Kedron Brook and Lutwyche busway station open day 16th June

[#Metro]

I am just amazed that publicly paid for infrastructure would be limited to disadvantage bus charter companies.
Isn't it advantageous to get ALL buses using the busways?

If they are accredited, let them use it. We allow coal trains and long distance passenger trains on the network, even private ones, so why not buses on the busway?

[ozbob]

Twitter

Tom Greenard ‏@feelandgroove

First bus to use the new Northern Busway. Early start for yours truly on @612brisbane http://pic.twitter.com/AgFPkXiw

[triplethree]

On board MAN 18.310 diesel, fleet no. A1020, on the very first 369 high frequency cross-suburban service ever. Departed Mitchelton on time at 5:12am. Two spare drivers on board for route training.

A little bit of bloat in the timetable, we had to stop a couple of minutes at Stafford City, but that's normal for early AM services.

I'm the only passenger so far, but about ten passengers at three stops east of Stafford City on Stafford Rd have flagged it down, thinking this bus is going to the city.

The 369 stops have their own special flag, like the BUZs, GCL, rockets. The flags just say "Route 369" between two thick stripes. Maybe when more high-frequency cross-suburban links are put in place they should get their own branding if they're not quite BUZ quality? "CrossLink"? "S2S" (Suburb 2 Suburb)?

Now at Kedron Brook, on time. One boarding.

Eagle Junction. Another boarding. Another on Sandgate Road.

Arrived Toombul 4 mins late. Forget what I said about bloat before. 2 new customers here. 1 off.

Drivers tell me Bowen Hills will do the lion's share of 369s, with Virgina doing a small minority.

DFO 4 mins late. 2 off. The other 2 off at Lakeside Dr. Aviation School terminus 5 mins late (within the bounds of acceptability IMO).

5 boardings for a brand new bus route before sparrow's fart that doesn't go into town. 5 more than I expected, to be honest. Call me a hopeless optimist but I get the feeling the 369 is going to be a success. Biggest problem so far is people stuck in the mindset of "this bus goes in the same direction as other citybound buses so this bus must go there too".


5 boardings







.

[somebody]

I bet Simon is going to hate having to use that bus stop as you have to walk to the far end to cross the road then back to the other end to catch the bus

Sounds annoying.

Also told another impediment is the height of them.

Only place I am aware that this is an issue is from Roma St to QSBS.  I suspect that a double decker can use the entire rest of the busway.

[ozbob]

Media release 18 June 2012

SEQ: Northern Busway missing promised bus lanes

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers calls for transit lanes on Lutwyche Rd to be reinstated.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"A QUT study several years ago (1) found that the T3 lane on Lutwyche Rd was well justified.  It is not entirely clear why it was removed, but it seems to be a policy which favours those living the most unsustainable lifestyles against those living more sustainable lifestyles by using car pooling and public transport.  Lack of bus priority increases the cost of operating the bus services."

"It has been claimed that removing the bus/transit lanes might speed up bus services because of the so called 'created congestion'. This argument is absurd in our opinion and has been shown to be false by even the RACQ's own research (2)."

"Bus services have significantly increased market share since both the RACQ and QUT's research (3)."

"For the foreseeable future, public transport along Lutwyche Rd will mean bus services.  There are no proposals for a heavy rail line and a light rail investment is unlikely with the current budget position.  Bus lanes were a promise of the Northern Busway, and are still included in Translink documents (4)."

"With the latest stage of the Northern Busway opening today, why are the bus lanes that are detailed on the publicly available project drawings have not yet been installed? Are these to be installed at some date in the future, or not at all? Could the authorities please explain why this is the case?

"It is disappointing that Brisbane City Council squanders public transport funding by removing and not supporting proper bus priority on the road network. Massive public investment in the Northern Busway is now stranded in part."

References:

1. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/2731/1/2731.pdf

2. http://www.racq.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/51243/Transit_Lane_Survey-_1996.pdf

3. http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=8503.msg100955#msg100955

4. http://translink.com.au/resources/about-translink/what-we-do/infrastructure-projects/northern-busway/100217-alignment.jpg

Contact:

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

[#Metro]

They spent $444 million on a busway with THE MIDDLE SECTION MISSING! 

