Concept: Victoria Point Line (Rail)

[Metro]

Concept Only Disclaimer
The following concept is for discussion and exploration purposes only.
It is not expected to be funded or built within the next 30 years.

Victoria Point Line (Rail)

Huge cost aside, I’ve been interested in exploring the question of how could we serve the transport demand out to Victoria Point?

Current solutions focus on a surface level Eastern Busway out to Capalaba.

This, however, does little to service the residents and demand of a growing Victoria Point and the Redlands area, which is a further 15 km away.

A rail line would have a number of advantages:

• Speed - up to 160 km/hr (with wider stop spacing) which is good for the 30 km distance
• Capacity - can use Cleveland line capacity released from CRR opening
• Simpler Eastern Busway - busway can be built as Brisbane Metro on the surface and this can end at Carindale.

Concept Map - Victoria Point Line (Rail mode)

(click to expand image)

Concept Description

• Trains enter a tunnel between Buranda Station and the current Coorparoo Station

• The existing Coorparoo Station is closed to allow the level crossings at Cavendish Road and Stanley Street East to be removed and grade separated.

• A new Coorparoo Square Station is created in the vicinity of corner Cavendish Rd and Old Cleveland Rd. This allows bus connections and replaces the existing Coorparoo train station.

• The Eastern Busway is extended as Brisbane Metro BRT on the surface of Old Cleveland Road (Priority B) with the final busway stop at Carindale Interchange (Carindale Shopping Centre). Passengers travelling further than this will transfer and use the new train line.

• Chandler / Tilley Road Station (positioned near cross streets for optimal bus access)

• Capalaba Station

• Alexandra Hills / Vienna Road Station (positioned near cross streets for optimal bus access)

• Thornlands / Woodlands Drive Station (positioned near cross streets for optimal bus access)

• Victoria Point / Bunker Road Station (positioned near cross streets for optimal bus access)

• Redlands / German Church Road Station (positioned near cross streets for optimal bus access)

Comments

The line would be approximately 31 km in length, double track and have about 8 stations on it. This gives a ~ 3.8 km station spacing.

Project could be staged in two parts - Buranda to Capalaba, then Capalaba to Redland Bay.

Project would be very expensive. Using a test value of $180 million/km:

• Stage 1 Buranda to Capalaba (15 km x 180 million) = $2.7 billion ballpark

• Stage 2 Capalaba to Victoria Pt (16 km x 180 million) = $2.9 billion ballpark

The expected travel time between Buranda and the concept Victoria Point station would be expected to be about 30 minutes or so (depending on many factors, so approximate).

A key thing would be to ensure that a corridor was identified and protected so that surface land is available when the time comes.

[SeekTraining]

I’d be adding a 0 to your costs

[Metro]

@SeekTraining

I’d be adding a 0 to your costs

Yes, it will be expensive. Yes, it is entirely possible the way things are going for rail projects that another zero on the end would be needed. That said:

• Bus option is not really the right mode fit for the job. 31 km is too long for that to be optimal IMO.

• There isn’t a motorway or freeway corridor in this part of Greater Brisbane to run buses on, alongside, or in the middle of.

• If the line attracts the equivalent of say 8-10 train loads in peak, that would be another 8,000-10,000 pphd being loaded into the SEB. That would be another 50-60 Brisbane Metro BRT style buses per hour, plus could the vehicles even run that time or distance on a single charge?

• Expense can be reduced if a corridor was identified and protected now.

• Expense could be reduced further by spacing stations more widely, so that there are fewer stations overall (this also increases speed, patronage and reduces running cost)

• Project could be staged (e.g. only build Stage 1 out to Carindale or Chandler as the initial step). This would reduce the upfront cost and presumably the project would also be more manageable.

But yes. $$$

[Cygnus]

Is this entire line tunnelled after Buranda? Because if we’re going to the enormous cost of a long rail tunnel, there are many more places I’d prefer to serve with that mode before Victoria Point.

I also don’t see the point in extending the Eastern Busway on the surface with a rail tunnel underneath. You’d need a huge amount of travel demand to justify adding that much capacity. And I don’t see the low-density eastern suburbs having that level of demand for a very long time.

31km isn’t too long for a bus route in my opinion, especially if there are bus lanes improving the average speed. Buses are the right mode for places like the Redlands with modest rates of population and employment growth.

[Ozbob]

For peripheral interest. The Cleveland line had an extension proposed to Redland Bay and Mount Cotton but was never built. The present day Cleveland station is the old Raby Bay station location, it used to go further into Cleveland.

From Cleveland railway line - Wikipedia

[alexjago]

This also ties into the reasoning behind the “Clevewich line”. In a world with Clevewich it would be good to have more trains in service from the east.

Basically, the Western lines are seeing gangbusters population growth, and hence are due to exceed 1 sector’s worth of trains fairly soon.

In the long term (and as foretold by the ICRCS and the Miranda Report) another tunnel will be needed, with prospects to terminate it either Northside or Eastside.

