9 Jun 2011: SEQ: Brisbane City Council Budget - more transport failure

[ozbob]

Media release 9 June 2011

SEQ: Brisbane City Council Budget - more transport failure

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers says the 2011/12 Brisbane City Council Budget continues down the road of flawed and failing car centric non-solutions (1).

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"Despite the spectacular failure of the Clem7 road tunnel the Brisbane City Council bases most of its budget on more of the same - the Legacy Way road tunnel. Despite vague promises of up to 2000 express buses per day on it there are no connections for buses Between the Legacy Way and the busway network confirmed (2).  This bus spin committment is a ruse."

"The solution to Kingsford Smith Drive is to start to utilise the Doomben rail corridor properly. This disjoint highlights admirably why public transport and transport planning and responsibility needs to be removed from Councils and properly coordinated and appropriate transport solutions implemented at a state/national level to avoid costly duplications and failure as we have seen with the Clem7 road tunnel."

"Anyone at the Lord Mayor's budget press conference yesterday would have noted the graphs behind the Lord Mayor showing funding for public transport plateauing whilst road funding was increasing exponentially. This says a lot about this Council's policies and real priorities."

"Brisbane Transport has some of the highest 'dead running' for  bus systems in Australia (3).  Money simply wasted.  Simple obvious fixes to the CityCycle scheme are apparently unable to be implemented because of political differences (4). It is little wonder that the community is becoming increasingly frustrated with the long term waste and incompetence on show for all in this budget."

References:

1. http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/about-council/news-publications/Council-annual-plan-and-budget-2011-12/index.htm

2. http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=6053.msg57350#msg57350

3. 8 Jun 2011: SEQ: Dead running is dead money http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=6155.0

4. 8 Jun 2011: SEQ: City Cycle scheme - how to fix it without consultants fees http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=6156.0

Contact:

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org

[ozbob]

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