Brisbane City Bus Bridge - Suburbs 2 City buslink

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Bridge cost close to being revealed

Brisbane commuters are "very near" to finding out how much it will cost to build the council's new bus bridge between the Cultural Centre and the city, and when it will be launched.

Deputy Mayor Adrian Schrinner said Brisbane City Council was close to releasing the $1.4 million pre-feasibility study of the Suburbs 2 City buslink, announced in 2011 after Fairfax Media highlighted serious congestion on the Victoria Bridge.

Indicating his strong support for the project, Cr Schrinner said the link "needs to happen to happen to help facilitate the growth in our bus network".

"Buses have real difficulty getting across the [Victoria] Bridge because of the bottleneck that exists," he said.

But Cr Schrinner indicated the council might not have the funds to cover the costs of the bridge.

He said the project was just one of several major infrastructure bids for which the council was seeking federal funding support.

"This administration has been working hard to make sure that infrastructure has not been forgotten in the federal debates," Cr Schrinner said.

"Kingsford Smith Drive is a key one... we'll need federal funding for that."

The controversial Cross River Rail project, the extension of the Eastern Busway from Coorparoo to Capalaba and the Tilley Road plan to link the Port of Brisbane Motorway to Old Cleveland Road were also priority projects, he said.

The council has said if built, the Suburbs 2 City buslink would improve accessibility from the inner-urban and suburban growth areas of Brisbane to the CBD and emerging economic precincts of South Brisbane, Woolloongabba, Fortitude Valley, and Bowen Hills.

It would be a bus-only green bridge across the Brisbane River connecting to a tunnel under Adelaide Street.

The city's first green bridge, the Eleanor Schonell Bridge at the University of Queensland, opened between Dutton Park and St Lucia in 2006.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/bridge-cost-close-to-being-revealed-20130813-2rud6.html

[Jonno]

If the Council do build the bridge (after they have widened every road in the City first) will they restrict access to BT buses only like they do for the Eleanor Schonell Bridge and QBBS?   

[ozbob]

Being a ' team player '  I am sure they will*   .... 

*NOT

[ozbob]

Some blog comments:

Mine ...

Sad is it not? Brisbane, and all the major capitals are becoming congestion battlegrounds. Years of shoddy solutions starting to really impact. Federal coalition has said no to urban rail and public transport, but happy to continue the road madness.

    So folks, congestion and gridlock will just worsen if polls correct. Enlightened jurisdictions are prioritising public and active transport. Not Tony I am afraid.

    The bus link bridge is needed, but will not address the bus congestion on the bottle neck CC to South Bank.

    Cross River Rail will provide mass capacity at Albert St and Wooloongabba rail stations. We need improvements in all modes, ferry bus and rail. Much better support for active transport, including some more pedestrian/bicycle bridges.

Another ...

Schrinner & Quirk. Stop acting as irresponsible idiots with ratepayers' money. That's our money!!

The proposed construction of extra lanes on KS Drive is about the worst idea for Brisbane's transport woes anyone could imagine. This is a stupid, wasteful, childish 1950's-era non-solution. It's just the same reckless Vandal Newmanesq rubbish which has already sent the Council broke - and now this!

How on God's earth can these so-called "leaders" continue to just trot out the same idiotic non-solutions of increasing road space which as everyone knows only worsens traffic congestion?

It is just plain dumb especially when intelligent governments such as in Paris and Singapore are actually reducing lane space to improve congestion - with impressive results.

Why must the good folk of Brisbane have to suffer idiots for our municipal representatives when we deserve so much better? Schrinner and Quirk should not be allowed to touch one red cent of public money given their total inability to think laterally and come up with real solutions, not more of the same lunacy.

Likewise Abbot and the LNP should not be given ANY seats in Brisbane or Melbourne given his similar 1950's approach to transport. Not funding urban rail which is desperately needed but throwing money into the black hole of the Bruce Hwy. Unbelievably stupid and lacking in foresight.

It is just totally unacceptable.

[ozbob]

Media release 14th August 2013



SEQ: Bus Bridge Cost to be Uploaded to State Government?

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 calls for the break up of the Brisbane Transport's local government bus monopoly and bus contracts to be thrown open to competition before funding BCC's bus bridge (1).

Indicating his strong support for the project, Cr Schrinner said the link "needs to happen to happen to help facilitate the growth in our bus network".

"Buses have real difficulty getting across the [Victoria] Bridge because of the bottleneck that exists," he said.

But Cr Schrinner indicated the council might not have the funds to cover the costs of the bridge.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"The TransLink bus review revealed that a significant proportion of bus passengers within the BCC area are on just 8% of the bus routes. It is extremely costly to run every bus to and from the CBD in terms of infrastructure, bus operations. Suburbs miss out on frequent buses due to money being spent on duplication and waste. This is the reason why Bulimba, The Northwest and Centenary Suburbs do not have frequent bus services."

