Western Busway

[#Metro]

Today Brisbanetimes released their first article on congestion and choke points within Brisbane.
Funnily enough, most cars designed to go 50/km hr in urban areas are absolutely crawling at speeds of just 5km/hr or 6km/hr.
My dog can run faster than that!

See article here

Traffic around the Indooropilly/Chelmer area was pretty bad, as was Kenmore. Toowong didn't feature but one only needs to take a look at the backlog that occurs as cars attempt to access Coronation Drive.

I think the following options should be considered:
* Bus priority Lanes
* New Bridge adjacent to Walter Taylor
* Tram-Trains/Light Rail for Kenmore area (no new bridge required- use rail bridge to cross BNE river)
* Heavy Rail extension
* Western Busway from the Centenary area/Jindalee-Chelmer-Graceville-Indooroopilly-Toowong-Milton-City.

There is already a reasonably frequent shuttle bus from Indro-Jindalee-Oxley Stn, but not sure if that would have as much social benefit as a Western Busway or a new bus/green bridge.

[somebody]

Moggill Rd at Kenmore is worse than North Quay/Coronation Drive?  That's the main revelation of this article.

Wonder what it was like before they got rid of the bus lane on Coro?

[david]

Where: Honour Avenue at Chelmer, approaching the Walter Taylor Bridge at Indooroopilly.

When: Wednesday, August 19, 7.50am.

Duration: 11 minutes and 17 seconds.

To travel: One kilometre of Honour Av at Graceville running inbound along the Ipswich rail line before the Walter Taylor Bridge at Indooroopilly.

Speed: 5.31kmh.

Description: Traffic on single-lane Honour Av merges with a semi-circle of cars lined up around Walter Taylor Bridge.

This isn't surprising. I regularly see cars lined up on that road when my train zooms past

I think the solution is to have massive signs indicating people to use Chelmer station (which is possibly the least busiest station along the Ipswich line). A new park-and-ride could probably be built there. A quick look at the timetable indicates that one could potentially be at the city in 14 minutes compared to the 11 minutes spent waiting in the traffic just to get over the bridge.

With the Kenmore region, the problem is that both the Western Freeway/Milton Road and Moggill Road/Coro Drive are chock-a-block, resulting in a lose-lose situation. The only way to resolve this is to have new infrastructure, i.e. a Western Busway, which would attract plenty of passengers from that region, especially because of the potentially faster travel times compared to driving a car.

[ozbob]

What do you think of this folks?

http://cjw.id.au/WordPress/?p=37

A Western Suburbs Elevated Busway
October 17th, 2007

The elevated section of the Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles shown here is a design we could emulate in the Western suburbs. It has four lanes for high-occupancy vehicles. We should investigate building an elevated busway along the Western Freeway and Centenary Highway, with feeders from suburbs along the route. Starting with a green bridge linking Bellbowrie with Riverhills, a busway could run eastwards along the southern edge of Riverhills to the Centenary Highway, just north of where it meets the Ipswich Motorway. From there, it would run in to the Toowong roundabout above the existing traffic. It could also have a 1 km spur to Darra Railway Station.

Since most of the Centenary Highway runs through commercial areas and the Western Freeway is primarily in a cutting through bushland, the visual and noise impact on neighborhoods would be minimal, and it could return to ground level in sensitive areas. The elevated busway could also be available for emergency services (don?t try an ambulance trip from, say, Jindalee to the Royal Brisbane or the Wesley at 7:30am on a weekday!). It could also potentially serve high occupancy, low-emissions car-pooling private vehicles. Work by Sydney academic Prof. David Hensher suggests that even at the most costly end of the range, busways can be extremely cost-effective. I estimate we could upgrade the Ipswich Motorway and build this busway for less than the $2.3 billion price-tag of the proposed Goodna bypass favoured by Mr. Johnson .... 

[somebody]

Where: Honour Avenue at Chelmer, approaching the Walter Taylor Bridge at Indooroopilly.

When: Wednesday, August 19, 7.50am.

Duration: 11 minutes and 17 seconds.

To travel: One kilometre of Honour Av at Graceville running inbound along the Ipswich rail line before the Walter Taylor Bridge at Indooroopilly.

Speed: 5.31kmh.

Description: Traffic on single-lane Honour Av merges with a semi-circle of cars lined up around Walter Taylor Bridge.

This isn't surprising. I regularly see cars lined up on that road when my train zooms past

I think the solution is to have massive signs indicating people to use Chelmer station (which is possibly the least busiest station along the Ipswich line). A new park-and-ride could probably be built there. A quick look at the timetable indicates that one could potentially be at the city in 14 minutes compared to the 11 minutes spent waiting in the traffic just to get over the bridge.

