Article: Brisbane opts out of SEQ light rail revolution

[ozbob]

From the Brisbanetimes click here!

Brisbane opts out of SEQ light rail revolution

Brisbane opts out of SEQ light rail revolution

August 16, 2012 - 1:00AM
Katherine Feeney

Light rail will not be considered as part of a $2 million prefeasibility study City Hall has charged AECOM Australia to produce by mid-2013 to find solutions to traffic congestion in Brisbane.

Despite moves by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council to incorporate light rail into their integrated infrastructure future planning, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said he wanted to see a new city bus link built instead.

But Robert Down, spokesman for public transport advocacy group Rail Back on Track, said it would be foolish not to consider light rail for Brisbane as part of Brisbane City Council's future planning as buses only put more pressure on roads.

Mr Dow said a system in the mould of the $1.6 billion line under construction at the Gold Coast was a better answer to Brisbane's public transport woes, and council should take advantage of existing transport infrastructure which was built with light rail in mind.

"Putting a light rail service from West End to Newstead and New Farm would for example would free up buses to service the suburbs," Mr Dow said.

"Buses that already run this route – the CityGlider and the 199 – are almost at capacity.

"You can carry far more passengers on light rail than busses and save more money on operations in the long term – the trouble [with the proposed bus link] is that BCC has decided the mode of transport up front."

Yet "gradient issues" made light rail incompatible with Cr Quirk's proposed Suburbs 2 City Buslink, the plans for which were released last year after brisbanetimes.com.au highlighted congestion problems in the CBD.

However, the feasibility study was foreshadowed in transport strategy outlined in the original 2006 City Master Plan, which is currently up for review.

At the time, light rail was an option to be considered as part of a new mass transit system identified as vital to the growth of the city.

The old plan, released under then-lord mayor Campbell Newman, also made provisions for the council to work with Peter Beattie's state government on plans for an underground rail loop subsequently incarnated as the contentious Cross River Rail project.

While Mr Newman last year slammed the rail link, touted by Mr Beattie's successor Anna Bligh as crucial infrastructure and then valued at $8 billion, as premier he has carried on the project albeit in a scaled-back capacity with a $4.4 billion price tag.

Meanwhile Cr Quirk said without any new CBD bus infrastructure, between 300 and 400 bus services during the inbound peak hour could be forced to terminate their journey at the city fringe.

Cr Quirk said the Suburbs 2 City Buslink would allow bus services from all areas across Brisbane to experience travel time savings and could save commuters up to 30 minutes off a journey.

"The Suburbs 2 City Buslink will reduce congestion on surface roads by taking 8000 buses off CBD streets per day and help create a cleaner, greener CBD," he said.

"Buses could travel between South Brisbane and Fortitude Valley in just 11 minutes and avoid 13 sets of traffic lights."

Cr Quirk said the 18-month feasibility study would investigate how best to align the link with existing infrastructure, though early investigations suggested it should could come off the existing South-East Busway at South Brisbane and continue under Melbourne Street.

From there it would cross the river continue under Adelaide Street linking to the busway network and joining in on-street at Wickham and Ann streets.

"I am committed to the economic development of Brisbane as a key hub in the Asia Pacific region with CBD jobs forecast to rise by 90,000 in the next 20 years," Cr Quirk said.

"To accommodate this growth and enable us to bring the workforce into the city we need to improve public transport and maintain the liveability of this great city."

The Newman government submitted the cross-river rail project to Infrastructure Australia at the beginning of the month as part of an application for Federal funding.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-opts-out-of-seq-light-rail-revolution-20120815-248f8.html#ixzz23dVCRbHc

[Golliwog]

On one side, it makes sense (consultants fees would probably be lower as they're only looking at how to do a bus solution, rather than looking at a bus and light rail solution and then comparing the two) but I'd think you'd want to err on the side of caution and go for that more expensive analysis. Just because we've got a whole bunch of buses and (with the exception of a few choke points) they go alright doesn't mean they're always going to be the solution to everything.

[somebody]

they go alright

Does depend on your definition of alright.  Less than one boarding per vehicle-km for BT is hardly world's best practice.

[#Metro]

Let's fix up the buses first. There are many melbourne trams that have similar dimensions to BCC buses and carry similar capacities- the difference is that over the last decade, melbourne has made extensive use of CLASS B ROW, our equivalent of the *dedicated* bus lane.

