Cross River Rail (CRR)

That part of Toowong shopping centre is in need of bulldozing.

If they renovated that area then the station would have better access.

No development within 50m of any stations if access to stations is restrictive or hidden …looking at you Taringa!

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Probably the only common thing to every successful railway operation in the world is selling air rights above stations. It’s also one of the ways that “public transport” can become profitable.
Even in sydney it works out well. I can name about about 8 stations have that highly successful development right over them.

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really all we need as entrances is this. And then a lift somewhere nearby

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I’d argue that this is insufficient for any station seeing substantial passenger numbers.

The CRR Stations may be considered overly extravagent in some cases (Boggo Road and Albert Street perhaps - I think the treatment for Roma Street and Woolloongabba are fine, and feel broadly equivalent to similar Sydney Metro Stations (Roma Street - Sydney Central, Woolloongabba - Barangaroo), but this would be swinging the pendulum far too much in the other direction.

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This is what half a UBahn station in Vienna looks like on the surface. There’s another one across the street if you swing the view 180 degrees. The UBahn carries a lot of people and this is an inner city station. A lift, an escalator, and some steps.

Museumsplatz - Google Maps

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100% agree. I’ve used a few suburban, interurban and intercity train services in Europe, many of the regional stations even in larger towns or small cities have entrances exactly like that.

Even in Singapore every time I catch the SMRT I’m amazed at where they put station entrances. Shopping centres, small concourses and random escalators that go down into the ground and boom, fare gates. This is a network with millions of passengers a day.

An entrance similar to what’s currently in place at King George Square (sorry, City Hall) is more than enough for many. The only one I don’t particularly mind is Roma Street because let’s be real, that’s sort of the ‘grand central station’ of the city network.

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That’s Museumsquartier Station right? I would first point out that it opened in 1980, using the structure of an even earlier 1960s station. While it looks like it is disability compliant with the lifts, I wouldn’t expect it to match modern best practices for subway stations.

Also, it does have portals on three of the four corners of that intersection, and each portal has a decent-sized glazed bunker above it, wider staircases and an escalator. This isn’t equivalent to Electro_Sykes’ photograph of what appears to be a 60s 0r 70s era portal for the Toronto Subway, of which a number of stations I understand do feature above ground station portal buildings not dissimilar to Woolloongabba, for example.

I would argue that Albert Street also warrants a substantial station, as it will be the most centrally located CBD station, and similar in importance to something like Wynard in Sydney. The awning might be a bit excessive, but the station buildings aren’t too bad. Honestly, the only CRR Station I think is substantially over the top is probably Boggo Road. Woolloongabba I think was appropriate as the event station it was envisioned as, even if the sheer amount of station capacity may not entirely be needed for the Brisbane Arena.

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Agree, Also anchor office and retail tenants encourage PT use to those areas.

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I agree that a single set of steps is not sufficient for a modern station, but a much simpler structure along the lines of the Vienna UBahn, maybe not in every detail, could be employed for most modern metro stations rather than the cathedrals that Cross River Rail has built.

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Except for Boggo Road the stations are commensurate with what was the expected use case at busiest times. Gabba a bit less so now with the stadium closing down but relevant again if the arena gets built.

Any given modestly sized U bahn station in central Vienna (eg within the Ringstrasse) might have more passenger movements on the whole than any one of our CBD stations, but probably spread much more evenly over any given day and with loadings distributed more evenly across more stations and lines. Our system is by nature going to be much peakier.

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Not sure if it means Hope Island is opening soon but timetable has changed from 1st of June; services depart Helensvale station 2 mins earlier at X:20/X:50 instead of X:22/x:52… we shall see soon hopefully!

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Most metro systems are like this. London Underground, Paris Metro, New York, Tokyo, etc

I more mean the huge structure above Roma St and the massive awnings at Albert Street. I’m not against these for a couple of landmark inner city stations, but if we were ever to build a proper metro, for example, we would have to learn how to do it more simply and cheaply and also to not dominate the landscape all around.

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I’m not looking forward to the sprint between Boggo Road platform 7/8 and platform 1 once CRR opens. Running between connections on P1 and P5/6 is bad enough

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Hopefully there are rebuild plans in the works as it is desperately needed at Boggo Road.

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Hopefully in the future a subway can be built to connect passengers between Boggo Road Station underground platforms to the above ground platforms (you’d have lifts and stairs going up to each rail platform (P1-4).

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I think that might be a bit optimistic TBH. I’m just hoping for an additional overpass at the closer end of the aboveground station.

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What’s the time to get underground to the platform? And where will the tap on points be?
Will be they be all the way down the bottom of the station as boxes or at the top as gated ones?

I’m pretty sure there’s a gateline at the surface entrance to the new platforms?

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That would be correct.

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