Varsity Station Village a transit oriented community

[ozbob]

Varsity Station Village a transit oriented community Master Plan now finalised

--> http://www.varsitystationvillage.com.au/

[Jon Bryant]

Certainly heading in the right direction, just a few comments:

1. Local bus frequency needs to be 10-15 minutes in peak hour not 30mins - to link with the 15 minute operations on the rail line (is the rail really that frequent)
2. No Urban Village or TOD I know of has a carpark in the middle of it.  The opposite is usually the case and here is why:

Park and Rides are an inefficient strategy at encouraging public transport because:

- there is never going to be enough -  1000 spaces even at 2 people per car is only 2 and a bit trains.  This means that the passengers on all other trains are discouraged from travelling;
- they are expensive to provide - on average almost $20,000 per space if an open car park.  Multi-storey is significantly higher;
- they are contrary to good land use planning - they displace other, more useful commercial, residential and community activities. They also force these activities further away and thus increase urban sprawl;
- they places pressure on car parking in surrounding areas/commercial centres - because there will never be enough car spaces to accommodate all train users, giving people no alternative than to drive to the station means that pressure is inevitably placed on parking in surrounding areas including nearby shops;
- they assume everyone has access to a car - park-and-rides require even regular public transport users to have access to a cars and has nothing to offer the 47% of our population than do not have access/or cannot drive a car; and finally
- they undermine public transport use - one of the biggest problems with the idea of driving to public transport is psychological. Once you've started your journey in a car, you've got little reason not to drive it all the way to your destination; a fact not lost on public transport users themselves. Further they entrench driving for local trips purposes by undermining local public transport use.

Feeder bus services provide a far better option as they have useful functions other than conveying train passengers to railway stations. Half of all our journeys are local trips, with the origin and destination within the same suburb, and when such journeys are made by car they also contribute disproportionately to pollution and congestion. A comprehensive bus network is essential to making public transport attractive for these local trips. But as suburban activity centres and railway stations should be found in the same locations (TOD) the same buses that are useful for local travel are also useful as feeders to stations. Toronto provides an excellent example of feeder services to their local railway stations with over 70% of passengers arriving at their train station by bus or tram.

3. Successful TOD's have car parking max requirements as follows:
    - Retail/Office - 2 spaces per 100M2 (Varsity Lake has 5)
    - Residential - similar to plan
    - takes into consideration surrounding street parking.
    - also looks at overall mix of uses (office vs restaurants) rather than assuming all is required at same time.
4. A pedestrian link across the freeway to the western side of the railway station is required
5. I like the priority in the Movement Strategy - should be made SEQ wide approach
6. The 2-4 story precint on Coromandel Drive should be 4-6 storys

[O_128]

other than the carpark issue the area seems well resovled and has been done properly the only issue is if this is to be a shopping and eating district then 30min off peak wont cut it 15 will be needed from the first train in the morning to the last at night.

[somebody]

There should really be a bus meeting every train, in particular routes like the 765.  And one would think that the Coolangatta bus would use the terminus station, rather than sticking to Robina.  I'm not sure if there's an advantage with these rail connecting routes running more often than that though.

[Jon Bryant]

The only reason to run them more frequently is to start to capture some of the local trips which do make up 50% of trips across our city.  Mind you the trains should be running very frequently (less than 10min) so meeting evry train may be hard.

[stephenk]

The only reason to run them more frequently is to start to capture some of the local trips which do make up 50% of trips across our city.  Mind you the trains should be running very frequently (less than 10min) so meeting evry train may be hard.

Lets be realistic. Until there is a quadruplication from Dutton Park to Banoon, or the Gold Coast service is made less express, then 15min or better off-peak frequencies are not possible between Brisbane and Gold Coast. This is due to insufficient off-peak and reverse-peak track capacity.

[Jon Bryant]

Stephenk, I know it is not physically possible but unless we plan for the future we are going to hit a very big Brick Wall in Peak Oil in less than 5-6 years.  We are going to experience very rapid petrol price increases which will make 100,000's of people start to demand public transport.  If we are not ready for it our economy is in for a much bigger hit than the GFC.

[O_128]

Stephenk, I know it is not physically possible but unless we plan for the future we are going to hit a very big Brick Wall in Peak Oil in less than 5-6 years.  We are going to experience very rapid petrol price increases which will make 100,000's of people start to demand public transport.  If we are not ready for it our economy is in for a much bigger hit than the GFC.

well all we can really do is wait and say told you so. maybe they could link the clem 7 to the gold coast line on top of the cross river study? maybe our highways will only have buses on them, who knows but by 2016 at the latest a lot of people will be asking why more money wasnt put towards sustainable transport now.