Threat to cancel Maroon Glider Bus by BCC

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Council threatens to cancel Maroon City Glider

Brisbane's deputy mayor on Tuesday night threatened to cancel the popular Maroon Glider bus service to save $5 million if the state government did not help with the $10 million in costs to build roadworks to support the Queens Wharf casino and hotel development.

That "high stakes" call is indicative of the simmering tension between Brisbane City Council and the Palaszczuk Government, sources suggest ...

Clowns manifest !!   This is a high farce comedy ....   

[ozbob]

It&#39;s my bus !! <dummy spit> https://t.co/cNn7jxFP2h #qldpol how sad for BrisBANE hey!@Team_Quirk @StirlHinchliffe pic.twitter.com/w62amOhSTo

— Robert Dow (@Robert_Dow) August 23, 2016

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

Response: BCC threat to terminate Maroon CityGlider funding

Greetings,

Yesterday, Brisbanetimes reported that Deputy Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner had threatened to pull funding for the Maroon CityGlider. Great stuff, Deputy Lord Mayor.

The Maroon CityGlider was imposed on TransLink and the State Government by Brisbane City Council. It is a symbol of the hubris, lack of co-operation and belligerence that has now infected City Hall.

The Maroon CityGlider simply duplicated existing bus routes and cannibalised existing patronage. Remove it and people will go back to using the existing alternative bus services such as the 385 The Gap or 204 Carindale bus.

Is the Queensland Government seriously considering signing Brisbane City Council up again to run the State capital's bus network? It would be utter madness to do so.

Brisbane City Council's bus contract should ABSOLUTELY NOT be renewed.

The Queensland Government should let the contract expire, announce that it will operate buses itself, and offer all council bus driver staff a transfer to the State Government.

The only reason why Brisbane City Council operates the buses is because the Queensland Government handed the council the task of operating the trams in the 1920s.

Is that a good reason to put up with the dysfunction today?

All transferring staff should receive the same wages and conditions as their existing EBA with all their entitlements protected.

"Padding out" bus timetables with 15 to 30 minutes of "timetable fat" is a crass attempt to concoct favourable bus on time statistics. It is completely unacceptable.

Having a $5 million cost explosion and then dumping that on Queensland taxpayers is also completely unacceptable. The Queensland Commission of Audit warned that Brisbane City Council's bus operations were a threat to State finances, and so it is.

If Brisbane City Council wants fast and efficient buses, it should be directed to participate in a Bus Review Taskforce.

Public trust in politicians from both major parties is at a record low. Where is the leadership? Where is the  meaningful and correct action?

Best wishes
Robert

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

Brisbanetimes --> Council threatens to cancel Maroon City Glider

[ Attached: http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=12396.msg178497#msg178497 ]

[ozbob]

Media; Response: BCC threat to terminate Maroon CityGlider funding
> https://t.co/PmyVIx5GBC
 #qldpol beyond farce pic.twitter.com/4QpdkAo6Sc

— Robert Dow (@Robert_Dow) August 23, 2016

[ozbob]

[ozbob]

Threat to cancel Maroon Glider Bus by BCC
> https://t.co/XQoAFvpzww #qldpol
Yep, it has come to this .. waaaaaaaah pic.twitter.com/fSq3QG6lfG

— Robert Dow (@Robert_Dow) August 23, 2016

[SurfRail]

I think the State should stare them down.

Council needs to know who is boss.  If they cancel the route, I see absolutely no issue - patronage will just be absorbed by the 375 and 385 north of the CBD, and by the 200, 204 and 222 to the south, they will be shown up for chumps and they can continue to run their network where 1 in 6 services runs late.  If they don't cancel it, they look foolish.

Trad promised to keep Brisbane Transport in public hands.  That doesn't have to mean in Council's hands.

[#Metro]

Great comment SurfRail.

Cancel it! It would be the first time in ages BCC has actually done something half-useful!

State should introduce fines for late buses. Will 'incentivise' BCC to fix up on time running by providing adequate bus priority and traffic light signal priority plus network simplification.

When I was in Perth there was a bus lane on a 2-lane road. Bus lane took up one lane, other lane for general traffic.

Seems an impossibility here in Brisbane.

[tazzer9]

I think the State should stare them down.

Council needs to know who is boss.  If they cancel the route, I see absolutely no issue - patronage will just be absorbed by the 375 and 385 north of the CBD, and by the 200, 204 and 222 to the south, they will be shown up for chumps and they can continue to run their network where 1 in 6 services runs late.  If they don't cancel it, they look foolish.