Did they realise that capacity will be limited on the entire busway by this chokepoint!

Transit lanes all the way to Chermside now!

[ozbob]

On board MAN 18.310 diesel, fleet no. A1020, on the very first 369 high frequency cross-suburban service ever. Departed Mitchelton on time at 5:12am. Two spare drivers on board for route training.

A little bit of bloat in the timetable, we had to stop a couple of minutes at Stafford City, but that's normal for early AM services.

I'm the only passenger so far, but about ten passengers at three stops east of Stafford City on Stafford Rd have flagged it down, thinking this bus is going to the city.

The 369 stops have their own special flag, like the BUZs, GCL, rockets. The flags just say "Route 369" between two thick stripes. Maybe when more high-frequency cross-suburban links are put in place they should get their own branding if they're not quite BUZ quality? "CrossLink"? "S2S" (Suburb 2 Suburb)?

Now at Kedron Brook, on time. One boarding.

Eagle Junction. Another boarding. Another on Sandgate Road.

Arrived Toombul 4 mins late. Forget what I said about bloat before. 2 new customers here. 1 off.

Drivers tell me Bowen Hills will do the lion's share of 369s, with Virgina doing a small minority.

DFO 4 mins late. 2 off. The other 2 off at Lakeside Dr. Aviation School terminus 5 mins late (within the bounds of acceptability IMO).

5 boardings for a brand new bus route before sparrow's fart that doesn't go into town. 5 more than I expected, to be honest. Call me a hopeless optimist but I get the feeling the 369 is going to be a success. Biggest problem so far is people stuck in the mindset of "this bus goes in the same direction as other citybound buses so this bus must go there too".


5 boardings
.

Well done!  Thanks for sharing the details.   

[BrizCommuter]

http://brizcommuter.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/northern-busway-missing-something.html
Northern Busway - missing something?

[#Metro]

I might take a ride sometime this week!

[#Metro]

Whilst on the subject of the Northern Busway, the stopping patterns of the buses which use this corridor can be very confusing to non-regular users. Disappointingly, TransLink have failed to produce any diagrams or maps which identify which bus routes will use Airport Link, which bus routes will use the Northern Busway, and which bus routes will continue to use Lutwyche Road? The mediocrity sadly continues!

BrizCommuter, I did a physical inspection on Saturday and there are diagrams at the busway station which do show service patterns. It is a mess due to the high number of services, but they do exist. There is no Core Frequent Network map though.

The middle bit of the busway is missing, this is ridiculous. There must be transit lanes all the way to chermside - they would not cost a lot, and in fact the costs could be recouped by speed savings made on the bus fleet and labour when transit lanes ARE installed.

[ozbob]

On board MAN 18.310 diesel, fleet no. A1020, on the very first 369 high frequency cross-suburban service ever. Departed Mitchelton on time at 5:12am. Two spare drivers on board for route training.

A little bit of bloat in the timetable, we had to stop a couple of minutes at Stafford City, but that's normal for early AM services.

I'm the only passenger so far, but about ten passengers at three stops east of Stafford City on Stafford Rd have flagged it down, thinking this bus is going to the city.

The 369 stops have their own special flag, like the BUZs, GCL, rockets. The flags just say "Route 369" between two thick stripes. Maybe when more high-frequency cross-suburban links are put in place they should get their own branding if they're not quite BUZ quality? "CrossLink"? "S2S" (Suburb 2 Suburb)?

Now at Kedron Brook, on time. One boarding.

Eagle Junction. Another boarding. Another on Sandgate Road.

Arrived Toombul 4 mins late. Forget what I said about bloat before. 2 new customers here. 1 off.

Drivers tell me Bowen Hills will do the lion's share of 369s, with Virgina doing a small minority.

DFO 4 mins late. 2 off. The other 2 off at Lakeside Dr. Aviation School terminus 5 mins late (within the bounds of acceptability IMO).

5 boardings for a brand new bus route before sparrow's fart that doesn't go into town. 5 more than I expected, to be honest. Call me a hopeless optimist but I get the feeling the 369 is going to be a success. Biggest problem so far is people stuck in the mindset of "this bus goes in the same direction as other citybound buses so this bus must go there too".


