The Wave is a downgrading of what was already planned and has essentially nothing to do with the Olympics.
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True, but I dare say that without the Olympics, there wouldnât be any urgency to deliver any amount of rail to the SC Coast. Likewise, I donât think LGCFR would have been proceeded with straight away without the Olympics.
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What is missing from what was being âplannedâ previously ?
A âplanâ is what was missing from planning.
Also âplanningâ was also missing from planning.
Without both you have nothing .
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It was the whole purpose in staging the Olympics. All the SEQ Mayors got together seeing an opportunity for transportation infrastructure legacy.
Lack of a clear plan and no money.
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No, their purpose for the Olympics was for them to make as much money as they could from it.
Hardly a noble reason to host them.
A transport legacy was not part of, or never their motivation. If it was we would have gone full-on Athens and built a new subway and/or light rail system in Brisbane.
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The main reason they went with the Olympics was to push up our sluggish real estate prices which before the pandemic were actually quite sluggish. Since then and since winning the bid especially, house prices have doubled but unfortunately so too have rents.
It isnât an Olympics for the people or for transport legacy. Itâs an Olympics for the wealthy and for profit
I want to shut down the exaggeration over people thinking Exhibition station is being demolished. Itâs not. Instead I think what they mean is itâs getting expanded. Hopefully this expansion will include a third platform and maybe a new station building and wider concourse to accommodate for the games and a underpass pedestrian connection to Victoria park with shops hopefully.
But the existing station is already poorly designed even for the EKKA. I was there last year and the concourse beneath was already shoulder to shoulder. In an Olympics that would be crowd crush. The existing station wasnât designed with the Olympics in mind because originally the games would of been at the Gabba
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Having seen a bit of the background stuff COMSEQ developed, it was definitely their intention for the Olympics to be a legacy first project, particularly transport and especially faster regional rail. Their work was always very clear that an infrastructure agenda is necessary to host a Games and it wouldnât work without it.
The State Government never seemed to have that same mindset, and Red team never really sold to me that they actually cared about region building at all.
Blue team donât seem any better either to be fair, but itâs way too late to start thinking that way anyway.
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In that article, why didnât the Sunshine Coast Mayor lash the current QLD Government for chopping and changing transport projects and venues in his area, and the rest of the SEQ?
Doesnât seem too concerned about the Frankenstein that is âThe Waveâ, no progress on the SCMT, or if the SC bus network is up to the task.
The SEQ Mayors should have been careful what they wished for when they talked up transport legacy. Every decision made by current and former QLD Governmentsâ since Brisbane won the bid is on them [the SEQ Mayors], including the cancellation of GCLR4.
The fragmentation of the venues to pander to the SEQ Mayors, and each one demanding new stuff between the lot of them broke this legacy wide apart.
Far cry from 80% existing venues, if 100% of existing transport is not fit for purpose for the Olympics.
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Thatâs using one of the busiest bikeway connections in Brisbane and the only safe route from the North into the northern portal of the CBD. Any portal from the station has to deconflict with the bikeway otherwise youâre killing another patchwork bikelane and impeding on the busway.
Itâs a blind corner on the NBB under Bowen Bridge Road, itâs going to be difficult. This entire area is problematic and why ARUP are hammering about the additional station being a problem (and why GIICA did, and why GIICA said no Swimming Centre). Youâve got, Bowen Bridge Road (one of the busiest roads on the Northside), a relative highway in the ICB, a train line next to the Energex Vic Park facility with some serious water / power underground infrastructure in the area.
Good luck to the engineering team.
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He isnât mayor anymore, to be fair. He didnât contest the last council election and the community voted for a new mayor at the start of 2024.
While Jamieson was in power, he was very pro public transport and one of the loudest voices behind the original light rail based SCMT, but a fear campaign about overdevelopment along the corridor and concerns about visual amenity from local NIMBYS got it shut down.