Trad promised to keep Brisbane Transport in public hands.  That doesn't have to mean in Council's hands.

61 should be combined with either the 200 or 222 south of the city, but north of the city, it does have a decent catchment along jubilee terrace.  Having it work alongside the 385 rather than against it would be better.

[James]

61 should be combined with either the 200 or 222 south of the city, but north of the city, it does have a decent catchment along jubilee terrace.  Having it work alongside the 385 rather than against it would be better.

The MaroonGlider has two stops which do not already have HF service - Jubilee Tce and the Ashgrove Terminus. Both could be given HF under a reformed bus network. There is no need for a new HF service just to serve two stops.

[City Designer]

Anyone remember when the P88 was cancelled and nobody noticed?

I see similarities.

[tazzer9]

61 should be combined with either the 200 or 222 south of the city, but north of the city, it does have a decent catchment along jubilee terrace.  Having it work alongside the 385 rather than against it would be better.

The MaroonGlider has two stops which do not already have HF service - Jubilee Tce and the Ashgrove Terminus. Both could be given HF under a reformed bus network. There is no need for a new HF service just to serve two stops.

The 385 and 61 are full during peak.  Both of which run at frequencies of 10 minutes and with the 385 running express to bardon (although it rarely happens because someone always forgets and makes the driver stop).   This is also supplemented by the 375 (every 15 in peak), 382 and 383 (both around 1 every 45 minutes)  All I'm suggesting is they get rid of the Glider-only stops and make the 61 stop at the regular 385 stops.  Right now, the stops have 4 buses an hour when 8 go past.  Best for everyone.

[SurfRail]

If buses on a bus route are full, a normal city's first reaction would be to add more buses to the existing routes than whack another one on top.  375 and 385 between them are plenty - one is an all stops service, the other isn't.

[Gazza]

>385 full in peak hour.
>Establish 24h bus for Sunday wee hours in response.
>Sounds fine to me!

[City Designer]

Why not reintroduce the P374 on the Maroon Glider alignment as a peak only service and remove the Maroon Glider?

[#Metro]

Anyone remember when the P88 was cancelled and nobody noticed?

I see similarities.

Anyone read "three little pigs". Big bad wolf comes in, makes a whole heap of threats, tries to blow house down, runs out of puff.

Go on, CANCEL IT!!

Probably have little effect on PT patronage or convenience, but will cause more political damage to BCC than patronage losses.

HUBRIS CENTRAL!

[tazzer9]

Does anyone know what the patronage of the 61 is like south of wollongabb?   I've used it often but only until wollongabba where the majority of people got off.
It is the only route to go from roma st and KGSBS through to wollongabba, so until there it does make for a good interchange route.

[ozbob]

I have travelled on the MG from Buranda <> Langlands Park station now and again.  Each time I could count pax on one hand. A few times I have been the only passenger.  Off peak though. 

[newbris]

Unfortunately as a local the council severely cut back the off-peak waterworks buses with the glider as one of the justifications.

Typical they would now cancel that and leave the Red Hill/Ashgrove corridor, one of the most dense parts of Brisbane, with a worse off peak service than the farms on the way to Moggill. Of course they could fix this but won't for a long time. Note the the glider serves a larger number of stops than obvious as many use the Ashgrove Village carpark as a glider park and ride...the number of engines that startup after a bus pulls in might be the reason the council was proposing to extend it to Enoggera Station.

The glider is so much better than the other buses because it runs into the busway once it arrives on the city edge. The other buses get stuck for ages in city traffic which sometimes explodes the time they take. Of course the metro would entrench that experience for good if it takes the busway.

Another advantage it has is it provides a cross suburb route function rather than the norm of a spoke straight into town along a terrace line like all the others. Very helpful in such a hilly area as walking/cycling the same route involves mountain climbing....I know because I do it on my pushy every day.

Obviously this a local perspective rather than a transport planners.

I suspect they already have plans to cancel it anyway as they explicitly excluded it from the metro bus reconfiguration map. This might just be their way of shifting the political burden. Now I'm just wondering which bikeway projects they are going to cancel using this as a justification.

[tazzer9]

They should extend it to enogerra station. Or make the 350 a better service.  The current setup at ashgrove is a terrible terminus, took them a long time just to make the bus indent large enough so the buses didn't block the lane.