"Cultural Centre congestion is a result of huge volumes of air carried by BCC buses:

•   64.8% of AM peak inbound buses are <50% full
•   78.4% of all services during the day are <50% full
•   50% of PM peak outbound buses are <50% full"

"Passenger growth trends on the Brisbane Transport network have flatlined since 2009, the result of high fares that is in turn the result of BCC clinging to a high waste network design. This high waste design is a political inefficiency, the result of BCC  with:

* Regulatory capture of TransLink
* Refusing to reform the bus network in a meaningful way due to local political inflexibility
* Inability to see that a number of bus routes is a measure of complexity not convenience
* Invention of high waste services such as Maroon CityGlider which adds nothing new to the network, particularly around Stones Corner
* Retention of high waste legacy services such as route 161
* Refusal to introduce connections, based on experiences 30 plus years ago in an era of pre-integrated ticketing and non-integrated fares
* Problems running buses across BCC boundaries (i.e. refused merger of 555 and 111)
* Major denial over high levels of air carried through Cultural Centre in peak hour due to excessive routes and archaic network design

"A Right to Information request (RTI) on BCC revealed that BT was instructed months before the final review to refuse meeting with TransLink on at least six occasions. No funding for a bridge should be provided until a full explanation by BCC before Parliament is provided as to what the purpose of this refusal was."

"If a private operator behaved the way BCC has, it would have its contract shredded and rightly so. The City of Brisbane Act 2010 should be altered to strip BCC of all public transport functions immediately."

"The Lord Mayor and BCC can no longer be trusted to run Brisbane's buses. After a decade of games, it's time to dump Brisbane City Council and separate Brisbane Transport."

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org

References:

1. Bridge cost close to being revealed http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/bridge-cost-close-to-being-revealed-20130813-2rud6.html

2. Lord Mayor and BCC can no longer be trusted to run city's buses http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=9895.0

3. SEQ: Bus review shambles confirmed by RTI http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=10146.0

4. "Transferring" can be good for you, and good for your city http://www.humantransit.org/2009/04/why-transferring-is-good-for-you-and-good-for-your-city.html

[ozbob]

As confirmed in the RTI ( http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=10146.0 ), BCC were very keen to derail the TransLink bus review.  No doubt hoping that the consequent bus congestion failure might help their bus-link tunnel and bridge.   Hello!  We are not stupid Quirky ....  others might be though .. lol

[James]

Oppose both this 'bus link' and KSD upgrades.

Firstly the bus bridge. What an absolutely awful idea. The bottleneck extends past Cultural Centre. It is like adding six tracks between Central and Bowen Hills and telling everybody CRR won't be needed for another 20 years. It is a pathetic non-solution which will need more money thrown at it later and will encourage the madness of BCC's network to continue. There is a huge amount of routes that can be removed from Cultural Centre to manage capacity. Remove all but the 333 and 444 from the 300/400 series, routing southern suburbs air parcels like the 112-117, 135, 172, 183 and eastern suburbs air parcels like the 202/203, 210, 212, 214 via CCB, and consolidate the 105/107/108 by extending the 196 and creating a Yeronga BUZ are just a few.

Already between 5pm and 6pm that would remove more than 40 buses per hour. Once that's done you have to get onto the touchier things of cutting routes like the 204, 222, sending MaroonGlider to Bulimba and re-routing routes like the 160 via CCB. There is still a lot of capacity measures which can be done without p%ssing off a lot of people or going to the drastic extent the bus review did. That was one thing I did not like about the review - I think it took too many frequent routes out of Cultural Centre and left secondary  services in there which didn't need to be there. I would much rather have just the frequent routes in the core busway section and everything else via CCB.

In regards to KSD upgrades - I oppose it not because I don't like cars, but because we just built a $4.8 billion tunnel to solve traffic problems on KSD! The reason why it is not working is because Brisbane people are too stupid to pay tolls. KSD upgrade is superfluous waste. If you want a faster trip to the airport, either pay to travel on Airport Link or suck it up. I don't believe local traffic on the road is enough to justify an upgrade either. I'd much rather see the money spent where it should be (Doomben Line conversion to LRT/extension to Hamilton Northshore).

[#Metro]

Why wasn't decongestion tolling considered for KSD? Tolling does an excellent job of scaring people away from roads. Constructing two gantries with toll equipment and cameras would come in at a cost at least 450x cheaper than this KSD proposal.

[#Metro]

Maybe shadow tolls should start to be charged for every bus that passes through Cultural Centre. Each bus would be charged a shadow toll of say $5 to go through Cultural Centre. The resulting amount at the end of the month would be deducted from TransLink subsidies to BCC routes. This means any unnecessary buses would be removed from CC by BCC.

At the moment passengers, rather than BCC, bears the real cost (in wasted time) for expensive and inefficient networks. If BCC wants to keep it that way, pay for it.

[#Metro]

Let's say this bus Bridge costs $200 million. It may be money better spent to use that money to buy BT off BCC, make the network changes TransLink wants to make and save the cash.

[#Metro]

And to prove my point, data from TMR/TransLink that shows barely any bus growth since 2009:

[ozbob]

What is really disturbing is the massive service growth that occured, and still no patronage gain.

A blogger at Brisbanetimes made this point in part ..

The big problem either side of the Victoria Bridge or this proposed bridge is the wasteful bus congestion.

This bus congestion is due to the shrill and self-serving opposition from the BCC and a capitulation by Queensland Minister for Transport, Scott Emerson.

Minister Emerson's staff this year publicly released a proposal that would have successfully reduced inefficiency and waste of bus resources (reducing bus congestion either side of the Brisbane River).

Sadly, the self-serving BCC seized upon a state transport minister that did not have the backbone to support his own proposal resulting in higher costs, waste and inefficiency continuing ....