Article: Tell us how full trains are, demands councillor

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Tell us how full trains are, demands councillor

Tell us how full trains are, demands councillor
Tony Moore | August 20, 2008 - 5:00AM

The State Government should release figures showing how many train services on Brisbane's Citytrain are full, a Brisbane City councillor said yesterday.

Brisbane City Council's public transport committee chair, Jane Prentice, said if the council provided figures on how many bus services were overcrowded, the State Government should provide similar figures for its trains.

"At the same time that Brisbane City Council is being responsible to the people of Brisbane and reporting on the number of full buses each month, Translink are refusing to release similar figures for the Queensland Rail network," she said.

Cr Prentice said Brisbane City Council spent $140 million on public transport in 2007-08.

"The same year the State Government contributed a similar amount to Translink to deliver bus services," Cr Prentice said.

"But they also received about $71 million back in fare revenue," she said.

Cr Prentice gave an example of a passenger last week who was forced to wait at Taringa Station as passing trains were already full.

She said peak-hour passengers were being "shoved on" in conditions which she described as "Australia's equivalent of the Bombay Express".

"This happens day after day on the Ipswich line - which runs through my ward of Walter Taylor - and frankly it is just not acceptable," Cr Prentice said.

She said if Brisbane City Council was providing extra bus services - Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has promised 500 new buses over the next four years - then the State Government should "play its role as well".

More people are catching buses than trains, according to the most recent Translink figures tabled in Brisbane City Council.

A diagram shows bus patronage eclipsed train patronage for the first time in 2003-04 and has been increasing ever since.

The State Government has announced plans to review Brisbane's inner-city rail network and a report is due before the end of the year.

However, Cr Prentice said the State Government should release the figures showing how many rail services are now full.

"My point is simply this. The Labor councillors continually harp on about the 'bus full' figures and the patronage levels on buses," she said.

"I say to them why don't you talk to their colleagues at the State Government who refuse to release train-full figures on Citytrain.

"I think it is about time that if they expect us to do it - and we do it quite regularly, and we are quite open about it, their Labor colleagues in the State Government should do the same."

Comment was being sought from Translink.

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