Post CRR, the Northside collectively has 2/3 of a sector spare and can reactivate it with either NWTC, Chermside tunnel or 6 tracks to Airport Jn (and 4 to Petrie).

The Eastside has the other end of that spare Northside capacity post-CRR.

Despite CRR it’s the Southside which will need more capacity again in the future (between Gold Coast, Flagstone and difficulty of lengthening stations on the Beenleigh line) - one way to get it is to take it back from the Eastside. The Clevewich line takes us from 2/3 of a sector to 5/6 of a sector available that way but doesn’t change what must be done on the Southside to take advantage of this capacity.

[Metro]

@Cygnus

I also don’t see the point in extending the Eastern Busway on the surface with a rail tunnel underneath. You’d need a huge amount of travel demand to justify adding that much capacity. And I don’t see the low-density eastern suburbs having that level of demand for a very long time.

Rail tunnel from Buranda to Carindale, more or less what was originally proposed for the Eastern Busway back in 2007. Ideally surface or elevated after that.

Method 1 - Estimated trips from settlement

Redlands LGA Population = 170,000
Trip Rate = 3.3 trips / resident
PT mode share after improvement (estimate) 10% (comparison, Perth 15%)
Peak Slice = 10%

Calculation:
170,000 * 3.3 * 0.1 = 56,100 trips per day to Brisbane (for comparison the SEB does 150,000 per day)

Peak is 10% of this = 5,600 pphd minimum required. We haven’t included pax from Carindale inbound (so a few more thousand).

You would need to supply capacity for at least 6,000 pphd inbound during peak.

Method 2 - Reverse comparison

Rail line in Perth such as Joondalup or Mandurah does 12 million per year in a low density environment.

Calculate weekday figure by dividing by 52 then 5: about 46,000 trips/day. This is also consistent with the result from Method 1.

Peak slice is 10% of daily figure.

So 4,600 pphd from Redlands. Again, we haven’t considered pax added from Carindale.

Buses would be limited to the speed of the surface road that they are on when running in Priority B, this would be around 50 km/hr or so once stops, lights at intersections etc were considered.

Rail could easily do 2x this speed.

Currently, buses take about 80-90 minutes to do a trip between Buranda and Victoria Pt. It’s worth asking whether a Brisbane Metro BRT bus can last this long on a single charge.

Now you could use Priority A and full busway in that case, but then you incur the higher cost of an exclusive corridor without much higher end capacity.

It also doesn’t deal with the high volume of peak hour buses that it would generate that would have to travel though capacity constrained busway sections via Cultural Centre and / or Captain Cook Bridge from a southside approach.

In contrast, once CRR opens, capacity will be freed up over the Merivale Bridge as GC and Beenleigh line trains are diverted away from it. This free capacity can be used for this new line.

Note that when calculating the transport task, i’ve used current LGA population figures. The relevant one will be the population in 30 years, which will be higher still.

[Metro]

Additional Image - Zoom in of Buranda, Coorparoo Square and Carindale Section.

Stage 1 Description:

Rail mode, two stations, all underground tunnel.

• Tunnel dive from between Buranda and the current Coorparoo Station
• New Coorparoo Square Station
• Carindale Station
• (Option to extend further if desired)

Length about 6 km (Buranda-Carindale).

Reasonable cost would be $1.8-2 billion for this first stage.

Travel time would be about 6 minutes between Carindale and Buranda.

Currently, a bus takes about 20 minutes in peak to do this trip (Route 222). Buses could run as Brisbane Metro running on the surface in T2 or dedicated surface lanes as a local service between the two rail stops.

(image is approximate, not exact. Click image to expand).

[ilovebrizvegas]

Agreed. A line from Cannon Hill through Hawthorne, New Farm/Teneriffe and connecting at Central would be great. It could go underground right after Central, through to Roma Street (would require an extra pair of tracks between Roma Street and Central, and then through to Springfield Central (although would be ideal if this line was extended to at least Ripley).

Stations would be located at Hawthorne, New Farm, Brunswick Street (near the Howard Smith Wharves), and then join with the existing network.

This would be a game changer in many ways.

[alexjago]

hype:

I have a somewhat different routing, in part to have a New Farm Station close to the Brunswick/Merthyr corner and to allow for using Hawthorne Park as a temp construction site.

The dive on the westside is between Milton and Roma St.

[Beerwatcher]

I do think there’s a lot of merit in a Victoria Point line, and there’s definitely demand for heavy rail running along (or rather, below) Old Cleveland Road with stations at Coorparoo Central, Camp Hill, Carindale, Chandler (Park & Ride), Capalaba and then through Thornlands to Vic Point. Rezoning and development of the acreage blocks out there seems inevitable, and I imagine eventually the sprawl will continue south until it reaches Beenleigh. There’d even be an opportunity in that to build a new line linking Vic Point and Beenleigh to create a bit of an orbital network.