5 boardings
.

Well done!  Thanks for sharing the details.   

Twitter

Urban Reverie ‏@urbanreverie

@Robert_Dow And here's the first bus on the crosstown 369. May there be many more. http://pic.twitter.com/bPTr7t9P

============

Urban Reverie ‏@urbanreverie

@Robert_Dow And one of the 369 "flags" on the J poles. http://pic.twitter.com/mivWL5pn

[red dragin]

Can someone confirm that they built a two-way tunnel under Gympie Rd but it has been built so that only northbound buses can use it? 

Also  @ the gutter preventing access to the Federation St bus stop bypass.. only in QLD!

Tunnel is two way, but the intersection at the bowling alley/servo would have been too complex. Setup for future extension. Info from CRG minutes.

Gutter prevents access to a bypass. I believe the bus stop was meant to be completely different, but was made simple. Possibly they forgot to remove that piece from the plans?

[Golliwog]

I'm the only passenger so far, but about ten passengers at three stops east of Stafford City on Stafford Rd have flagged it down, thinking this bus is going to the city.

Not sure about the timetable for a bus to the city from stops along Stafford Rd, but did the driver mention that the bus would get them to Stafford City (375) or Kedron Brook (333, 340)?

Can someone confirm that they built a two-way tunnel under Gympie Rd but it has been built so that only northbound buses can use it? 

I haven't seen it, but I believe that is the case. They didn't want to put in another set of lights just for buses or something, but built it for 2 way traffic so they don't have to redo it if/when the busway goes further north again.

[ozbob]

612 ABC Brisbane Breakfast with Spencer Howson click here!

The first bus on the Northern Busway

The first bus on the Northern Busway

18 June 2012 , 8:16 AM by Spencer Howson

The Northern Busway opened today, between Kedron and Windsor, and our reporter Tom Greenard was on the very first bus, the 5am 333 from Chermside to QPAC:

[SurfRail]

Can someone confirm that they built a two-way tunnel under Gympie Rd but it has been built so that only northbound buses can use it? 

This is correct, because currently the tunnel pops out on the western side of Gympie Road somewhere to the north of Stafford Rd.  Southbound traffic accesses the busway at the Stafford Rd intersection/interchange.  When it gets extended (if), then buses will of course remain in that stretch of busway.

[O_128]

They spent $444 million on a busway with THE MIDDLE SECTION MISSING! 

Did they realise that capacity will be limited on the entire busway by this chokepoint!

Transit lanes all the way to Chermside now!

This is the same people that gave us the triplication of the beenleigh line, half assed ipswich quad and no full duplication of the gold coast line.

Maybe its time for some vigil anti action? just paint the bus lanes ourselves.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Maybe its time for some vigil anti action? just paint the bus lanes ourselves.

[ozbob]

LOLOL!

[triplethree]

Caught a northbound 77 earlier this morning, had two drivers on board (one for route training). Neither knew how to enter the new busway and asked me for guidance. TripleThree saves the day! I'm lucky I watched that Brisbane Times video someone posted here earlier. They explained to me that all they had seen was a CGI drive-through animation of the busway which didn't give them the "hands on" understanding of how to navigate.

Plenty of BT and TL staff at the busway stations and Chermside interchange. Sandwich boards galore with useful information. It didn't stop one passenger have a little hissy fit when her usual bus to Lutwyche deposited her at an underground station. I'm surprised she didn't fold her arms and stomp her feet and scream "Waaah! Not fair!"

[BrizCommuter]

Whilst on the subject of the Northern Busway, the stopping patterns of the buses which use this corridor can be very confusing to non-regular users. Disappointingly, TransLink have failed to produce any diagrams or maps which identify which bus routes will use Airport Link, which bus routes will use the Northern Busway, and which bus routes will continue to use Lutwyche Road? The mediocrity sadly continues!

BrizCommuter, I did a physical inspection on Saturday and there are diagrams at the busway station which do show service patterns. It is a mess due to the high number of services, but they do exist. There is no Core Frequent Network map though.

