At least prior to Monday, the intention was to terminate the southern GC Hwy corridor buses at the West Burleigh shops where a new layover facility is going to be built. Most likely the 777 could be extended to Varsity Lakes with little issue.
There is not now and never will be a big “bus depot” or “transit centre” at Burleigh because so few services terminate there, both now and after Stage 3 opens. Having something Brisbane Metro like would necessitate a lot of room unless the vehicles could be driven double ended, but there is absolutely bugger-all chance of that happening for more fundamental reasons than a lack of turnaround room - like the fact it would require more resumptions and the loss of more parking than the light rail option, and the fact they can’t legally be driven on-road other than for limited scenarios, which I understand exclude carrying passengers.
I have to say I’m largely in agreement with Metro here. It will just be more buses between Burleigh and Coolangatta for now, maybe some articulated buses if we are lucky. The government had a prerogative to cancel Stage 4 even without building some flimsy justification for it, so we need to just go with it - for now anyway. Bashing them over the head around it will not convince them to change their minds.
Honestly - this is not the end of the world, or even the end of further light rail extensions (south from Burleigh or elsewhere). The focus now should be on productive engagement with the State about what their intentions actually are now, and how that works in with the wider network throughout the Gold Coast. We have seen zero indications of what they plan on doing in the short-term (eg before the next election in late 2028), and need to be pressing them. For instance:
What infrastructure improvements are possible in the corridor?
What service improvements are being planned in the corridor and elsewhere?
What is being done to preserve the necessary skill-sets locally for light rail construction either in this corridor or elsewhere (eg GCUH to Biggera Waters, or to connect to Robina)?
What is happening to the business case funding for Stage 4 that was being held in abeyance by both GCCC and the State? Can that be applied to other more productive uses?
I think it is safe to say they have no intention on progressing the heavy rail extension, since it would be even more marginal and probably costlier than Stage 4 (and require vastly more human and other resources that State Development reckon we don’t have over the next 7 years), but I don’t know that this necessarily means no more light rail. Olsen Avenue through Parkwood is very different to the Gold Coast Highway through Palm Beach.
I’d argue that an extension from GCUH to Harbour Town and Runaway Bay could be delivered without major drama as people who live in those suburbs are already tram passengers at either Southport, Griffith or the hospital.
And if we can move ahead with the Robina branch, even better.
…not that I would count on this gov in particular for any of those.
Would you know why they stopped running the double deckers? From my understanding a high-capacity express route is the ideal condition for a double decker
A Robina to Broadbeach branch also makes a lot of sense (the Fed Govt says the money is there).
Starts an eventual link to Nerang including Carrara Stadium and North-South route Robina to Gold Coast Hospital connecting tot the Harbour Town/Runaway Bay spur. Long term thinking.
The Surfside CDis have no luggage spaces whatsoever which is particularly terrible on an airport service. The ride quality on those is also abysmal, with a lot of instability on the top floor.
I presume they’ve been quarantined to the TX7 theme park shuttle because there’s no other place to put them, really.
When they were deployed to the 777, they would have been the only 8 buses with 2 stepless doors due to Bustech’s idiotic design for everything else - perfectly suitable for an interurban / suburban semi-coach with high seating density (which is what the Calabros wanted), hopeless for a bus designed for urban work (which is what the Gold Coast and anywhere else outside regional towns actually needs). Suspect ease of ingress / egress with luggage was a consideration.
Disappointed but not surprised. The Olympics has to be paid for somehow along with all the infrastructure SEQ needs (inc stage 4) for a growing population, but the budget is simply stretched to the max with everything that’s planned and everything that has had cost overruns such as CRR, hospitals and major road projects.
I wonder how the new stations are gonna be displayed on the carriage line diagrams.
Also: something I would really love to see is the diagrams to be positioned in a way that the northern and southern ends are always on the correct side of the trams.
I eagerly await what this will mean for Burleigh Heads. I can’t visualise exactly how they will fit a major bus interchange there without taking out public park space, public facilities (Burleigh Heads Library, Bowls Club) or already in short supply carparking (Alex Black Carpark, Connor Street carparks, maybe Burleigh Beach carparks).
My guess is we’ll end up with bus stops on the side of the road with connections meaning waiting for the lights to cross the road to the light rail station.
But 6 buses are required for every tram (to maintain capacity) that arrives and leaves! Thats a disaster waiting to happen unless people left waiting for buses assuming next team doesn’t already arrive in peak.
Repectfully, and as I keep saying - why does anything need to be built at Burleigh Heads beyond what is already being built? Stage 3 is already being delivered on the basis there will be buses coming from the south and terminating - just that the terminus will be up the road at the Stockland shops. What additional space is needed in and around Burleigh Heads itself?
While that would probably be fine for passengers just transferring to services heading west from Burleigh, but I just don’t know that setup will work safely for the amount of passengers I would expect to be interchanging between modes to head further north/south.
Looking at the largely full trams emptying at Broadbeach South, having that amount of people crossing the highway makes me nervous. Also, the currently allocated area on the southbound side doesn’t look to be large enough to accommodate the large amounts of southbound buses I’m expecting.
I don’t care what level of government or political persuasion it is, but I really can’t stand it when politicians past and present speak about areas outside of their jurisdiction.