With the Kenmore region, the problem is that both the Western Freeway/Milton Road and Moggill Road/Coro Drive are chock-a-block, resulting in a lose-lose situation. The only way to resolve this is to have new infrastructure, i.e. a Western Busway, which would attract plenty of passengers from that region, especially because of the potentially faster travel times compared to driving a car.

I actually think you could be right.  There are two ovals and a park by the station.  The park could be made into a parking area.  Due to the limited amount of area, it might have to be multi storey.  There's already some parking at Corinda.  Maybe we could also upgrade that.

Western Busway isn't the only possible solution.  Re-instating the transit lane (or bus lane) on Coronation Drive would work wonders, although the problem with that is: what about the Rockets, which currently take Milton Rd.  *My* favoured solution would be putting the transit/bus lane on Milton Rd and moving all the other busses there, but many wouldn't like losing service on Coro.

[#Metro]

Ipswich Motorway always gets funding, it's a major route so it qualifies for Federal funding.

http://www.mainroads.qld.gov.au/en/Projects/Featured-projects/Ipswich-Highway-upgrade-Wacol-to-Darra.aspx

Ipswich Motorway Stage 1
Stage 1: $700 million for 3 kilometres = $233 million per kilometre.

Boggo Road Busway
Complete with tunnels: $226 million for 1.5 km = $150 million per kilometre, and that includes all that expensive tunnelling, a bridge over Ipswich Road, and three new stations (Dutton Pk, Boggo Rd and PA). Not to mention the much higher capacity you get with a busway compared to road lanes.

For $700 million you could get (700/150) = 4.6 km, roughly adjust as you wouldn't need so many tunnels... ~ 5km of busway approx.

The distance between Indooroopilly and Jindalee is about 5-5.5 km.
The distance between Indoroopilly and Toowong is about 2.5 km
The distance between Indooroopilly and Roma St is about 5.5 km.
The distance between Indooroopilly and Cultural centre via Toowong-(tunnel under river)-West End is about 5km.

A single lane on freeway would carry 1500-1800 vehicles/hour, thats roughly 4320 people/hour (assume 2 lanes).
Figures for the SE Busway capacity can be estimated at 15 000 passengers an hour (median).

To achieve the same number of passengers, the freeway would have to be (15 000/4320) =3.4 = 4 lanes wide.
Reference #1
Reference #2

A transport engineer/economist/consultant would be needed to work out what the social benefits would be, but this would depend on the time saved in traffic, the number of people switching from car to bus and the value of time.

Conclusion
The above rough calculations are not meant to be used for any purpose whatsoever, and aren't professional. But I guess what it shows is that it *might* just be worthwhile and cheaper than constructing a road! For $700 million +/- a bit, I think that it might just be possible to get some good transport in the Western Suburbs. And that is with the full blown busway option. Priority lanes, reserved lanes/utilising freeway lanes for buses would be cheaper than that.

[david]

Western Busway isn't the only possible solution.  Re-instating the transit lane (or bus lane) on Coronation Drive would work wonders, although the problem with that is: what about the Rockets, which currently take Milton Rd.  *My* favoured solution would be putting the transit/bus lane on Milton Rd and moving all the other busses there, but many wouldn't like losing service on Coro.

*If* a busway is built on Milton Road, then the rockets could just use the Western Fwy and enter my proposed western busway at the Jephson St entrance. Otherwise, according to Campbell Newman, the new Northern Link tunnel will take so many cars off Milton Road that bus lanes can be implemented.

Talking of the Northern Link tunnel, does anyone know if the proposal to build a busway with the tunnel has gained any momentum? It would be excellent if an Airport Link/Northern Busway approach was used in combining the construction of the Northern Link/Western Busway.

[somebody]

Otherwise, according to Campbell Newman, the new Northern Link tunnel will take so many cars off Milton Road that bus lanes can be implemented.

Is this the Clem7 tunnel or something else?  If it's the Clem7 tunnel, I think he should introduce me to his drug dealer.

[ButFli]

Moggill Rd at Kenmore is worse than North Quay/Coronation Drive?  That's the main revelation of this article.

Wonder what it was like before they got rid of the bus lane on Coro?

Not really a revelation. Coronation Drive is fine if it isn't raining.

They say that Kenmore got a lot better once the bus lane on Coronation Drive was removed. So much so that bus travel times from out that way into the city actually improved.

[david]

The Northern Link tunnel is a proposed tunnel linking Toowong to the Inner City Bypass at Normanby/Kelvin Grove. Nothing has been set in stone yet. I believe that the final design is yet to be approved. That gives an opportunity for a busway to be incorporated into the design.

