QLD Parliament: E-Petition Reopen Bellvista and Bells Reach bus stops

[ozbob]

https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/petition-details?id=3116

TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland
Electors of the Division of Caloundra draws to the attention of the House the fact that Translink has introduced new Bus Route 606 to Caloundra. As part of this new service significant changes were made to the existing Bus Route 603. Route 603 originally had six (6) bus stop locations to service the areas the community knows as Bellvista and Bells Reach, which Translink refers to as Caloundra West. All six (6) existing stops in this area have been removed from Route 603 and Translink has provided one (1) new bus stop on Bus Route 606. This means older and vulnerable people from this area now have to walk much longer distances to catch a bus.

Your petitioners therefore request the House to reinstate the six (6) bus stop locations in Bellvista and Bells Reach, so they are included on either the new Bus Route 606 or on the altered Route 603.

[James]

Perhaps if these housing estates weren't so painfully anti-public transport, it would be feasible to get a bus closer to where the houses are without slowing the buses down so much the route becomes unattractive to use further along.

[techblitz]

I will be contacting the retirement village that set the petition up to let them know that in sep 2018 those 6 stops that are removed had a combined total of 540 touch-ons......numbers which are higher than most stops in and around caloundra, golden beach etc..
The high paper ticket purchases at those stops indicate that the majority of those touch-ons are indeed elderly.....translink have handed them a 500m walk when it used to be no more than 100m...

[techblitz]

https://www.markmcardlemp.com/press/2019/5/21/community-demands-further-action-on-baringabuslink-and-bellvistatranslink-buses

State Member for Caloundra Mark McArdle today said that the forum held on 18 May demanded further action by both Buslink, in ensuring children in Baringa attending high schools across the Coast get a bus service originating from Baringa, and get Translink to attend a public forum and explain why they have taken the action of cutting six bus stops from an existing service.

"There was a real degree of anger and frustration at the meeting on 18 May from parents and residents of Baringa, Bellvista and Bells Reach who met to demand further action on behalf of themselves and other residents in the region," Mr McArdle said.

"Buslink did attend the meeting and provided an assurance that they would meet with myself and Jamie Broderick, the Principal Petition and Louise Hodder, a further parent and petitioner, to discuss what information they need to move toward a bus service starting in Baringa to take school children to and from their high schools given the Baringa State High School is not due to open until 2021. I will provide an update on this meeting.

"There are sixty-five children in grade six at Baringa State School this year. Sixty-five children who will need to leave Baringa for High School in 2020, but no school bus. I believe the total in 2020 will be over 100 combining this and next year's high schoolers.

"In relation to Translink – they didn't even have the curtesy of replying to my request to attend the meeting but on 17 May I received correspondence from Mark Bailey the Labor Minister which stated in part;

'I have asked officers from the Department of Transport and Main Roads to liaise directly with Mr Les Thomas, President of the Bellvista and Bells Reach Community Association, regarding the suitable time to meet with the association's members to discuss the reasons for the change and to listen to their concerns.'

"The Minster has to in fact direct Translink to attend a meeting, otherwise I would suspect they wouldn't be there of their own initiative. At the meeting I said that if Translink can attend a meeting at some point in time in the future, why couldn't they attend one on Saturday? It's disrespectful and quite disgusting the way they have treated the residents of Bellvista and Bells Reach.

"Mark Bailey, in his very late letter said a further meeting would be organised through BBCA and Mr Les Thomas, who spoke at Saturday's meeting on behalf of BBCA, undertook to ensure all residents were advised of the relative date and time.

"During the meeting, I asked if there had been consultation by Translink before closing the bus stops and it was unanimous that consultation had not taken place despite a claim by Translink to the contrary.  Clearly Translink act in their own best interest and have little regard to how the people of Bellvista and Bells Reach are impacted.

"I call upon Minister Mark Bailey to get this mess sorted out. It's not good enough when you have people who require and depend upon public transport having to walk longer distance to a bus stop.

"It's also nonsense to argue that the next bus stop is only a short walking distance when there are people who are unable to walk even short distances and rely upon walkers or other assistance to get them from A to B.

"This isolates Bellvista and is simply disgusting the way this Government is treating the residence of the area," Mr McArdle concluded.

[ozbob]

Sunshine Coast Daily 18th June 2019 page 8

Minister announces for new buses at Baringa

[techblitz]

Excellent news..
Ive done some further investigating on this...

Translink attempted to save roughly 40k per year on the sly...

The approximate figure comes from matching up the time for the bus to divert into those stops vs average elderly ticket price vs number of services per year vs number of boardings across all removed stops vs cost of running the bus..

They should have been more honest and up front about the real reason why they chose to remove those stops....which is to extend coverage with little to no net increase in costs.....rob peter to pay paul.

I also have to make mention of translinks laziness when trying to 'sell' the changes..

Stop closures
Route 606 runs along Bellvista Boulevard and onto Aura Boulevard, in both directions of travel. This means the route will no longer service the stops on Indigo Road, Stornaway Avenue, Lomond Crescent or O'Reilly Drive. If you usually travel from one of these stops, alternative stops are located within 650 metres on Bellvista Boulevard.

They consistently choose to take the easy way out and use straight line distances when they should be coughing up the extra money and getting their planners onto google maps and getting the exact walking distance which takes into account curves/bends of cul-de-sacs etc.
Translink are either stingy or purposely attempt to mislead so as to make the stop adjustments/route changes  less 'damaging/easier to take' for commuters affected by said changes..