The current waterworks road 379,380,381 are so painful to be on, they are the definition of an all stops service.   They need to cut out 60% of the stops between ashgrove and the city along waterworks road as some are only 100m from eachother. 

[newbris]

...
The current waterworks road 379,380,381 are so painful to be on, they are the definition of an all stops service.   They need to cut out 60% of the stops between ashgrove and the city along waterworks road as some are only 100m from eachother.

Yes, not to mention the 30 minute wait off-peak. Or stopping early. Trying to get home with my son from Suncorp night games was always an adventure before the glider.

[tazzer9]

...
The current waterworks road 379,380,381 are so painful to be on, they are the definition of an all stops service.   They need to cut out 60% of the stops between ashgrove and the city along waterworks road as some are only 100m from eachother.

Yes, not to mention the 30 minute wait off-peak. Or stopping early. Trying to get home with my son from Suncorp night games was always an adventure before the glider.

There are only two things about living in The Gap.  Low crime rate, and the 385 to and from suncorp stadium.

[ozbob]

The original route plan for the MG as first proposed by BCC was nonsense.  Work behind the scenes by TransLink and the then Director resulted in a better route in the end. Subsequently other bus routes were modified etc.  So just removing it cold now would not be without some impact, but that could be addressed I guess as necessary should Schrinner et al wish to confirm yet again how silly and self-centred they all are.

[aldonius]

This keeps getting better. I think I've just proven that the MG punches significantly below its weight in terms of patronage:

According to the linked article, the Maroon Glider carries 1.2 million passengers a year. According to the TransLink Tracker, BCC buses as a whole do about 73 million passengers a year (specifically, the 'Brisbane' box for Q3 on page 4 says 18.29 million, times four equals 73 M for the year).

Now for the fun question: does the MG carry more passengers per service than the average? (I should hope so!)

I downloaded the complete region-wide timetable and did some Excel wizardry. There are 100157 distinct services listed across all of TransLink, and 53002 of them are BCC buses. Further filtering reveals that 1170 of those are Maroon Gliders.

Now for the maths: is 1.2M / 72M bigger than 1170 / 53002?

No it is not!

(Admittedly this is more a measure of average crowdedness, but if the average service has spare capacity than to be less crowded than that is no real virtue)

[#Metro]

The New Bus Network Proposal http://tiny.cc/newnetwork has

* Maroon CityGlider merged into the 374 Bardon (stops would be spaced for high speed)

* 385 BUZ and 380 BUZ (new) for The Gap

* CityConnector bus from Mitchelton to UQ Chancellors Place via Metroad 5

* Peak hour P351 Enoggera Interchange to retain the direct to CBD trip for peak hour pax along Wardell Street

[tazzer9]

The New Bus Network Proposal http://tiny.cc/newnetwork has

* Maroon CityGlider merged into the 374 Bardon (stops would be spaced for high speed)

"high speed"?  have you travelled along the bardon - cbd bit of the route?

The morning non stop express 385's often take 15 minutes to 25 minutes to go from bardon to roma st. (they are timetabled for 15 minutes, average speed of a whopping 15km/h) The off peak ones aren't much better. 

[aldonius]

In other words, it's not a matter of stop spacing but of sheer congestion on Caxton and LaTrobe?

[#Metro]

It is not unreasonable to start thinking about some form of Priority A Rapid Transit to The Gap, such as a busway or underground LRT.

Road widening is mostly precluded in that area, I think, as there are heritage homes along the street and it is up on a ridge.

Overdue for a rapid transit study that area. First section could be Ashgrove to CBD.

[tazzer9]

In other words, it's not a matter of stop spacing but of sheer congestion on Caxton and LaTrobe?

Its not so much congestion, just an extremely slow road.  most of it is only 40km/h max but because its so narrow buses struggle to get past 30.
Its actually the top of coopers camp road.  (ironically, the only spot where there is bus priority) that is so slow due to congestion.  And my biggest hate, when cars use the bus lane, but don't go when the light turns to B.

[James]

It is not unreasonable to start thinking about some form of Priority A Rapid Transit to The Gap, such as a busway or underground LRT.

Road widening is mostly precluded in that area, I think, as there are heritage homes along the street and it is up on a ridge.

Overdue for a rapid transit study that area. First section could be Ashgrove to CBD.

I've actually made multiple posts about a Northwest busway - it would result in a more balanced trunk system (8MP - Chermside, Carindale - The Gap), with UQ routes running separately and adjusting according to semester dates. The Gap is high enough in demand - question is whether you'd put the busway down Waterworks Rd or through Latrobe Tce, or a mix of both (like the MaroonGlider alignment).