[#Metro]

 

[Emmie]

Re-instating the transit lane (or bus lane) on Coronation Drive would work wonders, although the problem with that is: what about the Rockets, which currently take Milton Rd.  *My* favoured solution would be putting the transit/bus lane on Milton Rd and moving all the other busses there, but many wouldn't like losing service on Coro.

The problem with the bus lanes on Coro Drive was that they were designed for traffic that went IN to the city in the morning, and OUT of the city in the afternoon.  This totally ignored the huge counter-flow going OUT to UQ in the morning and IN to the city and rest of Brisbane in the afternoon.  Duh.

Whatever the long term solution for PT to the western suburbs may be, my suggestion for the Coronation Drive / Milton Rd problem would be to make each of them one way only - they run parallel between North Quay and Toowong, so have all traffic go out on Milton Rd, and in on Coro Drive.  That would allow 3/4 lanes of cars and a bus lane with turn outs in both directions.

[somebody]

The problem with the bus lanes on Coro Drive was that they were designed for traffic that went IN to the city in the morning, and OUT of the city in the afternoon.  This totally ignored the huge counter-flow going OUT to UQ in the morning and IN to the city and rest of Brisbane in the afternoon.  Duh.

Whatever the long term solution for PT to the western suburbs may be, my suggestion for the Coronation Drive / Milton Rd problem would be to make each of them one way only - they run parallel between North Quay and Toowong, so have all traffic go out on Milton Rd, and in on Coro Drive.  That would allow 3/4 lanes of cars and a bus lane with turn outs in both directions.

That's a radical suggestion!! Getting from the city to Milton Rd could be a bit of a problem: I don't think the ramp at Hale St, even combined with Upper Roma St, could take all the load.  Not sure about North Quay heading in to the city: it tends to funnel traffic there even more than now, but that effect is probably slight compared to the effect on outbound traffic.

The solution to the counter-flow problem is obvious: put in a 24x7 bus lane in both directions.  Wouldn't be particularly popular though.

Not really a revelation. Coronation Drive is fine if it isn't raining.

Not when I've been on it.  Even at 6:30pm you can take up to 30mins to get between Indooroopilly & the City.  Maybe if it isn't raining and it's also 10pm, and they aren't doing roadworks.  And there's eclipse.  

The Northern Link tunnel is a proposed tunnel linking Toowong to the Inner City Bypass at Normanby/Kelvin Grove. Nothing has been set in stone yet. I believe that the final design is yet to be approved. That gives an opportunity for a busway to be incorporated into the design.

It's a bit of a deviation though.  I presume that the idea of this is to connect the ICB and the Western Freeway and reduce traffic on Milton Rd, so I wouldn't be surprised if you could only go north on the ICB coming from Toowong.

[david]

The initial design had the ability for motorists to access the city when travelling Toowong to ICB on the Northern Link tunnel. However, because of anger from residents, they decided just to make it a simple connection at both Toowong (to the Western Freeway) and Kelvin Grove (to the ICB). I believe the design at Toowong had a ridiculous 10 lanes planned for part of Milton Rd!

[#Metro]

Quite a lot of comments in both The Courier Mail and Brisbanetimes about the Western Suburbs missing out yet again.

The Western Suburbs have a rail line at BUZ 444. There is a very large number of buses which run through the western corridor.
There are solutions needed to connect this area together.

[#Metro]

Moggill Bridge connection

Blue line is not a busway but a transit line- either by walking, bus or bicycle.
In the future the blue line could be replaced with a busway, bus lanes or a simple on-road bus route.


This image is reproduced from Google Maps for the purposes of research, study, criticism and review.
http://maps.google.com

The red line is a potential crossing over the river.
This could be a simple and cheap green bridge to allow bicycles, pedestrians and the like to access Riverhills.
If a bus stop were placed at the Riverhills side of the bridge, people could go to work in Sumner Park or catch a train
to Ipswich (catch connecting bus to Darra).

Should this prove to be popular in the future, then the bridge could be expanded to a bus only bridge which could cross the river into Bellbowrie and stop at the shopping centre they have there.
Given the topography, I think bus is the only suitable solution for the nearer term.

[somebody]

That's an interesting thought, but if it went through wouldn't there still be required to be a bus along Moggill Rd beyond Kenmore?

Then you have NIMBYs who don't want operating hours of the Moggill Ferry after 6:30pm.  Perhaps towards Riverhills it isn't quite as bad though.

[#Metro]

People in the Western Suburbs want more public transport and better connectivity.
I've seen it in in the newspapers; and they always miss out.
With North Link Tunnel and possible bus lanes on Coronation Drive,
this could work really well.

There is no busway out that way, its a pity as the hilly terrain really only leaves the bus option as the solution.
Perhaps the bridge should be done as one that supports bus from the first instance. It makes things much quicker.

