What I mean by this is the bus stops, footpaths, environment, bike racks/carparks, experience on the bus etc. UX is very broad and encompassing, and one could argue that it even covers things like bus frequency.

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Bus stop design is one important part of UX. If you do a quick image search on the net you might find something like this for a bus stop in Brisbane:

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This is a bus stop I've used recently a few times. It's in Calamvale on a busy 70km/h road and it is hot and unpleasant. The buses come every 15 minutes if you're lucky. Regardless it does seem to be pretty popular.

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To get to the bus stop from the Calamvale side, one might spend over 5 minutes getting across the main road:

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A bit further down the highway (when Beaudesert Road turns into a highway) one can find an underpass like this one:

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This is just a bus stop in an outer suburb of Brisbane, but I can think of many places across Brisbane that would massively benefit from overpasses and underpasses to improve access across highways and MetRoads to bus stops and train stations.

[verbatim9]

Yes, where the 140 stops. They should really upgrade that stop to a premium stop and move it further back from the road.

[andrewr]

A few examples of places I think could benefit from an underpass:

Greenslopes Station on the SE Busway is not very well located to start with - it's not near the hospital or many houses. Annerley residents can currently access it via the underpass at Lewisham Street, but it's a 5-10 minute detour to get there. If they're going to the city they have to also go over the overpass to get to Platform 1. Arnwood Place and Barnsdale Place did once connect prior to the freeway construction, and could be an ideal location for an additional underpass to improve connectivity for pedestrians.

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Various intersections along Mains Road in Sunnybank/Sunnybank Hills could use better connectivity.

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Users of the Mains Road Park 'n' Ride are often seen jaywalking across Mains Road to avoid waiting for up to 10 minutes crossing two sets of lights here:

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[andrewr]

I remember hearing about a possible Eight Mile Plains overpass to the Technology Park, but alas I cannot find it. It was supposed to be something like this (excuse the poor quality drawing; obviously the overpass won't go over the building like that either).

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[andrewr]

I'm keen to see if anyone else knows of good underpasses around the place. I need to get some photos when I get a chance but this Veloway bike tunnel is a great example of a small active transport tunnel:

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They're building an underpass under the Story Bridge:

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The O'Keefe Street underpass is quite new:

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Interstate and abroad there are more examples of underpasses:

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[andrewr]

Veloway underpass at Birdwood Road, Holland Park West

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[Jonno]

A favorite

[Jonno]

Few more

[#Metro]

^ These underpasses look pretty good Jonno.

I hope now that the LGCFR project has had massive cost increases, simpler and potentially cheaper underpasses will be considered where there are currently large ramps and overpasses planned.

Yes, I have heard the flooding objection, but given that much of the Netherlands is below sea level or very close to it, it they seem to have found a way not to worry too much about it.

[SurfRail]

They don't get Cat 5 cyclones.

These connections are in many cases needed for people to be able to cross the line at all (including those not using trains).

[Gazza]

I thought the Netherlands was sea flooding, whereas in SEQ its more flash flooding and riverine flooding.

https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/faulty-analogy.html
This fallacy consists in assuming that because two things are alike in one or more respects, they are necessarily alike in some other respect.


Basically, in the Netherlands the risk is that if their sea wall system failed, the whole country would be flooded, but the risk of that is 1 in 10,000 years.

As for SEQ and northern NSW, there are so many areas that cannot be dammed, and floods are unavoidably more frequent, which is why places like Toombul seem to have just given up instead of trying to mitigate in a losing battle.

In SEQ, even though an overpass costs more upfront, it may 'pay for itself' if it avoids having to replace the lifts or electrical systems down in the underpass.
It can also be difficult to get approvals to build something flood prone if it can be demonstrated a less flood prone alternative is possible.
Ergo most stations in SEQ use overpasses in the vast majority of station upgrades, so it would be difficult to argue to not do an overpass again just to save a little money.