Thanks, blog has been updated with link to said map. The map doesn't appear to have been put up at all (Inner) Northern Busway stations yet though.

[HappyTrainGuy]

GUYS!!!! I DOUBLE CHECKED. THERE IS A BUSLANE!!! PROOF BELOW!!!



It starts at the intersection and continues to the other side of that same intersection. Just think of the 5 smart cars (Or one standard car) it would bypass in traffic 

SEQ Public Transport. Its on the ball 

[STB]

That looks like a bus jump, not a bus lane.

[somebody]

Sydney has things like that all over the place.  Combined with a "B" signal which is illuminated before the cars get the green.  It's fine, so long as that is what it is in this case.

[HappyTrainGuy]

In all seriousness there are no buslanes. There are some bus only markings at the intersections but that's it. Buses have priority at the intersections but they also have to wait for the road traffic cycle.

Left goes to the city, right goes to stafford. Bus lane in the middle heads towards stafford before turning left under the busway. B light of bus can be seen in the middle left.


Kedron entry under the airport link.


Oh hai! How did you end up stuck there between the cycle of lights? Hopefully you're a one off.


Oh dear... Not again. Well, hopefully drivers are better driving from the city than to the city....


Maybe not.


Albion Road intersection. Buses have to wait before exiting onto Gympie Road. Once they get onto Gympie Road they meet this intersection.


Buses have a white B light that goes on about 3-4 seconds before the green light for traffic. Buses merge across the intersection with its own bus only markings.


Outbound entrance was a real design fail. It was already full during off peak so I can't wait for peak hour when there are buses flying at it left right and centre (2 buses are in the below pic with a third driver training bus approaching).


One last check before I....


..nopwait! What's that?

Nope. No bus lanes.

[ozbob]

 

[AnonymouslyBad]

Caught the 340 to Chermside (from the city) and the 333 back around lunchtime today.

On the outbound it was pretty much business as usual; on the way back to the city though the driver had no idea and a trainer jumped on the bus at Kedron North to guide them through the busway with its confusing entries and exits.

I still don't get why there's a big chunk of busway missing. Especially if they never extend it northwards, it may turn out that the section of road that's busway is the section with the least time saving! The actual getting off the busway at RBWH, back on at Windsor and off again at Kedron (or vice versa) chews up a considerable amount of time - I didn't measure exactly, but several minutes. Especially at the outbound entrance to the new busway (Federation Street?), there's a bus-only traffic light, which happens to be against all the other traffic and pretty much never turns green. It could have easily been a 90 second wait. No evidence of priority, though admittedly I've only done the one trip.

The busway itself, of course, works well and everything moved smoothly. In the general traffic section, the bus jumps are perfectly useful and do save time. But I'd hazard a guess that the presence of the jumps means those bus lanes are never coming... even though I would've thought that a pretty essential part of the plan when you leave a kilometre of busway missing.

The new busway is a welcome upgrade and it's obviously going to provide an improvement in peak... but it's weird to see so much promotion and advertising for what's obviously a half-baked effort. The busway itself is good, it just seems like it's been strangled, both in planning (wasn't there supposed to be land resumptions through Windsor for a continuous busway??) as well as in practice with the poor bus priority, etc.

[SurfRail]

I see no reason (other than political) why we couldn't have had continuous bus lanes all the way to Chermside (or even Aspley) for the missing sections of busway - so Federation St to Truro St, then from the Stafford Rd entrance / Gordon Park exit.

For that matter, the same applies to Old Cleveland Rd as far as Capalaba (or at least as far as Carindale).

[SurfRail]

New BUZ network map.  This thing hurts my eyes now.

http://translink.com.au/resources/travel-information/network-information/maps/network/120618-buz.pdf

[Gazza]

Why aren't the 345 and 340 shown as intersecting at Aspley?

[somebody]

444 does not serve Boomerang St I/B.  Only the 88 & 412 do that.

EDIT: And both the 412 & 444 serve Cribb St inbound.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Why aren't the 345 and 340 shown as intersecting at Aspley?

Because they don't. It involves a 500m walk to interchange.

[Gazza]

It also makes it look as if the 330 makes no stops north of Chermside, yet they show all stops on the other routes.

