If we’re talking about useless services then we should also mention the 162, which is just a rocket servicing the city > Upper Mt Gravatt > Eight Mile Plains. That’s it.
Or the 273: two trips in the morning to the city, and two trips in the afternoon to Cleveland, heavily mirroring the 270.
How did the southside review miss that?
273 is a great alternative for the train for some Redlanders though, as it runs express from Buranda to Chandler whereas 270 is an all stops bus service
What in the heck? why aren’t they just made into (combined?) feeder (loop?) services to Herston/RBWH?
On the 162, I don’t it’s necessarily unreasonable to have an express service when we have the busway infrastructure, I mean we have express trains
@alexjago Do you have loading data for these services 363, 364, 162?
ABC Radio Brisbane’s afternoon program is doing a segment on the best and worst bus stops in Brisbane. We’ve been invited along to join the segment and I’d love your input.
What do you think makes a good bus stop? What are the must haves?
What do you think the best and worst bus stops in Brisbane are?
Worst ones are the ones that don’t have any shade and a bench.
Any specific examples off the top of your head?
The worst bus stop is probably this one on Kyeema Crescent in Bald Hills, as it hasn’t seen a single bus in my lifetime. Buses can’t even get to Kyeema Crescent because of a tight roundabout and thus the nearest bus stop is on Charlock Road, which is about half a kilometre away (I’m guesstimating here tho). And even worse, the Charlock Road Stop is served by the 327 which has very infrequent service, about one every hour and doesn’t even run on Sundays or Late Nights.
There’s plenty of bus stops that have shade but it just doesn’t do anything for part of the day.
There was this post on reddit about Benson St at Toowong, stop 14, Toowong (the bus stop for the 412 and 402) a couple of years ago. But its a scene that is repeated across Brisbane when the bus stop have such small and flat roof areas.
Howard St Goodna, no shade or seats it is just really a minimum boarding point. But at the time the tactile ground surface indicators missing.
I don’t think any of the new bus stops in Pallara have any furniture at all. Just the stop pole.
This one below is at the Pallara shopping centre, where the 126 comes once an hour.
That’s before thinking about the district (school) stops that don’t actually have a stop at all, just a pole.
Depends on the service level expected. I would say that every bus stop should be under/near to a street tree (unless it has a shelter). They should also all have the concrete slab and kerb at the boarding point (which I thought was a thing already but apparently not).
We can start adding seats and build up shade the more important the stop gets.
The problem is the design these days don’t consider actual climate issues or site specific criteria.
That Benson Street stop was ‘upgraded’ in 2017. The new one has more roofed area, but the old one had a roof that actually kept you dry and out of the sun.
April 2023
March 2016
For the demand that this stop carries, it should have been built the same way the covered areas at suburban bus stations are built. It would be much better with a large roof plan and without the wall between the seats and the fence.
PTIM Chapter 5 – Bus stop infrastructure, old but lists it all.
Yeah true and I think the only way we can really deal with that is by simply planting more trees in the area to provide better shade. But those take time and in the meantime their ain’t too much we can do other than completely move dozens of bushes stops. But that’s very unrealistic. Keep in mind though another benefit of covers at bus stops is it can also shelter you from the rain too. Also would ideally like sheltered stops to also include a light for night time and a bin. Larger ones like bus stations should always include toilets in my opinion.
The position is also important, not just the facilities provided at the stop. The outbound bus stop at Kenmore central shops has a small shelter with a seat and a tree (with shade at some times of the day). But you need a jetpack to get safely between there and the shops via a divided road and a roundabout. Google Maps
Most important features of a bus stop (in order of priority):
Accessibility
All stops need good quality connecting footpaths/shared paths and a safe road crossing in the near vicinity (if the road is busy). It’s no good if the bus stop is only accessible by fit, able-bodied people arriving without a wheeled device and willing to cross busy roads on the run.
This really is the absolute minimum requirement.
PIDs and a clear line of sight (of the road).
This is an underrated feature. Waiting for a bus is tiring/stressful when you have no idea when it is coming (e.g. +/- 10 min due to unreliability) and you need to constantly scan arriving traffic. This is particularly problematic when the bus stop is on a blind corner of a busy main road.
To me, this is more important than shade or seating. I don’t mind standing for a couple of minutes in the sun/rain if I KNOW my bus will arrive soon.
Shade/shelter
Trees are good but ideally a covered space that also keeps the rain off, and large enough to accommodate a typical passenger load.
In particular, bus stops need sufficient shade to protect waiting passengers from the afternoon sun (i.e. west-facing bus stops need longer overhangs, or alternatively, extra seats can be positioned to face east on the other side of the main shelter wall).
Seating
This is still important, but I’d much rather stand in the shade than sit in the sun.
Legibility/ease of use
This is relevant for busy stops where multiple buses will arrive at the same time. If you need to run up or down the platform to hail your bus, it’s not great. Compare the experience at Cultural Centre or Mater Hill stations with catching a bus from KGS, Queen St, Adelaide St, UQ Lakes or UQ Chancellor’s Place, major shopping centres etc.
Also is it just me or are the bus route diagrams at busway stations completely useless? If I’m at station A and I need to get to station B, and I just want to take the next bus, it’s next to impossible to figure out which bus I can take from the station maps.
Separation from traffic
Bus stops that are right on a busy main road without any indentation or road shoulder feel unsafe to wait at (particularly if you need to be standing at the curb and scanning the road constantly).
Separation from bicycle traffic
If the bus stop sits on a major cycling route, cyclists should be physically separated from the passenger loading/unloading area. Semi-busy cycling routes should at least have a shared path that runs behind the shelter.
Bicycle parking
Casual bike parking (even just a hoop or two) at busy stops on major routes, and locked bicycle cages at busway stations (similar to train stations).
Toilets and water bubblers
For major/inner city bus stations.
Unless you go aaaaall the way down to the pedestrian crossing contolled by lights (which proably takes 1.5–2 min to turn green), then trudge all the way back on the western side of the (st)road.
It’s hard to think of a bus stop I enjoy waiting at. Perhaps one of the less busy busway stations (e.g. PA hospital).
On the other hand, train stations are usually quite pleasant to wait at. Most train stations tick every feature you look for in a good bus stop (but usually fail to find).
There are plenty of examples of bad bus stops. I shared an example of a completely inaccessible bus stop in another post recently ( Shade & shelter on the network - #6 by Champion_Munch ).
Of the bus stops that I actually have used, the worst/most infuriating to wait at is probably the outbound platform at Richlands Station. The outbound buses are so unreliable that passengers who disembark from the peak hour train often have to wait longer than their entire journey from the city took.
Somehow the PIDs are even more unreliable than the buses - to the extent that there’s no point even looking at them. When you arrive it may tell you there’s a bus coming in 5 minutes, another in 20 minutes, and a third in 45 minutes. It wouldn’t be unusual for all 3 of these phantom buses to never arrive. The numbers count down and then they simply disappear from the screen. Then a bus arrives that wasn’t on the PID at all. There’s probably a meme somewhere about the Richlands Station bus stop PIDs. They’re really that bad.
While passengers wait for an unknown (but almost certainly long) amount of time for their bus, there is zero protection from the searing and blinding afternoon sun, and no way to stand behind the shelter to try and eek out some shade.
The chronic unreliability of the buses combined with the psychological harm of the overly optimistic PIDs and physical torture of the afternoon sun combine to make this a hellish place to wait. No wonder the enormous park and ride is full by 7am.
Grand Terrace at Willow Rise Drive in Waterford is pretty bad. Just a pole, no shelter, no concrete, no path to it, and the waiting space is cramped by wooden markers.