The area is very hilly and the inner suburbs have a lot of heritage listed buildings and Greenies/mums who burst into rage when you try and build anything. Not quite as bad as West End, but close to it. It'd have to be mainly in a tunnel if you built it. Perhaps cut-and-cover like the Canada Line in Vancouver?

[Gazza]

But if you are going to the expense of tunnelling, why not choose a higher capacity mode?

This is one thing that has always bugged me about Brisbanes busways.

Its like building a cycleway bridge, but making it strong enough to carry an 80 tonne truck.

Or building an airport in Longreach capable of taking an A380

[#Metro]

All modes have advantages and disadvantages. All modes should be considered in a study on their merits and demerits.

It is highly doubtful that there is space for Priority B or road widening works to accommodate that.

Importantly, it will require a decision about the future use of the Trouts Rd Corridor. Any tunnel would probably have to be compatible with future proposals for QR trains through the Trouts Rd alignment via tunnel.

Theoretically, one could extend a metro up that way from the South East Busway, provided that the tunnel was double deck or

double bored. The second section could be used for QR services in the Trouts Rd Corridor. Light Rail would also work, but LRT

would be unable to continue on the SE busway for economic reasons (does not increase capacity, costs to install track in SEB).


Edit: QR has high operating cost (= low frequencies), while buses flood the CBD with congestion and are run by intransigent BT. Thus some form of independent rail looks good in this case).

[tazzer9]

A lot of the road issues around that area would be solved by having a road tunnel going from gympie road at aspley and old northern road in everton park that dumped people onto the western freeway.

Its just that there is no high capacity arterial road from that side of town that heads onto the western freeway and pacific motorway, everything has to go through narrow suburban roads.

If you are going to tunnel a lot, may as well have it benefit the majority of people.

[City Designer]

With regards to the Aspley to Toowong movements we have Route 5 (Stafford Road) and Route 40 (Beckett Road).

[aldonius]

Yes, and Route 5 is both single lane and going over large hills from Ashgrove southwards.

There's been preliminary planning done for a Toowong to Everton Park tunnel; it would have connections to Waterworks Rd at least. Hopefully also something at Enoggera (arguably the northern portal could simply be on Wardell St rather than further north, if the Samford Rd intersection were to be grade separated).

The other issue is whether a southbound tunnel-taker could get to Toowong proper, or the freeway only.

[tazzer9]

With regards to the Aspley to Toowong movements we have Route 5 (Stafford Road) and Route 40 (Beckett Road).

Stafford road is the only road that I know of that has serious congestion throughout the day, 7 days a week. 
Beckett road just feeds onto already congested suburban roads.  Jubilee terrace is the major choke point.   1 lane, steep hills, lots of heavy trucks, busy intersections.

[BrizCommuter]

A bit late to the table, but here is BrizCommuter's word on BCC's silly dummy spit.
http://brizcommuter.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/pityglider-bcc-getting-more-farcical.html

[James]

Yes, and Route 5 is both single lane and going over large hills from Ashgrove southwards.

There's been preliminary planning done for a Toowong to Everton Park tunnel; it would have connections to Waterworks Rd at least. Hopefully also something at Enoggera (arguably the northern portal could simply be on Wardell St rather than further north, if the Samford Rd intersection were to be grade separated).

The other issue is whether a southbound tunnel-taker could get to Toowong proper, or the freeway only.

Metroad 5 is a terrible road, I avoid it where possible. It is windy, single lane most of the way, making it impossible to overtake, hilly, and often congested. That section through Bardon where Latrobe Tce feeds into it and before Coopers Camp Rd finishes is terrible, in part due to the bottleneck created by the roundabout there.

A tunnel would primarily be a ring road around the western side of Brisbane, and join up with the Trouts Rd corridor to give you a Toowong - Ashgrove - Everton Park - Aspley motorway. Connecting with the M5 alone would take most of the traffic (including a lot of trucks, I suspect).

[aldonius]

In my experience, most of the southbound trucks do go onto the freeway.

[tazzer9]

Another large aspect people fail to realise about that area is the amount of military vehicles that come through the area.     Even just the shear volume of personnel coming and leaving the base during the day adds up.   Extending the glider to enoggera would help some of the military personnel get around without the use of a car.   Something which would be very beneficial to them if they want to go out drinking.