Article: Brisbane needs more busways, says Planning Institute

[ozbob]

From Courier Mail click here!

Brisbane needs more busways, says Planning Institute

Brisbane needs more busways, says Planning Institute
Article from: The Courier-Mail

John McCarthy

October 14, 2008 11:00pm

THE State Government must fix the current transport crisis before diving into the proposed $14 billion rail tunnel, the planning industry says.

Planning Institute Australia president Dyan Currie said there was an immediate need for more affordable solutions to local transport issues.

Her comments follow a report from the Local Government Association which found that affordable housing was being impacted by a lack of transport in the western corridor where there was abundant land.

"Public transport routes in Brisbane fan out from the city like spokes on a bicycle wheel and there is little or no consideration given to linking the routes, or spokes, with a cross route network," Ms Currie said.

"We believe more busways and new cross radial bus routes could be introduced as an effective and efficient way of addressing some of the immediate major congestion problems Brisbane is currently facing."

She said the Government's vision was admirable but the rail tunnel, which was not expected to be finished until 2026, would not solve the city's short-term needs.

Griffith University's transport planning researcher Dr Matthew Burke said the rail tunnel was essential and would free up capacity to allow for other services.

But he said other things could be done including trimming down the 23 fare zones in southeast Queensland and running a 20-minute off-peak service rather than 30 minutes.

He said the Brisbane to Sydney XPT train also shut down the system for 15 minutes every day and that issue could be eliminated by moving it away from Roma St.

Queensland Transport Minister John Mickel said about 500,000 people use public transport in southeast Queensland every day, an increase of 40 per cent in four years.

"The State Government is backing that growth by investing more in public transport infrastructure and services than at any other time in the state's history. That includes massive investment in more buses and trains, more busways and rail lines and better cross-city connections.

My blog comment:

Farce!  The buses are already at capacity, we can and will need to continue to ramp up rail to give the bulk mass transit capacity.  Read the CSIRO report Fuel for Thought to see what the future holds if we don't.  Buses are not trains. More feeder buses (in the mode that buses cope well with) into key rail and bus stations and more lateral bus routes. Continue to resource our Passenger rail properly. The bus-centric fixation on short term fixes has failed. 

The Planning Institute has contributed to the mess.  Time to move forwards with real rail solutions.

[mufreight]

With people such as Ms Currie doing the planning no wonder things are the mess that they are at present.
The augumentation of rail capacity through the CBD is a key component of resolving current congestion and Ms Currie is obviously numerically deficient as the first stage is estimated to cost 8 not 14 billion and we can not afford more road based public transport as the solution.

[Derwan]

My blog comment:

While I agree that Brisbane needs to get away from the city-centric transport/road system, we are at crisis point and need to increase bulk transport capacity.  The most efficient way of doing this is rail.

In the short term, this is being achieved by the new rolling stock (albeit late).  In the long term we will hopefully have the rail tunnels.  Buses will still be required to feed the train lines and service areas without rail.

I agree with trimming down the zones.

I'm with Jay-Dee in the need for more road river crossings - outside of the CBD.  The Hale Street bridge will do nothing to reduce congestion in the city.  I've blogged about this before:  http://www.derwan.com/view/view.asp?view=36

Possum also makes a good point.  We're encouraged to take public transport but unless we have a means to get to major train/bus stations (i.e. no feeder buses), we need to drive and attempt to park at inadequate park'n'ride facilities.