Article: Brisbane council tells QR to 'get serious' about graffiti

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Brisbane council tells QR to 'get serious' about graffiti

Brisbane council tells QR to 'get serious' about graffiti
Article from: The Courier-Mail

By Alison Sandy

November 07, 2008 11:00pm

BRISBANE City Council has launched a stinging attack on Queensland Rail over the graffiti epidemic, accusing it of not taking the problem seriously.
Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has lodged a notice of motion for next week's council meeting, calling on the beleaguered body to "get serious" about dealing with graffiti offenders.

But QR has retaliated, claiming it had provided BCC with $30,000 in the past three months for a joint Graffiti Removal Program, but most of it wasn't used.

It comes after Cr Newman and Police Minister Judy Spence launched a Graffiti Taskforce of five police officers and three council workers about a month ago.

Already at least 21 graffiti-related charges have been laid following more than 1000 incidents.

Cr Newman said in the motion, QR needed to take immediate action to "clean up existing graffiti along rail corridors, railway stations and train carriages".

He also called on them to develop a long-term strategy to ensure rail assets were protected.

QR executive general manager passenger services Paul Scurrah denied the organisation wasn't serious about graffiti, saying $5.5 million was dedicated to graffiti prevention and removal.

"Between July and October BCC spent only $2567.50 out of a total allocation of $30,000 from QR," he said.

"QR will meet with the BCC next Friday to plan further graffiti prevention and removal strategies."

Mr Scurrah said QR employed 26 people to clean graffiti from rolling stock, rail corridors (including bridges, noise barriers, fences and walls), stations and other QR property.

"From July to September we responded to 1169 graffiti reports at stations and finalised 1093 - a 93 per cent close out rate," he said.

"For rolling stock in the same period, we received 4748 graffiti reports and finalised 4725 - a 99.5 per cent close out rate.

"We have about 3500 cameras across the 143 stations on the Citytrain network which have undergone a $10 million upgrade recently to enhance the quality of the images and thereby more easily identify offenders."

[ozbob]

At a recent QR community reference group meeting this issue was discussed at length.  QR is very serious about graffiti, its removal and control.

On a recent trip to Melbourne I noticed that there were improvements in their graffiti program.  It was suggested that harsher sentencing for offences has had an effect.

[ButFli]

No offence to BCC or anything, but if you take a look around there isn't any graffiti on QR property itself. If you're looking to do a few throw ups around the place QR property is the worst place to do it because it's always gone within 24 hours. BCC stuff is generally gone in a few days. The only stuff that remains is stuff on private property.

You can make harsher punishments as much as you want any nothing will happen. Most offenders are young and don't think about the consequences. Getting serious about graffiti means getting a whole new concept on how to deal with it.

[ozbob]

From the Queensland Parliamentary Hansard 13th November 2008.

Queensland Rail, Graffiti Management

Hon. RJ MICKEL (Logan?ALP) (Minister for Transport, Trade, Employment and Industrial
Relations) (10.00 am): It is an unfortunate fact of life that Queensland Rail must allocate many millions
to its graffiti management program each year. Queensland Rail also works with councils and
communities across Queensland to clean up graffiti. In particular, Queensland Rail has a close and
productive relationship with the Brisbane City Council.

Queensland Rail is committed to maintaining that cooperative relationship. I hope that the
statements from the Lord Mayor over the last couple of days do not challenge what has been a
memorandum of understanding with Queensland Rail regarding graffiti removal. I am certain that there
has been some miscommunication in the Lord Mayor?s office for him to call on Queensland Rail to
spend more when in fact it is already spending millions.

Above and beyond this, Queensland Rail works to prevent and remove graffiti through the
commissioning of a new $5 million purpose-built graffiti removal facility at Mayne; the approval of a new
$15.5 million cleaning facility for rolling stock in support of QR?s graffiti management program; and a
30 per cent capital contribution on design costs for stations to incorporate graffiti and vandalism
prevention and management design.

Queensland Rail employs 26 people to clean graffiti from rolling stock, rail corridors?including
bridges, noise barriers, fences and walls?stations and other Queensland Rail property. From July to
September, I am advised that Queensland Rail responded to 1,169 graffiti reports at stations and
finalised 1,093?a 93 per cent completion rate. For rolling stock in the same period, I am advised that
Queensland Rail received 4,748 graffiti reports and finalised 4,725?a 99.5 per cent completion rate.
In addition, Queensland Rail is committed to working with the Queensland Police Service to
identify and prosecute vandals through regular security patrols and use of our extensive closed-circuit
television network. Queensland Rail has approximately 3,500 cameras across the 143 stations on the
Citytrain network. These cameras have undergone a $10 million upgrade recently to enhance the
quality of the images and thereby more easily identify offenders.

[mufreight]

The question arises from Minister Mickel's statement of the number of reports and the number of such reports reported as .
What does finalised mean in the context of the Ministers statement, does it mean cleaned up, does it mean the vandals have been identified and prosecuted, it would be interesting to know some actual fact not spin. 
The numbers quoted by the Minister also would seem to have been fudged somewhat or does the Minister only count those examples of graffiti reported by the public or is his figure the numbers of items of graffiti actually on railway property or infrastructure.

[brismike]

The Grafitti problem on the Ipswich line between Darra and Central just seems to be getting worse and worse.    I have seen no tangible cleanup of any of it for over a year. So where are the 26 people employed on cleaning it up? Would be nice to get a couple of them doing something to clean things up between Oxley and Sherwood for instance. 

The section between Indooroopilly and Taringa is a total disgrace but most of it is on private property.  

I'd be ashamed to have a visitor from overseas travel on our trains to see all of the visual pollution along our rail lines.

[ozbob]

Howdy Mike,  yes got to agree with you.  The graffiti is particularly bad at the moment on the IPS, particularly between Sherwood and the CBD.  Some is on private property, some is on railway property.  Yesterday morning at Oxley, early about 6am the local anti-graffiti squad where fixing up the Oxley road bridge that had been vandalised overnight.

[brismike]

This morning I was on the all stations 7.26am Darra to Bowen Hills. When we got to Roma Street we had a bit of a wait . . about 6 or 7 mins in fact .. No big deal exacpt there was no explanation. 

Anyway while we were sitting there I saw New Unit 263 and 261 pull into Roma Street. I think it was on a Gold Coast - Airport Service. The whole front side of Unit 261 had been defaced with grafitti. From the bottom of the side to half way up the windows and probably about 3 quarters of the length of the first carriage. This is a terrible defacement of a brand new Train.

Hope QR can clean it off because it looked really bad. They will probably have to take it out of service for a whole day to clean it I would expect. If they catch the vandals who did it they should send them to Iraq for a tour of duty. 

[Dean Quick]

If these graffiti vandals are caught then they should be made to clean up their mess under strict supervision and then forced to pay a severe fine
and then ordered to do some community service. These brain dead morons who vandalise public property may then think twice before committing 
these acts!!