Brisbane north bus network

[City Designer]

So I have been thinking about the Brisbane north bus network (3xx series) for a while given that the northern suburbs are made up of a north/south and east/west grid of major roads well suited to a grid based network of bus lines. Inspired by Jarrett Walker's Human Transit blog and the the Auckland bus network review I have provides a series of north/south and east/west bus lines for the northern suburbs.

The bus network consists of five line typologies.

Red line: High frequency services operating every 15 minutes 7 days per week and every 10 minutes in peak.
Green line: Secondary routes connecting the city with services every 30 minutes 7 days per week and generally every 20 minutes in peak.
Blue line: Local routes operating every 60 minutes 7 days per week.
Gold line (not shown): Peak only bus services.
Night line (not shown): Replacement for the NightLink services.

High frequency services will be depicted by two digit numbers (same as Auckland). These are 1x (south), 2x (east), 3x (north), 4x (west), 8x (cross town) and 9x (inner city).

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zzDnSIHk_U_I.k3uOosf2AFjc&usp=sharing

[aldonius]

There's a lot to like here!

[City Designer]

I'm still trying to work out usability. The table of line descriptions is not publically accessible. Here's a list of bus lines.

Red Line

Line 31: City (North Quay) to Chermside
Line 32: City (Edward Street) to Boondall station
Line 33: GOMA to Fitzgibbon (Carseldine East)
Line 34: City (Queen Street) to Fitzgibbon (Carseldine East)
Line 35: Woolloongabba to Aspley
Line 36: City (North Quay) to Eatons Hill (Eatonvale)
Line 37: City (North Quay) to The Gap via Waterworks Road
Line 38: City (North Quay) to The Gap
Line 39: Bardon (Carwoola Street) to Gordon Park (Richmond Terrace)
Line 82: Garden City to Nundah (Toombul)
Line 83: Indooroopilly to Chermside
Line 88: Chermside to Boondall
Line 89: Mitchelton to Hamilton Northshore
Line 90: West End Ferry to Teneriffe Ferry
Line 91: Coorparoo (Langlands Park) to Ashgrove
Line 95: Yeronga to New Farm (Merthyr)
Line 96: St Lucia (UQ Lakes) to Herston (RBWH)
Line 97: Toowong Cemetery to Teneriffe Ferry
Line 99: West End Ferry to Teneriffe Ferry

Green Line

Line 307: City (Queen Street) to Banyo
Line 309: City (Queen Street) to Brighton
Line 348: Albany Creek to Boondall
Line 355: Mitchelton to Sandgate
Line 362: Mitchelton (Brookside) to The Gap (Payne Road)
Line 365: Mitchelton (Brookside) to Hamilton Northshore
Line 366: Ferny Grove to Nundah (Toombul)
Line 367: Mitchelton (Brookside) to Upper Kedron
Line 374: City (North Quay) to Ashgrove

Blue Line:

Line 303: Doomben to Myrtletown
Line 308: Aspley to Nudgee Beach
Line 326: Albany Creek to Sandgate
Line 353: Enoggera to Aspley
Line 354: Everton Hills to Nundah (Toombul)
Line 368: Enoggera to Teneriffe Ferry
Line 372: Ashgrove (Royal Parade) to Enoggera
Line 373: Ashgrove to Teneriffe Ferry
Line 378: City (North Quay) to Ashgrove (Royal Parade)
Line 471: City (George Street) to Mt Coot-tha

[hU0N]

I'll restrict my comments to my local area, which is Bardon and The Gap.

Firstly the things I like.
-The overall number of routes in Bardon is reduced. I think that is a good thing. These routes are currently just barely serving a coverage purpose, so combining them together to unlock the most basic amount of frequency is a good thing.
-The 385 is rerouted via Waterworks Road. As popular as it is, once it leaves the Gap Village, the existing 385 route is one of the most redundant (and therefore wasteful) BUZ routes in Brisbane. With the exception of its run from terminus to the Payne Rd intersection (and a single stop in the back of ashgrove), the existing 385 is shadowed by other, MORE USEFUL frequent routes along it's entire length. As evidence of how much people outside The Gap love the 385, Translink recently converted all peak hour 385 services to express, stopping only at..nowhere, and nobody complained. Read that again. They effectively cancelled a whole peak hour BUZ service in three of the whingiest suburbs in Brisbane, and nobody in those suburbs even NOTICED. That's how redundant the 385 is to anybody outside The Gap. So yeah. Good job moving it to a corridor where it can actually achieve something.
-The 380 group is resolved into a consistent numbering and stopping pattern (and Royal Parade is removed from this group). Good idea.

Things I don't like.
- Routing line 38 to the city via the line 91 route is a bad idea, and the two should be separated. It doesn't work well for people in The Gap because for most of them, their bus is no longer able to get them to the shops, or to the high school (unless you plan on making an other side of the road transfer in a neighboring suburb and backtracking). In fact, once you are on this bus, you better be planning to go to the CBD because it doesn't take you anywhere else that is useful. On the other hand, adding connecting line 38 through to Paddington/Bardon yields zero value add for Paddington/Bardon passengers. There is little to no need for people in the Paddington/Bardon area to need to catch a bus to the back streets of The Gap. But the need of this route to ultimately get to The Gap, and do so in a relatively reasonable time-frame ensures that the whole route must operate via Coopers Camp Road, a routing that due to the street layout, topography, parks, creeks and other obstacles; represents perhaps the least utility to the Bardon area of any possible routing.

As an alternative, your line 362 should, heading south, turn right off Settlement road into Kaloma, then travel via Hilder, School, Paten, Payne and Waterworks to terminate at the Gap Village (basically your line 38). Your line 37 should follow Illowra and Payne and terminate at the Dillon Rd Roundabout.

Then, your line 38 could either be eliminated (in favour of your line 91), or combined with line 374 or line 378. I personally think if you were to retain line 38, running it via line 378 is best, but I'm not convinced that the line 378 actually needs to exist at all, so take that how you will.

In any case, looks really good. Well done.

[#Metro]

The New Bus Network Proposal http://tiny.cc/newnetwork can be downloaded and modified / mixed up.

Just be careful with road turns. A number of areas have turn bans such as in Albion, where you have a bus turning into Sandgate Rd, which is not possible there. Brisbane has a number of these.

I would also recommend 3-stage numbering retention. But that said, its your idea so feel free to do it your way.

[City Designer]

Line 38 was an afterthought and didn't form part of the original network. The Gap/Paddington area is probably the weakest part of the network, that and the network around Nundah (Toombul).

I considered retaining the three digit numbers for Red Line services (such as the 330), however, I wanted the services to be distinct from the previous numbering system where a 3x0 and 3x5 services were interchangeably express or all stops with varying frequencies. That's why I renumbered route 310 to line 309, to avoid conflict with the 31 (300 replacement).

The idea for two digit Red Line services comes from the Auckland network and the temporary G20 bus services where routes 196, 199 and 470 became 47 and 99.

I also acknowledge some of the Red Line services probably don't need to exist or could be downgraded, such as the 32 and 38, which might suffice as Green Line services (renumbered into three digits to reflect downgrading).

The northern network is more a conceptual idea than a complete solution.