I don’t think either party can take the high ground here! Transport planning is broken in SEQ!
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Exactly. Both sides deserve credit where credit is due (Red team for going all in on Cross River Rail, blue team for going all in on Brisbane Metro) when it comes to existing public transport, but ultimately both sides have also fallen well short when it comes to transport planning.
Projects like the Sydney Metro or the Suburban Rail Loop are what happens when you have forward thinking politicians who see the value in investing in public transport. I am yet to really see any of that in QLD. CRR and Brisbane ‘Metro’ are a good start, but if SEQ is going to keep growing we need a bit more than just a tunnel under the river and some biarticulated buses.
When basic bus frequency improvements either in Brisbane or on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts (funded by us taxpayers through our council transport levy) get an entire media release and multiple news articles, you know we’re behind!
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Courier-Mail is running a piece today on the new BCC bus network. (Link below might not present correctly)
Commuters rage over major Brisbane bus shake-up
Commuters have criticised an overhaul of Brisbane’s bus network which would see 41 stops axed, but council has defended it, saying it adds 44 new stops and cuts travel times. SEE THE MAPS
I think it just affirms that when making major bus changes, you do need to have something to compensate or offer in terms of tangible new bus service. Either a BUZ, Glider or Brisbane Metro.
Has implications for restructuring bus service in Brisbane’s western suburbs, which currently does not feature in BCC’s Brisbane Metro BRT rollout.
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Unfortunately Translink is not strong enough (or given enough support) to take a strong lead in planning and this allows others to fill the void with their own vested interests/ideas.
^ Or you just need to go hard and damn the torpedoes. It only seems to be in Brisbane where people kick up a massive stink over the most modest changes.
I think there is a lot more simplification and straightening out that needs doing - and I can’t accept that any of this requires more extensions of Brisbane Metro. Even with these changes there are still routes that haven’t been touched substantively or at all and which make no sense in their current form - the 311-314 come to mind but there are others.
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We could, but that approach was tested and didn’t do so well in the past.
Best be pragmatic, bringing about change is already difficult.
The BCC didn’t do any studies on it, they wanted BAU all along.
Technically its a level-crossing. With the volume of buses passing and no underground station it just makes sense to close it off.
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Furthermore, I’d like to see Grey St being pedestrianised from Vulture St to Melbourne St. With so many restaurants, precincts, and amenities on both sides of Grey St, it would make sense to pedestrianize it, allowing pedestrians to move from one side of Grey St to the other without jaywalking or having to cross at specific locations on the road.
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Grey Street is still a heavily used road that provides access to a number of very popular public facilities and their associated carparks, and is a main access thoroughfare through the South Bank area connecting to one of South Brisbane’s remaining two river crossings for private vehicles (the only free one).
I can understand exactly why council wouldn’t have entertained closing it, and I don’t think “it just makes sense” is enough to go on to close it off. I would want extensive traffic studies that show that closing it would not cause any flow on effects to traffic across the local road network, especially noting the small number of streets running crossways.
Four words: Cold day in hell. How are you going to service South Bank with no access road?
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Scramble crossings at Grey St would also be fine, giving pedestrians more flexibility in how they cross the road.
I was thinking that traffic may use SR10 (Merivale and Cordelia Streets) and that they can access South Bank through Tribune, Ernest, and Glenelg Streets. But now I consider whether that will being unnecessary additional traffic on those streets. But I digress.
Scramble crossings at Grey Street would only serve to slow down the buses and increase bus queuing at Cultural Centre and the busway portal, as it would require a completely new sequence at the lights that holds all vehicle traffic.
It would likely also result in shorter crossing times for pedestrians, as a scramble crossing sequence would be kept as short as possible, where the crossing sequences currently are as long as the traffic sequences that they coincide with, which can be quite long.
*I’ll note that ‘proper’ scatter crossings run with an equally-timed crossing for all sides - they don’t allow certain directions to continue to cross after the others are finished. Examples of this are at Adelaide & Edward Streets, and Albert & Elizabeth Streets. While there are crossings which do allow extended crossing times on some sides (Mary Street & Felix Street in the CBD comes to mind), I don’t believe they are officially classed as a scatter crossing.
Traffic on those streets is my primary concern, especially as Tribune Street is largely only useful for traffic going back to towards Woolloongabba. I would be fine with permanently pedestrianising Little Stanley Street, considering how often events close it anyway, but I can’t support closing Grey Street.
Probably like the front section of Albert St between Adelaide St & Burnett Lane - still accessible to commercial vehicles but definitely doesn’t feel like a road.
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Yeah, maybe leave it accessible for after hours servicing purposes, and retain carpark access via Tribune Street, but in daylight hours have it completely pedestrian.
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What’s the worst that will happen? If the changes are good and work, the fact some people might be peeved won’t matter. What matters is if there is improved usefulness and patronage OVERALL.
The BCC doesn’t own the busways, any land on or adjacent to Grey & Melbourne Streets. They certainly can’t lay claim to the Cultural Centre or Buranda stations just because they spent money on it.
The part of Melbourne St from the busway portal to Grey St was ‘upgraded’ to be an extension of the busway corridor. The scramble crossing is a ‘level crossing’ and should be treated exactly as a rail level crossing - highly undesirable.
They should remove the cycling lane(s) from that part of Melbourne St and enlarge the sidewalk. People can use the existing pedestrian overpass at the Cultural Centre instead.
It’s a busway corridor and needs exclusive right of way which this mode of transport requires. The volume of buses along the corridor demand this. Cars don’t belong on the busway and neither do pedestrians as this intersection is the busway. It will act like one when both are removed.
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Actually, are you sure about this? Your post poses a good question that I don’t know the answer to - who does own the stretch of busway that exists between the Melbourne Street Portal and City Hall/KGS Station? Does anyone know for certain?
Both Grey Street and Melbourne Street would have started out as local streets that Brisbane City Council are responsible for. When the busway was initially put in, did control of Melbourne Street officially change from Brisbane City Council to the State Government? Or was it a case of the State Government corridor ended at the portal, and services transferred to a BCC-controlled corridor for the final stretch up to and across the river.
I will add that the Victoria Bridge is a BCC owned asset, as is the Queen Street Bus Station.
If we fast forward to the modern day, it adds some further complexities to the question. Brisbane City Council didn’t just pay for some upgrades - they closed off adjacent, council controlled roadways along Melbourne Street and the Victoria Bridge and merged them into a widened busway (and formed the associated bike lanes from them as well). If the original busway corridor officially transferred to State Government control, were these sections of council roadways also officially transferred to State Government control? Will the council’s new Adelaide Tunnel just simply be transferred to State Government control?
It’s my understanding that they handed QSBS over to the State Government and it is currently managed by Busways.
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I know the State Government bankrolled the face lift QSBS was given ahead of the Commonwealth Games, but I wasn’t aware that the station had been transferred to them.
I thought QSBS was still a council owned asset, hence one of the reasons they don’t allow non TFB buses to use it
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