A busway on (i.e. exclusive bus lanes) or next to the Centenary Highway beginning at Sumner Park and continuing to Indooroopilly
would be worth looking at.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/19-million-squiggle-on-a-map-20090925-g521.html

http://greenupmoggill.org/2009/02/getting-around-the-kenmore-bypass/

http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/Home/Projects_and_initiatives/Projects/Western_brisbane_transport_network_investigation/Western_brisbane_transport_network_strategy_projects#project_02

http://www.saveourkenmore.com/alternatives/

[somebody]

Interesting links.

One would question though, if the second inner city tunnel goes through as planned, why not run through to Kenmore, over the river and service Jindalee and Riverhills.  You have to tunnel to somewhere around Taringa anyway, why not service a few more people, but with a branch to pick up some of the trains from Indooroopilly in peak.

I don't think the above idea saves the concept of that tunnel though.

As for the problem at hand, wouldn't it be better to simply divert more people onto the existing bus services?  The 444 is ok other than the lack of bus priority, but the 425, 430, 433, 435 are all hourly and crap!  Especially the last one.

[#Metro]

There are a few options, a rail solution is already in operation, but I think busway would be the best as it could give door to door access and the terrain around Kenmore etc is very very hilly. It would also fix up the bus modes which use the area. These could be simply exclusive lanes on the current (or expanded) Centenary Hwy and then up into a viaduct to Indooroopilly.

Transfer & Terminate at rail is another idea but this is what already is supposed to occur at Darra, Toowong and Indooroopilly.
Though this hasn't stopped a significant portion of people would using the buses, these will progressively get bogged down in Moggill Road traffic/Centenary Highway.

I agree the frequencies out this way, (apart from 444) are terrible.
444  also stops outside the main development estate, and there is not much around except for the small shopping centre at Bellbowrie.
I'm sure residents would find access to Ipswich and Riverhills etc useful..

[cartel_brisbane]

We western suburbanites want better public transport. Its got better in recent years (468 route was a major step forward) and more services on the Ipswich line have made things a lot better than they were compared to a few years ago.

However there are still a large number of issues outstanding. One is park and ride facilities for bus, train or both in the area. The second is the bottleneck at Indooroopilly at the Walter Taylor Bridge. This is a major problem in the morning peak (is still bad at many other times as well). However the suggestion that a new bridge be built has been all but rejected flat out because of the NIMBY *expletives* around St Lucia.

Clearing this roadblock would allow better flowing through Taringa and onto Coronation Drive.

Also, the Western freeway busway concept is appealing.

[#Metro]

The land on either side of Walter Taylor could be bought (Army barracks- they are moving out) and (bulldozed site) could be used to put a busway bridge, or a new car bridge (and use the old Walter Taylor for reserved busway). It would be costly though.

NIMBYs in St Lucia? But the site is no-where near St Lucia...

Western Busway is a good idea. Light Rail might also be possible as the corridor (Milton, Auchenflower, Toowong, Indooroopilly) is denser than other parts of Brisbane. Trip generators would be Park Rd dining, Milton work and stadium, Wesley Hospital, Toowong & Toowong Village, UQ St Lucia, The RE and Regatta pubs, Indooroopilly shopping centre, Brisbane Boys College etc.

[longboi]

NIMBYs in St Lucia? But the site is no-where near St Lucia...

They're in the same electorate though.

[somebody]

However the suggestion that a new bridge be built has been all but rejected flat out because of the NIMBY *expletives* around St Lucia.

Which leaves improvements to PT as the only viable option.

[cartel_brisbane]

NIMBYs in St Lucia? But the site is no-where near St Lucia...

Large volumes of traffic go to UQ. Coming from the west you have basically two choices if driving.

The first is on the Western Freeway and then down Moggill Road to the roundabout. Secondly along Oxley road and across the Walter Taylor Bridge to the same big roundabout where the Ford dealership is This combined with all the traffic thats going into the CBD and norther suburbs makes both those routes a nightmare for large parts of the day.

The council and the local state members, whilst recognizing that something has to be done about traffic, has ruled out the purchase of the out of use army barracks land for a new bridge because that would upset NIMBY locals in their electorate (which is stupid because the traffic is still going to the same place via the same route for the most part, its getting across the river itself!)

Which leaves improvements to PT as the only viable option.

And if another Green Bridge is built, it doesn't solve the core issue of traffic. And also since most, services to or from the West either originate,  stop or terminate at the Indooroopilly bus interchange, a second road bridge (ie for all traffic) across the river at the current spot would be of greater benefit to all involved.

[somebody]

I was thinking more like increasing frequency on the train line, and maybe improving bus services.  But that peninsular is pretty narrow and most people are within a moderate walk of the train, it's just the lack of a full time 15 minute frequency is a deterent to its use.