[Golliwog]

they go alright

Does depend on your definition of alright.  Less than one boarding per vehicle-km for BT is hardly world's best practice.

Fair call, though if you looked at the core areas (which is where the problem they're looking at fixing is) I'm sure those routes go better. The city layout probably doesn't help much either with few concentrated work areas outside the CBD.

[ozbob]

Blog comments on this article are surprisingly well informed.

The problem is that BCC is ignoring rail capacity improvements, and a bus link as such is not going to overcome the capacity limitations already impacting.  They are also ignoring the pending bus review and network changes.  There is a physical limit on just how many buses can fit into the CBD area as such.

Time public transport planning was removed from BCC and done on a proper integrated basis. 

There are some obvious things to do now, but they can't muscle the political will to do.

[somebody]

There are some obvious things to do now, but they can't muscle the political will to do.

Absolutely.

And that is the way the world works.

[colinw]

+1 

I completely agree with rtt_rules.  There's more than enough issues to fix in Brisbane as is without introducing LRT at this time.

I'm sure trams will run again in Brisbane, but right now building LRT in the city would be a major distraction from the core tasks, which are getting heavy rail up to sensible frequency and fixing the busway logjams.

[ozbob]

I agree,  the article is a little out of context.  The point being made is that better and all options need to be considered before spending billions on a bus link tunnel.

Light rail is a future option for Brisbane and needs not to be dismissed outright.

Simply sorting out Victoria Bridge, CC bus station platforms, proper bus lanes in the CBD will achieve the same as 'bus link'.

BCC is just going down an isolated planning tack without proper regard to overall network changes.  But we know that, others don't apparently ...

[#Metro]

The capacity of Cultural Centre in peak is 180 buses x 65 = 11 700 x 0.8 load factor = 9 300 pphd.

Light Rail at 400 pax / LRT x 60 = 12 000, so not much benefit there. I'd suggest going direct to metro solutions along the core section or a bus tunnel that can
allow Vancouver Skytrain capacities. Any study needs to detail what the capacity of the tunnel at stations will be. I think underground stations will have significantly
lower capacity (think King George Square) as KGS has defined stops, while CC does not (you just run along the platform).

This is unless of course, the stations are built with stops that are open and undefined (like CC).

[colinw]

Agree with TT.  LRT on the busways is a non-starter, as it would have little benefit.  Busways should stay as they are until we're ready to go for metro.

Where LRT does have a role is as an inner city people mover and to fill gaps in coverage into the inner suburbs.  Newfarm to West End / South Bank to start with, although I always did like the original 1997 BrizTram concept of continuing to UQ (but Eleanor Schonell bridge makes that far less attractive now).

For now, I think tje priorities should be fixing rail capacity/frequency, and sorting out the Cultural Centre / Victoria Bridge mess.

I guess if Quirk does build his silly bus tunnel, that will free up capacity on the Victoria Bridge for LRT.

What really irks me about this mess is BCC continuing to act as a rogue agent, pursuing its own agenda to the complete exclusion of any network wide strategy.

[Mr X]

I concur. Trams are one of those things which the media likes to bring up because of the historical nostalgia of it all. We don't really need it in Brisbane, a proper metro would be more useful and offer higher capacities.

[#Metro]

Well I don't think the busway is suitable for heavy rail. We already had an extremely long discussion about that (basically would have needed CRR plus Paris style SACEM signalling, blah blah). The only logical place for a metro really is ON the SE Busway itself and then under the city and then in the Northern busway. This can be achieved using rubber tyred rail vehicles or Vancouver skytrain technologies. The alternative is to build Bogota style busway with high floor, ultra long buses, and I would like to see that option scoped out and investigated.

[Golliwog]

rtt, the logic of a West End LRT is that, combined, route 199 and Cityglider both run at 5 minute headways in peak, so taking those out of the CC in peak is 24bph less. Plus, depending how the LRT interacts with the busway, you could end up with far fewer red lights at the Melbourne St portal which also gives some significant delays.

Either way, I agree that putting in an LRT is way down the list of critical upgrades required, however I'm loath to see BCC waste our collective money only a solution that only further entrenches bus as a major line haul service when it should mostly be a feeder/distributor.