Why doesn't the 100 have a rail network icon next to it at the Moorooka station stop?

[HappyTrainGuy]

Hmmmmm. Their maps are shocking from the last time I saw them. The 340/345 were linked together but with a small black line between the two dots implying a short walk to them. Must have updated it since then.

[SurfRail]

At least they updated it.  The Gold Coast one is still hopelessly out of date...

[AnonymouslyBad]

It also makes it look as if the 330 makes no stops north of Chermside, yet they show all stops on the other routes.

There's a couple of other routes (19x) that have their stops simplified, but of course can you imagine if they tried to list all the 199 stops??

Anyway, that's very different so I'm sure the reason the 330/340 are missing stops is simply because they forgot how to format their own maps.
Just like they forgot to label the 330 and 340 at all! They're on the legend but the actual lines for them aren't numbered at all. Not that I'd care if they did this for all routes (that extra space is sorely needed at this point) but the inconsistency suggests it probably wasn't on purpose.

New BUZ network map.  This thing hurts my eyes now.

http://translink.com.au/resources/travel-information/network-information/maps/network/120618-buz.pdf

You're not wrong... with the way some of the routes run, a "spaghetti" map is unavoidable, but it's made even more painful by the way they lay it all out. Stuff like labelling a stop on the opposite side of a corridor to that route is just bad form.

Or, you know, they could simplify it by actually giving most of the BUZes a common corridor through the inner city! That would make it both easier to read and easier to actually use the system, though. Wouldn't hold my breath

[O_128]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46479845@N06/7382129846/

All rights belong to Transitmapsetc off Flickr

Is it really that hard? Newman is obviously right about the vast amount of waste within the public service. This guy needs to be hired.

[Golliwog]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46479845@N06/7382129846/

All rights belong to Transitmapsetc off Flickr

Is it really that hard? Newman is obviously right about the vast amount of waste within the public service. This guy needs to be hired.

I like that, though I think it misses a few. It says it is for routes that are every 15 minutes 6am-11pm, but has P88 which has it's last service depart Indro at 8am (granted, it is listed as 'daytime only' in the legend) If this route can be included, then surely so too can route 369 and the UQ Lakes routes?

On topic though, I went out on the 340 to Kedron Brook, then across to Mitchelton on the 369. New busway looks good. I have an issue with the 369 however, both timetable wise and with the stops. First, the stop at Kedron Brook is ridiculous looking next to the busway station. There isn't even a bench at the bus stop post, let alone any shade. I ended up waiting in the shade of the adjacent busway platform and moved across when I saw the bus approaching. Timetable wise, it hasn't even been running a week and they already seem to be consistently late at Kedron Brook. When I got there at pretty much bang on 1pm, I found the stop and checked the timetable, next service 1.13pm, fine. I went down to have a look around the new creek landscaping and what not. When I was about hte middle of the bridge, I hear a bus and look back to see what I assume must have been the 12.58pm 369 service wizz through, at least 5 minutes late. The 1.13pm service was about the same time frame behind it's schedule so this didn't seem to be a one off thing.

Other than that though, the service was fine. I think I had about 8 people including myself using the service along the way. Only downside was that at Stafford the service doesn't use the interchange stop used by the 375 (which is fair enough, it would be a horrible detour for the 369 in the middle of the route), but it just makes you wonder why they built the stop there anyway.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Ah that would have been the map that I saw hahaha.

[cartoonbirdhaus]

I like that, though I think it misses a few. It says it is for routes that are every 15 minutes 6am-11pm, but has P88

That's because all the stops served by the 88 (ditto with the 66 and 160) are also served by at least one BUZ route. Simple as that.

Is it really that hard? Newman is obviously right about the vast amount of waste within the public service. This guy needs to be hired.

Cameron Booth (http://www.cambooth.net/archives/tag/transit) needs to be hired, that's who. As well as creating a high-quality alternative to the official MBTA map in Boston (http://www.cambooth.net/archives/850), also check out his maps for the Washington Metro (http://www.cambooth.net/archives/759), and France's TGV network* (also including Eurostar and the like) (http://flic.kr/p/9fsZy8).

*The only bugbear is that Monaco is a sovereign nation, not part of France.

