To be fair, the other one only contributed two maps out of the total. (Besides, he’s a one-trick pony really, with negligible analytical abilities.)
And that’s the magic bit. It’s so simple and cheap!!
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Yes! As Jarrett Walker has pointed out, it’s more important to provide quality service than infrastructure; the goal of infrastructure should be to allow good service, not be an end in itself.
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Yeah but he did refine the mapping style…
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They are symbiotic! Infrastructure with shit service is a waste. Frequent service without the infrastructure to enable it to be quick and efficient is equally a poor investment! The infrastructure doesn’t need to be expensive but it needs to allow the service to be fast, direct and frequent
Existing roads are infrastructure too. In the off-peak they are mostly not congested either. Most BUZ candidate routes just need more timetables service, same with trains.
Leverage is about getting more with less effort.
A bus lanes is better use of that infrastructure! Infrastructure improvements don’t need to be expensive just effective. It’s not a black or white argument.
PS the funding for infrastructure exists it is just being spent creating congestion! It’s a false argument that we can’t afford infrastructure improvements. We just building the wrong improvements at the moment.
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Does the forum support embedding of Google Maps? @rowangray @fitonia
I dont have an issue with it. We may need to whitelist the embedding for it to work though. I would suggest providing a standalone link with embedded content since some browsers block embedded content.
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There’s a planner on the Gold Coast who keeps banging on about Brampton bus services and who thinks light rail is a waste of time. Conveniently omits a few facts, like the fact it has a population density close to twice the Gold Coast’s, it is 3-4 times as close to Toronto as the Gold Coast is to Brisbane (and Toronto is much bigger), Gold Coast light rail operating expenditure is less than Gold Coast bus expenditure per passenger km, the funding environment is completely different in Canadian cities, Brampton has a road grid actually capable of supporting this kind of network and isn’t full of floodplains, canals, golf courses, canefields etc, and the kicker that Brampton (to my knowledge) has no equivalent of the Gold Coast Highway corridor that is the predominant source of patronage.
The closest part of Brampton to Toronto Union Station is about 20km. In Brisbane, this would basically be analogous to any of the big 4 surrounding LGAs. In any other Australian capital city it would just be part of the whole of system figures.
It’s an illustrative example of doing more with less, but people shouldn’t be fooled that this translates directly into “buses can do everything”.
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It would be similar to a very outer suburb of Melbourne, like Dandenong or Frankston.
Nobody is claiming that buses can do everything, but as rail projects price themselves out of existence (commuter, light, heavy and metro), they are losing market share to BRT.
Rail is still a viable solution in places like Perth because they keep the per-km cost low.
Intriguing that freeway expansions or duplications don’t price themselves out of existence! The money is there just being wasted
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Not quite.
Many roads are toll roads precisely because government won’t pay for them.
Almost all major motorways/freeways in the last 10-15 years have been toll roads for this reason.
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That’s a massive over statement!
M1? Coomera Connector? Ipswich Motorway? Bruce Highway? The list goes on
Well, the ones you mention are facing massive cost escalations. Let’s take your example of the Coomera Connector:
The government has confirmed its business case for stage one of the project has seen the cost jump about 40 per cent to $2.1 billion. (ABC News)
Now that was from a story in 2021. Fast forward to 2024:
Due to the rising cost of labour and materials, as well as the industry supply and demand challenges for specialist construction equipment, a further $864 million is required to complete Stage 1 (Queensland Government Media Release).
Same with the Ipswich Motorway. As an existing free road the Queensland Government were not going to put a toll on it, but it experienced an almost 200% cost overrun.
Running projects like this is both undesirable and unsustainable.
Financial Sustainability
The more expensive something is, the less of that something you can have. The Queensland Government is going to have a lot of trouble realising this vision to have the Coomera Connector go all the way into Logan.
It is also going to be an uphill battle to fund something like the Gympie Road Tunnel ($10 billion) which is why they want private investors through QIC to finance it.
Undercut Rather than Outspend
When confronted with a grand and expensive road project, we could react by proposing a project that is just as expensive or even more expensive / bigger.
But there is another way to view this. Another possibility.
Our advantage with things like bus reform, frequency boosts and upgrading the existing network is that it is a much faster and much cheaper approach in many cases.
They are pricing their projects out of existence, at some point they will simply be cost prohibitive to do.
Notes
$632m Coomera Connector blowout should prompt rethink of planning priorities: economist
Queensland Government funding increase for Coomera Connector Stage 1
Grattan Institute Report - Cost Overruns
Yet there is absolutely no public debate about those costs! It’s progress!
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The lack of debate is more this being a norm. A debate might throw up things that won’t sell the project, so it’s not a surprise really.
To pick up a point you often mention, and we can see from these studies, a road will often be expanded on forecast patronage or future benefit.
A bus route upgrade, on contrast, will be judged on current demand. The correct thing to do would be to compare a with improvement scenario to a without improvement scenario and then ask if there is an improvement to patronage. In most cases there will be, as the BUZ data suggests.
The correct thing to do is to recognise the research and accept that any BC for a road project should not provide any economic benefit, highlight it will cost more in subsidies and create an even bigger problem to solve(aka our mode share today).
Saying we need to compare the options says that the road option “might” be better …which it can never be!!
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All i know from my observations for northside brosbane is more consistant east/west routes and less north/south that could compete train lines…looking at ya 326,327 which serves to split into 3 sections and mix/match/merge with other routeas for better flow &interchanges with key north-douth corridors (train lines, 330, 333, 340)
I’m working on a bus map. I’ve realised there are allot of good routes that need tweaking and additional services.
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