Eastern Busway - Archived Full Documents

[timh]

Inspired by recent discussion about the need for the Northern Busway as an alternative to the NWTC, I think it's worthwhile looking at the full, original plans for the Northern and Eastern Busway. I am a huge proponent of these pieces of infrastructure, and I believe they should be fully completed as (mostly) per their original plans. Over the year's I've tried to archive as much of the original plans as I could find from Wayback Machine, various random transport blogs, etc. Here is a thread of all of the plans for the Eastern Busway that I could find. If you have further documents, please add them here.

NOTE: I have many of these in PDF form for higher resolution. For now, if you want to view them in higher res than what you can see in the thread, just right click the image and click "Open Image in New Tab"

1) Full Alignment Map, with Timeline

Note the need for the full busway to Carindale by 2010!

2) Eastern Busway Newsletter, 2006



3) Map 02 - Langlands Park to Coorparoo Junction


3a) Coorparoo Junction Station Render (source unknown)


4) Map 03-04 - Coorparoo Junction to Carina


5) Map 05-06 - Carina to Carindale


5a) Map 05-06 Carindale Station Options


5b) Carindale Station Detailed Drawing


5c) Carindale Station Artist Drawing


6) Map 07-08 - Carindale to Belmont


7) Map 09-10 - Belmont to Chandler


7a) Chandler Station Detailed Drawing


Map 11-12 - Chandler to Capalaba West


8a) Map 11-12 Capalaba West Station Options


8b) Capalaba West Station Detailed Drawing


9) Map 13 - Capalaba West to Capalaba


9a) Map 13 Capalaba Station Options


9b) Capalaba Station Detailed Drawing



DISCUSSION:

- This plan actually has large portions of the busway as median running.
- The most expensive part is obviously the tunnel from Langlands Park to Carina (Approx 3.8km)
- I don't know why the tunnel emerges to the surface just before Coorparoo Junction the dives again. For what purpose? Why not just have it tunnel all the way?
- I have no idea what the hell is going on at Bridgewater Creek station or why it needs to be so complex there
- Building to Carindale is something I think BCC would like to do (or at least help to do) to extend Brisbane Metro to Carindale)
- I would highly support building this out to Chandler by 2032 for the Olympics since Sleeman is going to be used so heavily for the Olympics. It should definitely have a high quality right of way and a proper high quality station. The section from Carindale to Sleeman would not even be that expensive comparatively to other sections
- I would argue that the section from Chandler to Capalaba is probably not needed until after 2032 as land uses in the area don't justify it yet.

[hU0N]

- I don't know why the tunnel emerges to the surface just before Coorparoo Junction the dives again. For what purpose? Why not just have it tunnel all the way?
- I have no idea what the hell is going on at Bridgewater Creek station or why it needs to be so complex there

There are three creeks that cross OCR between Buranda and Carindale.

Norman Creek near O'Keefe Street

Coorparoo Creek near Shakespeare Street

Bridgewater Creek near Leicester Street

The busway already rises out of a tunnel to go up and over Norman Creek before dropping back into the tunnel.  I suspect that the plan was to go up and over the other two creeks in a similar fashion.

[Jonno]

Tunnel the whole way to Carindale and make it a full and true Metro! After Carindale run in median then under intersections/Chandler!

 If cost is an issue then scale the MRI back to a simple interchange and many other road widening projects and bobs your uncle!!

The money is there just need the political will!

[#Metro]

What are the projected passenger volumes for the Eastern Busway?

To pick up on Jonno's point:

Nobody would question placing a motorway carrying a total of 3600 vehicles/hr/direction, equal to 4320 pphd in a tunnel (two lanes in one direction). That is essentially what is being proposed for the NWTC Motorway.

So why should it be any different when the same or higher volume of people per hour also use a road but in buses and not cars?

I might also add the bus-only road is only one lane in each direction, whereas a motorway would be two lanes in each direction. 

[Jonno]

The answer is yes. Vision and Validate!

How many trips do we want to be made by public transport?

[#Metro]

The answer is yes. Vision and Validate!

How many trips do we want to be made by public transport?

I think mode shares cannot just take on any value. They are constrained by the next best alternatives.

To get PT=50% level, I speculate it essentially needs to match the overall door-to-door journey time of car in the off-peak.*

The path from QSBS to Carindale is about 11 km (path means surface distance, not an air distance).

We don't know the exact speed details for each section of Eastern Busway, but we do know that the BUZ 111 averages about 30 km/hr on the SEB. We can use that as a starting point.

A good estimate would therefore be:

11 km path x (60 min/30 km) = 22 minutes (would need to add some padding)

A car in uncongested traffic could do the same trip in about ~ 17 minutes (off-peak)*

Based on this, if the Eastern Busway was built entirely in tunnel to Carindale, it would provide very competitive travel times not only during peak times, but also outside of peak. There is also no competing motorway in the eastern suburbs of Brisbane.

The plans justify tunnel in sections that are congested, and surface where sections are not congested. However, there is a different way to look at this. Making the bus as fast as possible - if I have my interpretation of Downs-Thompson right - means that when the road does reach capacity in peak, it will reach that point at a higher average speed than if the bus was slow. That's a benefit that would go to motorists. In a sense, everyone would be better off.

Notes

* I haven't used a peak hour journey time here. During peak I imagine that PT and car journey times converge due to the Downs-Thompson effect. Therefore, the difference between car and PT journey times in peak should approach zero. https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2021/09/22/traffic-in-cities-the-downs-thomson-paradox/

[Gazza]

When I search on Google maps, a trip made off peak from Queen Street Mall to Westfield Carindale is around 20 mins.

It takes 25 mins on the 222 to get from Carindale to the CBD, so its not hard to imagine the busway, or even a transitway knocking 5 mins off the journey time.

Carindale would never have more than an average wait of 5 mins for a bus.

So should be competitive.....

[Jonno]

Also remember the current car sewer called Old Cleveland Road would become more like this