The cost would be immense, but at the same time you’d likely only need to tunnel to Belmont, as I imagine you could transition pretty easily to above ground east of the Gateway. The existing park and ride at Capalaba could be converted into a multi mode station.

Don’t forget BCC at one point wanted to have an underground busway basically all the way to Carindale, so a long tunnel from Stones Corner or Boggo Road isn’t unprecedented.

[ilovebrizvegas]

If you took that route, what about a station at Kangaroo Point as well?

[alexjago]

I don’t think it’s impossible but it would be most of the width of the peninsula (and a few blocks away from the new bridge).

welp, I have completely derailed the thread, sorry Metro!

[Metro]

Eastern Corridor - Which Mode?

Coming to think of it, a rail line to Victoria Pt might negate the need for the Eastern Busway completely.

If an additional station were inserted around the area of corner Boundary Road and Old Cleveland Road, this would only add about 2 min extra to the travel time.

It would also allow for an orbital bus route from Bulimba <> Seven Hills <> Camp Hill <> Holland Park <> Coopers Plains.

Updated image showing additional Camp Hill train station (approximate)

Priority B Busway:

What would an Eastern Busway extension to Carindale cost along Old Cleveland Road?

If we say that the Northern Transitway (Gympie Road Transit Lanes) cost would be indicative of a Priority B busway cost:

$172 million / 2.3 km = 74.78 million/km (round up to 75 million/km)

5km distance x $75 million/km = $375 million ballpark. So say around around a ballpark of $0.5 billion once you make it proper median busway

It is probably higher cost than above for the Old Cleveland Road case too because with transit lanes on Gympie Road at least the space was already there. It is less so the case for Old Cleveland Road, parts of it are constrained. So, you will need tunnel for the Eastern Busway. This would erode the cost advantage of BRT vs Rail mode in this case.

[Axilya]

While I have no disagreement in principle with this concept, I think there are many higher-priority projects.

That doesn’t mean corridor preservation shouldn’t be looked at, though. Acquisition of land will only become more expensive over time.

[ilovebrizvegas]

Same. I’d love to say just do it but I know it will likely never happen.

[Metro]

@Axilya

While I have no disagreement in principle with this concept, I think there are many higher-priority projects.

That doesn’t mean corridor preservation shouldn’t be looked at, though. Acquisition of land will only become more expensive over time.

A disclaimer was placed at the start of the thread for this reason, which is accepted.

Corridor preservation will be important and will require co-ordination between Redlands LGA and TMR/Queensland Government. A good comparison case study is MBRC and the Moreton Bay Rail Line (MBRL, Redcliffe line). Corridor was preserved, so that when the opportunity for funding presented itself, it was funded.

I believe the first time MBRL was looked at, it was knocked back due to operational costs.

Is rail to Redlands even on the Redlands LGA radar I wonder?

[GonzoFonzie]

Priority A Light Rail:
I’d take the Eastern Busway to the next level, follow Ottawa’s lead and just go straight to LRT as the mode. Have an underground tramway going to Carindale, from Langlands Park but extend the tunnel to cover Morningside station, and Cannon Hill, before terminating at Carindale. The current busway can be converted to light rail, and when its completed, the buses can share the lanes with light rail.

If you are going to be tunnelling, you might as spend the extra money and take it areas that have the demand. The lack of demand at Camp Hill and its hilly terrain as a problem for tunnelling which is why it should be bypassed to cover Morningside and Cannon Hill. No point extending it to Capalaba, as Carindale would be a bus hub for the eastside, as Chermside is a hub for buses in the northside.

The tunnel dive would be in between Stones Corner and Langland Park, with Langland Park being converted to underground. Could keep the surface stations for buses for transfer possibly.

Rough stats:

• 10.3km tunnel
• new underground stations at Langlands Park, Morningside, Cannon Hill
• Carindale station terminus. The existing land is below level, and is used as a carpark.
• Cost would be ~$5 billion.
• 12 minutes from Carindale to Stones Corner.
• 24hr services.

[Metro]

@GonzoFonzie

No point extending it to Capalaba, as Carindale would be a bus hub for the eastside, as Chermside is a hub for buses in the northside.

Having a heavy rail line out to Capalaba would be a major improvement as it could connect with many feeder roads and feeder buses that run on them. Could also have P&R to serve the low density areas nearby as well.

Without a Capalaba station, buses would need to travel another ~10 km on surface roads.

For example:

(yellow desire lines could be served by feeder buses on feeder arterial roads, all coming into Capalaba)

[GonzoFonzie]

Given the width of Old Cleveland Rd, there is space in the median for light rail to operate along that 10km road space. It could be cheaper and quicker to run a light rail service at-grade, rather than having a full tunnel to Capalaba. However for realism, I would confine light rail to just within Brisbane’s LGA.

Does Redlands City Council not already have adequate bus services in Capalaba, and for the rest of its LGA? Are there are not already feeder buses going to the rail stations as indicated in yellow?

A tunnelled extension of The Cleveland rail line to Redland Bay (Victoria Point) providing there are feeder buses might be the solution.