In the 606 case....the real walking distance from that retirement village came out to 950m which is the equivalent of forcing an eldery person with a walker to leg it from the queen st bus station stop A all the way over to south Brisbane train station.....one way....for a return bus trip it worked out to 20-30 minutes of extra walking.. when it used to be 10 minutes....that is a massive difference for a physically disadvantaged person..

Translink played a dangerous game here......if they so desperately wanted to save money.....they should have looked at reviewing the 607/600 duplication......Caloundra to currumundi does not warrant 6 buses per hour off-peak given the massive amounts of air being carried during that period..

[techblitz]

to highlight the incompetence....

https://translink.com.au/stop/301793  << henrus 2018 September data reveals a measly 143 boardings.....6 buses per hour frequency..

https://translink.com.au/stop/301936 << removed stop....260 boardings for September 2018....far less frequency.....well now actually ZERO frequency 


Also just on henrus......has translink discovered his page and since they weren't expecting someone to put in that much effort in deciphering it.....will now stop releasing data??

https://data.qld.gov.au/dataset/go-card-transaction-data

[ozbob]

Sunshine Coast Daily 19th June 2019 page 10

Bus battle not quite won yet for Caloundra community groups

[James]

to highlight the incompetence....

https://translink.com.au/stop/301793  << henrus 2018 September data reveals a measly 143 boardings.....6 buses per hour frequency..

https://translink.com.au/stop/301936 << removed stop....260 boardings for September 2018....far less frequency.....well now actually ZERO frequency 

Route 600/607 is more about connecting Caloundra to Maroochydore and the points in between, rather than serving each and every stop and providing a high level of connectivity. Stop 301793 is also located in quite a low density area and a mere 250m from the Moffat Beach shops. It is no surprise it gets low boardings.

Stop 1717, on Swann Road on the 428 bus route, only managed 54 boardings in September 2018. By that logic, you'd redirect resources elsewhere, because there's no need for that level of frequency at such a poorly served stop. But the service is about the ends (UQ & Indro) rather than the middle.

260 boardings is 13 boardings/day - at this level of patronage, you could probably run a subsidised maxi-taxi to the 'far away' bus stop for those who need it, and still have change from the $40k TransLink was trying to save.

[techblitz]

the removed stops combined totalled 950 boardings for September...well over 1000 some months...40k fare revenue per year warrants full service not reduced service.

Maxi taxis would be nothing but a gimmick....probably even more insulting than having no service.
Translink should have coughed up the funds and turned it into a full single loop...
Caloundra - Caloundra via baringa/bellvista....70mins max.....instead of two 25/30 minute trips currently which only service one area fully instead of two.

So the loop goes from Caloundra straight to baringa...services the new area first and on the way back to Caloundra it diverts into the old stops....adds 10/15 max to the trip time....this easily allows riders to move between either Caloundra or aura shopping centers....and if the 'newbies' at stockland aura think its too indirect....stiff....an entire area(bellvista) shouldn't be held to ransom just so the 'others' can get to Caloundra quicker..

Those old stops @ bellvista were steadily starting to grow their patronage....and TL went and reset all the hard work back to pretty much zero.....are they going to keep doing that with the rest of Caloundra west over time as it grows??
That is not going to instill confidence in public transport...

[ozbob]

Sunshine Coast Daily --> Commuter campaign reverses divisive bus stop cuts

SIX bus stops will be reinstated for residents at Bellvista and Bells Reach.

It comes as plans are being finalised for a new bus service to better connect residents to TransLink services and shops in the greater Caloundra area following feedback from both communities.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey made the announcement after meeting with representatives from the Bellvista and Bells Reach Community Association.

"In March we launched 200 new weekly bus services and in September implemented new school bus services for the growing Baringa area," Mr Bailey said.

"While the new buses have been popular, a number of bus stops in the Bellvista estate were impacted, meaning many elderly residents had to walk further to catch a service on the main road.

"After listening to the concerns of BeCA, I'm pleased to announce TransLink and the local bus operator will not only implement a new bus service, but make sure it services the six stops at these communities."

Mr Bailey said Sunshine Coast commuters helped drive record patronage growth in Queensland for the second year in a row, and it was important that transport operators listened to their feedback.

Bus trips on the Sunshine Coast grew 3.8 per cent on the previous financial year, with 5.82 million trips taken in 2018-19, while almost 510,000 trips were taken on the Sunshine Coast rail network (4.7 per cent growth on the previous year).

"I've asked TransLink to meet with BeCA representatives in coming weeks to finalise details of the new service."

[techblitz]

excellent outcome 

[SurfRail]

They've made the correct decision not to string them all onto the same route - good.  Don't know why their decisionmaking is so inconsistent on this point depending on which suburb you're looking at.

[techblitz]

The main 'excellent outcome' here was the stops were retained..

They've made the correct decision not to string them all onto the same route - good

Splitting a route up or merging/extending has its pros and cons either way...

[Stillwater]

QUOTE: "Mr Bailey said Sunshine Coast commuters helped drive record patronage growth in Queensland for the second year in a row, and it was important that transport operators listened to their feedback."

No lack of yearning on the part of the people of the Sunshine Coast to use decent public transport services.

[City Designer]

New route 604 commences on 24 February 2020 with 4 services per day 7 days per week.