Dayboro is a relatively large settlement of over 2000 that is less than 40 kilometres by road from Caboolture but as far as I can tell has no buses, similarly sized towns that are further away by road from major population centres of greater Brisbane like Laidley is to Ipswich are served by hourly to every other hour buses on weekdays via route 539. I think that this requires some investigation, has anyone been up there recently and could shed some light on this?
Thanks,
Petrie shuttle? With stops at old petrie town ?? As it can cater nit just communities but also.tourism for that corridor
I think that would be the best (only) way to connect the town to anywhere of note - a run down Dayboro Road via Old Petrie Town and Lake Kurwongbah, to Petrie Station and The Mill. From memory, that road isn’t too winding or steep either.
Dayboro used to have a bus route to Petrie and Strathpine, run by Brisbane Bus Lines (not government funded though). It was axed due to low patronage.
A lot of towns like this need better bus services. If they can provide regular buses to Beaudesert and Jacobs Well, i dont see why they cant include these towns. It would go such a long way to providing people with connections to employment, connections to health services and shops. Of the top of my head, I can think of;
Tamborine Mountain - Helensvale (popular tourist destination, close to the GC but with no bus service)
Boonah - Ipswich via Peak Crossing (residents have been asking for bus services for over a decade)
Donnybrook - Caboolture (the 9999 shoppers bus is highly impractical, only running once a week, and needs to be upgraded)
Samford - Ferny Grove (the 399 only has a few trips and is impractical for most passengers, especially people visiting the town)
Lowood - Ipswich (the 529 has abysmal frequency, and this region has experienced rapid housing developments, especially around Fernvale. Young people in these towns can’t access employment, and pensioners have organised their own private bus to take them to the shops)
Plainland - Laidley? (variation of the 539?? for this growth suburb)
I’m sure theres more that I can’t think of at the moment
probably not practical but a bus service to mount nebo a few times a day would be so cool
My high school (along with another member here, you know who you are) had significant amounts of students come from samford and dayboro everyday. A large number of school buses ran from dayboro and samford and connected with the train, some also continuing into the more suburban areas.
I always found it quite stunning that samford at least doesn’t have some dinky hourly service to ferny grove station. The 399 is borderline useless.
Dayboro could support buses running to ferny grove via samford even though it’s a longer trek.
Ferny Grove line used to run up to there.
Yeah it continues to amaze me that the 399 doesn’t run to Samford Village hourly. I can understand not extending out to the Showgrounds all day, but at least it could get over the range.
Beaudesert - the 540 services more than just Beaudesert so a route to there is justified, plus it’s historical.
Jacobs Well - being funded by GCCC
I’m not sure how viable a full time route to Dayboro would be, traffic studies might indicate how many are travelling from Dayboro towards the coast, but that would probably need to be done before TL even considers a bus route to Dayboro, given that the privately funded Brisbane Bus Lines service failed, probably not looking so great to get it up and running. Unless the council throws something up, not sure how likely it’ll happen even with advocacy.
And before you mention the 539 and 529.
529 - historical, was originally a railbus to replace the then closed Toogoolawah line, ie: they had to replace the old rail line with something to keep people happy back in the day, plus it services more towns than just one.
539 - similar deal, effectively started as a railbus well before many of us were born, and it services multiple towns, not just one.
I think it needs to be acknowledged that while getting public transport to as many places as possible is nice and important, some places are just not viable for a full time service. There’s realistically only so much funding available, and not every town in Qld is going to get public transport unfortunately. Heck, Mt Isa is a pretty big place and it doesn’t have any public transport - it should!
iirc Dayboro service was axed due to COVID, before that, it was used by workers, students and shoppers. Also, because it wasn’t government funded, it was quite expensive. Having a 50c service is a huge drawcard for people.
I think it needs to be acknowledged that while getting public transport to as many places as possible is nice and important, some places are just not viable for a full time service.
I completely understand this for many areas.
However, I think three services a day for the 529 is ridiculous. The corridor around Fernvale and Lowood have significant housing development, with lots of lower-income young families moving into the area. There are a lot of young people, disabled people and older people in this area who cannot drive, but the current bus service is just unfeasible. Many have to pay for taxis, and a a group of residents have actually had to start their own private bus service for shoppers. I’ve heard stories of disabled folk having to catch school buses because the 529 is so bad. Towns like Boonah, Peak Crossing, Donnybrook, Samford, Tamborine Mountain and Dayboro have similar needs but even worse service.
Providing PT to areas like this isn’t just “nice”, it means that young people can access employment, people without a car can live their lives, young families in the area can have an alternative to driving into town. Also, in the case of the 529, there are so many tourists using the rail trail who would benefit from buses on Sundays, which would be great from the local economy.
Also, on the topic of funding, providing a few extra bus services a day isn’t going to break the transport budget. Especially compared to the bus upgrades that are needed in BCC.
Could bike racks be installed on/around the buses for better travel options?
They use high floor coaches which can easily fit bikes. The problem is that the 529 is so infrequent that its not usable for most tourists
Local government should be contributing. Then there would be service. Overseas, even small towns are connected to a state or national network of PT.
In Queensland, unlike other states, there isn’t coordination of a regional PT network. It’s a huge gap.
If you want local government to have this funding responsibility, you need constitutional reform to move the tax take around. It’s one thing to say councils in other countries can fund this and that, but it’s a bit disingenuous to ignore the fact that overseas councils can levy their own fuel taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, duties and however many other sources of revenue that in this country are constitutionally the exclusive domain of the Commonwealth or states/territories. Brisbane is the only local authority in the country to do this at scale and that is in large part because so much of its revenue base is in commercial property.
Well, LGAs do have taxation powers - they tax land. And Toowoomba council has a levy which funds operational PT despite not having a large commercial property base.
If Toowoomba can do it, what is the reason the others don’t?
It’s time other LGAs larger than Toowoomba came on board rather than find reasons to say no.
Toowoomba Transport Levy
Do you think it is economically or operationally efficient to have multiple levels of government paying for the same thing when it doesn’t have to be like that? I certainly don’t. The State Government could just as easily raise land taxes and do so throughout the entirety of Queensland or in specific regions, which would produce a much more predictable and reliable revenue stream and which is not dependent on the vagaries of who is running the local council. It shouldn’t matter that somebody lives on one side of a council boundary or not in a region-wide network as to what they contribute to its operation.
Well, we are just going to have to disagree on this. Questions of efficiency aside, the viability of an LGA constitutional referendum passing is effectively near-zero.
Again, if Toowoomba can do it, what is the reason the others don’t?
State land tax is not a substitute for council rate revenue because council rates apply to the family home - principle place of residence - whereas state land tax does not. The narrower tax base will mean it will be a challenge to raise the required revenue, and any extension to include the family home deeply controversial.
So the answer to this proposal of increasing land tax is thus negative. See here Land tax home exemption for individuals - Queensland Revenue Office
Any PPOR exemption for state land tax is up to state parliament surely.
A broad based no exceptions land tax is about the best tax there is - ask just about any economist.
May you share the link? One consideration here is that the principal place of residence is already land taxed by councils. The double taxation of the PPOR might be a sore point.
People might not like it but council rates are not a tax they are a charge for services.