While I would personally benefit from this, I don’t know if sending all 555s along the 572 route is a great idea, as you’re converting the last leg of a high frequency trunk service to a suburban service down scale streets. While doing this seems to work well at night with lighter crowds, I know from years riding the 573 that a sardine tin-full service dropping off someone at every bloody stop can take an awfully long time to get from Springwood to Loganholme.
Also, I just don’t know if there’s the demand for constant 15 minute services along that route. Aside from a number of schools, the only major trip generator would be Chatswood Central (a small, Woolworths-anchored suburban shopping centre). I think I would rather see the hourly 574 service be increased up to half hourly and the weekend services reinstated.
I would support running the 555 express between Buranda and Griffith Uni though.
A change I’ve long considered for the 555 is to modify it so it services the under-utilised Slacks Creek Park n Ride. Every time I go past there on a rat-running peak service, the PnR is sitting half empty, but I think routing the 555 past there would boost the popularity of the station. Doing this wouldn’t require a major rerouting - inbound the 555 would just run along the access road and then down Nujooloo Road. Outbound is only a little more complex - the 555 would exit the highway at the Winnetts Road exit, go up and over the Loganlea Road overpass and then down Nujooloo Road.
As someone who used to live in the area, I really like your suggestions! A change for the 574 from an hourly to half-hourly service would allow for Springwood-Shailer Park to have effectively a 15-minute frequency if timetabled well with the 572
It would also remove the need for the 582 service (though I will admit the buses used on the service are sometimes very cute lol), and provide a better connection to Loganlea from the 555
I would also recommend rerouting the 552 to Slacks Creek Park n ride if this were to happen (interchanging)
I have thought about this as well, given that it would be a less than 1km deviation to make it happen, but I don’t know if it’s a interchange people would use. A lot of the general locations serviced by the 552 are nearby to railway stations, and I feel people would be better served by getting a train at Loganlea to Kingston or Woodridge, and get connecting buses (including the 552) from there, rather than travelling up to Slacks Creek and then going on a meandering tour of Woodridge and Kingston.
I’m pretty sure they stopped using the Poncho on the 567 (Beenleigh - Holmview loop) as it wouldn’t hold the required pax, but I am not quite sure why it was stopped on the 582 (Springwood - Slacks creek). Possibly the same reason?
Note that it is still fully registered, and the inspection is up to date, unlike what happened with some of the ZDi(s) when they stopped working; as Clarks decided to temporarily unregister them, so the case is different with the Poncho.
Almost certainly not the same reason, most of the people going to slacks creek park n ride via Springwood/the city come during the peak via the 581 (P581 when I was there)
I remember, whenever I used the 582 there would probably be a maximum of 3/4 people on it
That’s very reasonable. I don’t even know why anyone would use Slacks Creek P&R unless they are catching the 581 to the City. Springwood has it’s own shopping centre across the road, or better yet, the P&R.
Slacks Creek really has no point out of peak, as it only connects to Loganholme and Browns Plains, which are both easily connected to Springwood with their respective routes (550, 555). If you absolutely had to catch the 560 to go to Loganlea, I would get the 555 to Loganholme, instead of dealing with the 582. This makes me wonder if the Poncho has a mechanical problem, rather than the problem with route pax…
The growing drawcard that exists beyond Slacks Creek is the fast growing Health and Education precinct at Meadowbrook, with Logan Hospital undergoing a series of major expansions, along with several planned private hospital and/or allied health developments in various stages of development. I feel Logan Hospital is on track to become the biggest public hospital between the PAH and GCUH.
On top of that, there is the existing Logan TAFE and Griffith University Campuses there that put the education into Health and Education. And finally you have Loganlea railway station itself, which is being positioned more as a major transport interchange with the 567 from Yarrabilba terminating there, and future planned buses from Logan Village (via Chambers Flat Road) and Browns Plains (via Park Ridge Road) set to run to Loganlea.
Springwood does not have any direct routes to Loganlea (the 550 is the closest, but it stops about 700m short of the current Loganlea Station) or the Meadowbrook precinct. With that notable lack, I think having an interchange location at Slacks Creek does make sense, and would make more sense if the 582 was replaced with a 555 stop. When the Busway is extended to Loganholme, Slacks Creek will connect with a Loganlea Road Busway Station, so a 555 stop here in the interim I think makes sense.
That isn’t a bad idea either. The 582 takes 5-6 minutes to get between Springwood and Slacks Creek. If it takes the same route as the 560 (so including the trip up University Drive to Griffith Uni - as opposed to the 562 which skips Griffith), it would take an additional 13 minutes to get to Loganlea (19 minutes total).
If it remains half hourly, I would try and time it to run 15 minutes behind the 560, to create a consistent 15 minute service between Slacks Creek, Griffith/TAFE/Hospital and Loganlea Station.
The question I would pose now is, should it go anywhere else? We have a 19 minute bus route end to end, would it be worthwhile fleshing it out to go elsewhere? Maybe continue from Springwood onto Rochedale and 8 Mile Plains to connect to the M1, or maybe the other way to Marsden Park shops to allow interchanging with the 550 and 545?
Just an observation of one of my local routes Route 205 (Carindale Heights to City - cityxpress service). I’ve been catching the 205 on a semi-regular basis and have been quite pleased with the loadings on it. In the AM and PM peaks it generally gets standing loads from Chatsworth Rad at Stirrat St (near Cavendish Road) in, in fact it actually gets quite heavy with the loadings that people are squeezing in at that point inwards. I’ve generally been catching the 7:16pm and 8:16pm ex Roma Street and surprisingly it’s getting 1/2 to 3/4 loads out of Queen St with most getting off along Chatsworth Road.
I’d probably advocate that the 205 needs a higher frequency in peak hour and run it half hourly until the current last service in the evenings. I also think it’d be relatively popular if it had weekend services too.
It’s ended up being quite a quick service to get into the city. From my local stop (outside Whites Hill College), it takes about 30mins on average to get to Roma Street, way quicker than the old route 202/203 which took on average of 35-45mins. The biggest drawback for me personally though is I end up using 10-12 percent of my wheelchair battery just trying to get to that stop, so am only using it if I’ve missed the 203.
Labor seems to be running a campaign (Seen promoted by both Local and State) to collect feedback on Brisbane’s Buses seemingly hoping for anti-BNBN stories.
The current ad-hoc model of a large bus review of the whole of Brisbane city or half the city once every 10 years is not a good model. It is too slow, tends to favour minor changes and generally does not land well with the public.
A better model is one used in Toronto, Canada. They have an Annual Service Plan where they take proposals, work out which ones make financial sense, and which ones do not, and then make the changes.
Be careful what you wish for here. Their promotion of the service is heavily biased towards those who are unhappy with the changes and particularly the need for transfers. I don’t know if promoting more anti transfer sentiment is going to bring Brisbane closer to a better network.
And of course with any political party ‘survey’, its other main aim is data harvesting - compulsory to provide name and contact details - no privacy protections and not subject to FOI so they can do what they like with the results.
I mentioned this a while ago in here that the local red team wants to go back to pre-BNBN status quo, defending the utterly absurd idea of bringing back old inefficient services.
It makes you wonder if they prefer to be in perpetual opposition rather than being elected for bringing something bold and ambitious to the table.
We really deserve a better opposition. Labor’s Council election offerings on PT were a long way behind even the LNP, and definitely didn’t come close to the substantial new network proposed by the Greens.
I don’t think it will be an election issue considering only 10-15% of the population in Bne take PT. In addition to the election not being held until 2028. Wasted political capital.