Article: Urban planning World Cup would see Brisbane out of its league

[Fares_Fair]

Article: Viewpoint by Chris Hale
Urban planning World Cup would see Brisbane out of its league in Asia
Courier-Mail
Monday 26 September, 2011
pp20-21.

Reading starts at "Urban planning World Cup would" headline.
Continued below "see Brisbane out of its league in Asia"

[ozbob]

 

[somebody]

Not the best hatchet job I've seen.  He hardly hints at why we are so poor.

[O_128]

Time for a brisbane 50-10 plan

[dwb]

Not the best hatchet job I've seen.  He hardly hints at why we are so poor.

mmm I agree and it if is just light rail, then Gold Coast will be fine in a couple of years on current policy.. but then maybe that is what he is getting at?

[colinw]

Well, maybe the Gold Coast will be fine, if by fine you mean:

"A few km of light rail, not yet connected to the heavy rail, and with no commitment to extend yet", and

"We've deferred taking the heavy rail any further down the coast to the never never, and don't think we'll take the light rail all the way through to Coolangatta until such time as it magically appears from the magic pudding on 1/1/2031 along with the rest of the SEQ rail system".

Don't get me wrong - I support the Gold Coast Light Rail and think the central section being built is the correct starter line, but the real benefits won't be realised unless the rest of the thing goes ahead and the buses are re-organised to suit.

[dwb]

Well, maybe the Gold Coast will be fine, if by fine you mean:

"A few km of light rail, not yet connected to the heavy rail, and with no commitment to extend yet", and

"We've deferred taking the heavy rail any further down the coast to the never never, and don't think we'll take the light rail all the way through to Coolangatta until such time as it magically appears from the magic pudding on 1/1/2031 along with the rest of the SEQ rail system".

Don't get me wrong - I support the Gold Coast Light Rail and think the central section being built is the correct starter line, but the real benefits won't be realised unless the rest of the thing goes ahead and the buses are re-organised to suit.

Hosting Games on the Gold Coast might be all the excuse to get their in concept extensions planned and built. Much of the heavy lifting is getting the in concept work in place... then you just need a reason to fund it. If some Games come along on the GC, I think some things could happen quickly.

[O_128]

Well, maybe the Gold Coast will be fine, if by fine you mean:

"A few km of light rail, not yet connected to the heavy rail, and with no commitment to extend yet", and

"We've deferred taking the heavy rail any further down the coast to the never never, and don't think we'll take the light rail all the way through to Coolangatta until such time as it magically appears from the magic pudding on 1/1/2031 along with the rest of the SEQ rail system".

Don't get me wrong - I support the Gold Coast Light Rail and think the central section being built is the correct starter line, but the real benefits won't be realised unless the rest of the thing goes ahead and the buses are re-organised to suit.

Hosting Games on the Gold Coast might be all the excuse to get their in concept extensions planned and built. Much of the heavy lifting is getting the in concept work in place... then you just need a reason to fund it. If some Games come along on the GC, I think some things could happen quickly.

If the coast gets the games then without a doubt helensvale light rail will be pushed through to 2018 and we might even see something connecting to nerang as proposed on here. I wouldn't bother extending just to elanora - either build the whole thing to the airport along with the helensvale duplication or don't build any of it.

[SurfRail]

Well, maybe the Gold Coast will be fine, if by fine you mean:

"A few km of light rail, not yet connected to the heavy rail, and with no commitment to extend yet", and

"We've deferred taking the heavy rail any further down the coast to the never never, and don't think we'll take the light rail all the way through to Coolangatta until such time as it magically appears from the magic pudding on 1/1/2031 along with the rest of the SEQ rail system".

Don't get me wrong - I support the Gold Coast Light Rail and think the central section being built is the correct starter line, but the real benefits won't be realised unless the rest of the thing goes ahead and the buses are re-organised to suit.

Hosting Games on the Gold Coast might be all the excuse to get their in concept extensions planned and built. Much of the heavy lifting is getting the in concept work in place... then you just need a reason to fund it. If some Games come along on the GC, I think some things could happen quickly.

If the coast gets the games then without a doubt helensvale light rail will be pushed through to 2018 and we might even see something connecting to nerang as proposed on here. I wouldn't bother extending just to elanora - either build the whole thing to the airport along with the helensvale duplication or don't build any of it.

Both services all the way to Coolangatta would be preferable, but I would be happy with light rail extensions only – to both Coolangatta and Helensvale.  The critical things for me are connecting LRT and rail, and getting at least one mode to the airport.  The city will be flooded with interstate buses while the games would be on to handle the spectator movements and shuttle work, and Surfside would need to run more intensive route service timetables.  Carrara Stadium will only seat around 50K or so, and buses could deal with that for the big ceremonies if run intensively enough. 

Heavy rail to the airport is something which needs to happen, but not quite as urgently as light rail I think.  It's more important to improve system capacity for the Gold Coast itself than to plug more of it into Brisbane.

(Interestingly, I read that while around 14,000 people leave the GC for work everyday, around 11,000 head south from Brisbane!)

[somebody]

(Interestingly, I read that while around 14,000 people leave the GC for work everyday, around 11,000 head south from Brisbane!)

That is interesting, but I would presume that it's not 11k for work.

It also makes the GC line's market share only around 25% in peak hour.  Which isn't anything to crow about.

[SurfRail]

That is interesting, but I would presume that it's not 11k for work.

No, it is. 

It also makes the GC line's market share only around 25% in peak hour.  Which isn't anything to crow about.

It's 5-6 times the average for the rest of the city!

[colinw]

Well, maybe the Gold Coast will be fine, if by fine you mean:

"A few km of light rail, not yet connected to the heavy rail, and with no commitment to extend yet", and

"We've deferred taking the heavy rail any further down the coast to the never never, and don't think we'll take the light rail all the way through to Coolangatta until such time as it magically appears from the magic pudding on 1/1/2031 along with the rest of the SEQ rail system".

Don't get me wrong - I support the Gold Coast Light Rail and think the central section being built is the correct starter line, but the real benefits won't be realised unless the rest of the thing goes ahead and the buses are re-organised to suit.

Hosting Games on the Gold Coast might be all the excuse to get their in concept extensions planned and built. Much of the heavy lifting is getting the in concept work in place... then you just need a reason to fund it. If some Games come along on the GC, I think some things could happen quickly.

I certainly hope so, and have my fingers crossed for the Gold Coast getting the 2018 Commonwealth Games for that reason.  The '82 Games, followed by Expo '88 were transformational for Brisbane, as they resulted in much more rapid progress on the rail electrification. Originally there were concerns that the electrification would not extend outside the Ipswich <-> Ferny Grove corridor, and just over a decade before there had been quite serious suggestions of further rail closures (e.g. beyond Keperra & Kingston).

I don't necessarily see any point of putting light rail to the Carrara venue for the games, buses should be fine (as they were from Banoon for the '82 games in Brisbane). LRT to Cararra would in itself be pointless outside the games period and on AFL game days, unless it was part of a line to serve Nerang - but that is far less important than the Helensvale - Harbour Town - Southport link, and getting something down to Coolangatta/Tweed.

[somebody]

That is interesting, but I would presume that it's not 11k for work.

No, it is. 

It also makes the GC line's market share only around 25% in peak hour.  Which isn't anything to crow about.

It's 5-6 times the average for the rest of the city!

There you go!  And people said the Gold Coast was an employment free zone.

Brisbane isn't that bad in its PT uptake.  2006 census results were 17.5% using PT for usual trip to work or study, and I would expect this has grown slightly.  Some of the 82.5% are working from home or retired etc AIUI.  (Link: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Chapter10102008)