The current administration on the other hand has gone the other way, reducing the transport levy and throwing their support behind the wave. The mayor did a tour of the Brisbane Metro depot last year and seems to love BRT over rail, and she is also heavily supportive of the blue team (although not officially a member of any political party).
She made no noise about the coast losing olympics venues, and was also very quiet about the rail to Maroochydore being scrapped.
The current council is in an awful financial position, announcing this week that 100+ staff will lose their jobs. Even a bus improvement package for the southern Sunshine Coast that was supposed to roll out in December last year has quietly been pushed aside.
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Sounds like the Sunshine Coast City Council is incapable of holding its end of the bargain, and does not understand how deep they are in.
Maybe taking away all of their remaining venues is the best thing for them and the Games. They can wave âThe Waveâ goodbye, and focus on building the DSCL to the SC Airport as originally planned.
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I personally donât think it needs to go to the Sunny Coast airport. I think the new Sunny Coast CBD is more than okay as an end point. What funds it would take to get to the airport should be directed to the GC line extension.
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I donât really get the big fuss about rail/BRT to Sunshine Coast Airport either, as a local.
Itâs only 15 minutes between Maroochydore CBD and Sunshine Coast airport by bus currently. The airport currently moves around 1,800,000 passengers annually, and Translink deem it sufficient to have a bus service every 45-60 minutes which should really be half hourly but whatever.
The airport are modelling about 2.4 million passengers by 2030, letâs say 2.6 million by 2032. You could probably comfortably run a few buses in a loop from Maroochydore to the airport at a 10 minute headway and cover it just fine, considering Brisbane (25 million a year) is serviced by a train every 30 minutes currently. Use the money saved to deliver heavy rail directly into Maroochydore as planned, allowing easy access from Brisbane and its airport too.
Why should we be punished for the apathy of our council? With B2N and the wave, the Sunshine Coast is finally getting its fair share of transport funding, after decades of watching transport funding at a state and federal level go to the Gold Coast, Ipswich and Moreton Bay LGAs.
TMRâs own modelling shows the entire Sunshine Coast is headed for gridlock by the 2030s without meaningful investment in transit projects, and itâs not a coincidence that the wave, B2N, etc are finally starting to be delivered as soon as Caloundra becomes a marginal state seat and a federal swing seat after being safe liberal territory for a long time. Both sides of politics and both state and federal governments are responsible for decades of inaction, and suddenly both sides started putting their money where their mouth is.
The current mayor is deeply unpopular with voters and likely to be removed at the next election. Hopefully to be replaced with someone more in favour of meaningful PT investment.
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Service upgrades are still possible in the Olympics timeframe of 6 years or so:
Achieveable:
- More HF BUZ routes around Brisbane
- 15 minute trains on the Springfield line
- All day express trains to Ipswich
- Subsidised Airtrain fares and back-fill the Airtrain timetable gaps
- 15 min trains on the Kippa Ring Line
- 15 mins on the Shorncliffe Line
None of the above require new infrastructure to construct. Possibly more bus or train drivers, and guards.
Possible
- Duplication Sandgate-Shorncliffe
- Single timetable for weekends (will take a bit of convincing the Queensland Government to do that, but Perth runs trains 15 min on weekends, and they are smaller and lower density than Brisbane).
Overall, ensuring that the regional train network is moved to a higher basic frequency is really important. As a regional Olympics, we are going to need that.
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I live right near the Shorncliffe station and this is a relatively simple duplication in future and you could improve the turnaround or even build a small depot into the back of the golf course. The line is ripe for higher density around stations.
Was talking with @alexjago on the weekend about the frequencies and I did forget that any future development where the Brisbane Entertainment Centre is demolished after Brisbane Live (Gabba) is built and future Toombul / Nundah / Banyo development (and some more in Sandgate) will require the 2nd line especially so. Boondall having two stations does feel a bit wasted given the proximity of the BEC, and the mostly low density housing nearby (although a lot of 2-3 story townhomes are popping up).
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The Olympic Public Transit Legacy is On TrackâŚI mean on the BUS!
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