[triplethree]

New BUZ network map.  This thing hurts my eyes now.

http://translink.com.au/resources/travel-information/network-information/maps/network/120618-buz.pdf

Ouch! My eyes! My beautiful, beautiful eyes again!

That is just vile. Numero uno: They don't show every stop north of Chermside on the 330 and 340. Yet they still show EVERY SINGLE STOP on the 100 south of Moorooka? They don't show every stop on the 196 or 199 - though personally I think some sort of symbology should be used (line weighting or colour or opacity or hatching or whatever) to signify "this is a BUZ, yes, but it stops at every stop so we don't need to show you every single stop." In any case, stops on the 330 and 340 are spread out, and some serve semi-significant destinations (including, may I be permitted to point out, a connection with the rail system at Zillmere on the 330!), so I think the stops on these routes should be displayed.

Numero duo: This sort of trash is a reason why buses should never, ever be mapped using a railway-style schematic diagram. Like, what's the deal with the 340 Aspley stop looking like it's a Burke & Wills-style expedition away from the 345 Aspley Hypermarket stop, as HappyTrainGuy pointed out? It's different with trains - when making a rail-only journey, all you need to know is the name of your origin station and the name of your destination station, and where the lines connecting the two meet. That was the genius of Harry Beck's London tube map of the 1930s. With buses, however, you need to know where the stops are - AND which roads they travel down. How will you find a stop without knowing at which street and nearest cross-street it's located? Individual bus stops are not visible or well-known enough to be landmarks that you know are there, and always were there, and ever thus will be there.

Numero tre: What's with those skew-whiff angles on the 330 or 340? If you're going to no longer bother with snapping routes to a strict 45° or 90° orthogonal grid (which is useful on a topological schematic diagram), then you may as well go the whole hog and show the true routes on the buses (preferably with a skeleton street-network background layer). From a purely aesthetic point of view, it's almost as unsightly as the pre-TransLink QR Citytrain map which compressed the entire Nambour & Gympie North Line into this ungodly green zigzag.

On topic though, I went out on the 340 to Kedron Brook, then across to Mitchelton on the 369. New busway looks good. I have an issue with the 369 however, both timetable wise and with the stops. First, the stop at Kedron Brook is ridiculous looking next to the busway station. There isn't even a bench at the bus stop post, let alone any shade. I ended up waiting in the shade of the adjacent busway platform and moved across when I saw the bus approaching. Timetable wise, it hasn't even been running a week and they already seem to be consistently late at Kedron Brook. When I got there at pretty much bang on 1pm, I found the stop and checked the timetable, next service 1.13pm, fine. I went down to have a look around the new creek landscaping and what not. When I was about hte middle of the bridge, I hear a bus and look back to see what I assume must have been the 12.58pm 369 service wizz through, at least 5 minutes late. The 1.13pm service was about the same time frame behind it's schedule so this didn't seem to be a one off thing.

Other than that though, the service was fine. I think I had about 8 people including myself using the service along the way. Only downside was that at Stafford the service doesn't use the interchange stop used by the 375 (which is fair enough, it would be a horrible detour for the 369 in the middle of the route), but it just makes you wonder why they built the stop there anyway.

The 369 westbound doesn't stop inside Kedron Brook station (as it does eastbound)? Oh dear. That makes connections to get from, say, Eagle Junction to Chermside SOOOO easy! Not.

Also, the 369 will get busier. Frequency is a "positive feedback" loop. High-frequency services are more visible and therefore likely to attract new riders. Say you live somewhere on a side street 200 metres north of Stafford Road in Everton Park. Say that, on average, the road appears in your field of vision ten minutes a day. With the old 358 which only came once an hour in each direction, you had only a 1 in 3 chance of seeing a 358 each day. But now with a 369 which arrives every 15 minutes in each direction, you will now see a 369 almost every day.

Along with the flags on the bus stops, this increased visibility will lead people who live in the area to go "Oh wow! Look at all these 369s coming all the time. Maybe I can catch it now to get to the Stafford cinemas / get to the Airtrain at Eagle Junction / have lunch at the KP instead of spending money on petrol and having to bother to find a park."