As we all know now, Moreton Bay is building a new development over the next decade called Waraba, Caboolture West. It will have 70,000 people once complete including 30,000 unaffordable single family homes on small plots of land that will probably cost 2 million dollars or something crazy. Anyways, I’m not here to rant about realestate on here but rather, how are we going to connect this new satellite city. Well the Governments current plan is to build a second Bruce Highway. I’m not entirely against that but the new development lacks public transport infrastructure. Which is why I am proposing a metro style busway be built to rapidly connect locals to the nearby Caboolture station. Caboolture station would also get a major upgrade too. Considering that years ago new stabling yards were built between Caboolture and Elimbah, we could possibly eliminate the stabling yards at Caboolture station to make way for a busway station. Also a portion of the busway will follow the former corridor of the Woodford Railway. Currently there is a cycleway along that corridor, which can be shifted to run alongside this new busway.
Keep in mind map not entirely accurate as we are still not entirely sure where the centre of the development will be.
What are your thoughts and will BTQ support this proposal.
It’s a decent idea. I wonder if such a busway could be extended to run alongside the Bruce Highway, like the South East Busway runs alongside the Pacific Highway. Now maybe that’s competing with the parallel train line, but in Melbourne they have tram lines parallel to train lines and both end up being used.
My 2c, I would leave the former rail ROW alone and plan for something along the D’Aguilar, and then joining to the BHWA. I would also make sure that the ROW heads into the Waraba centre area itself, rather than just following the motorway - similar to how the preserved Ipswich Springfield corridor deviates from the Centenary Hwy though the future Ripley City Centre.
I wouldn’t support taking the old railway ROW back for busway. It’s doing solid work as a bikeway and it’s only serving the northern edge of the precinct.
Rather, I think we need to be arguing for BRT along Bellmere Rd & King St (into Caboolture station), Caboolture River Rd & Walkers Rd (into Morayfield station and then north to the shops), and along BHWA into Narangba station. Those are the fundamental connections to the train and at an eventual 70,000 people, it’s worth spreading out the interchange load too.
To echo @mocon31 's comments you want to run the bus down the main street in the precinct, not along the freeway.
My understanding is this is the route that they’re planning for the planned bus service. It’s a land use plan so there’s no detail, but my gut says we may get a couple of premium stops but there won’t be any bus priority sections or bus jumps let alone any dedicated lanes.
My original idea was a railway but the Northenr Suburbs lines would be at capacity with the Sunshine Coast line and the only way we would accomodate it is quad tracking from Caboolture down to Strathpine, building the NWTC then quad tracking the Ferny Grove Line from Alderley to Mayne. I don’t think the gov would be committed to doing all that
If we plan for people to be travelling to the city then there are two options, right? (A) they catch a train from Waraba directly or (B) they transfer at an existing station on the Caboolture line.
But either way, they’re capacity that needs to be accommodated from (at least) south of Petrie.
I don’t think quad would be necessary between Caboolture and Petrie, as there’s basically only one stopping pattern in this section. Triple might be useful, though, to allow for freight/long distance/empty movements.
Quad from Petrie to Strathpine, maybe even 5 tracks if it will fit in the corridor.
Can you explain what the need for a fourth track (and platforms) between Caboolture and Petrie is? Even with a third track, it would be freight/distance, so it wouldn’t need platforms.
Quad tracking would be great for future-proofing and redundancy, with the ability to run two sectors worth of trains down the corridor. Given that the line carries passenger services from Caboolture and the SC, freight, and long-distance services, with the number of trains running only expected to increase, it’d be nice to have. Additionally, it’s an opportunity for potential track realignments. Definitely a low priority though. If the government undertakes any program to add tracks between Petrie and Caboolture, with stations, bridges, crossings, and corridor alignment all needing to change, you might as well go all the way and quad rather than triple track.
To allow Sunshine Coast trains to run express from Caboolture to the city and avoid being stuck behind slower Caboolture and Redcliffe Peninsula services. Caboolture/Nambour currently does all stops between Caboolture and Petrie then express to Northgate whilst Kippa Ring trains cover all the stations between Petrie and Northgate
I’m not sure there’s much point in having trains that only stop Caboolture-Petrie then express. They barely fill most of the time. Extending them to Birtinya might get decent loadings.
I mean, with Caboolture West fully built out plus other development around the region (western Narangba, infill at Burpengary) you’d expect patronage to increase quite a bit.
For the reasons you’ve cited, quad tracking would be the only sensible choice over triple. Some of the corridor closer to Caboolture is already cleared for it; three road-over-rail overpasses, the approach into Caboolture, and the departure toward Sunshine Coast have all been future-proofed. Not sure in which fragmented transport plan it was decided to do it this way but it would be interesting to know. Some other crossings are still problematic though, as well as curves. Could stations have just one platform moved to form express tracks in the middle?
You’d still have the same issue of dual tracks between Caboolture and Petrie, unless you extend the one of the two Caboolture terminators to start at Beerwah (stopping all stations incl Elimbah and Beerburrum) and have the DSCRL run express Beerwah to Caboolture, all to Petrie, then express from Petrie stopping only at Northgate and Eagle Junction (and possibly all from EJ into CRR if they include Albion and Wooloowin into the pattern into the CRR stations).
It would however make for interesting working patterns e.g for example from Roma Street (CRR Platforms)
Well my idea was to have it upgraded from 3 to 4 tracks from Northgate to Petrie then 2 to 4 tracks Caboolture to Petrie. Sucks we recently upgraded Dakabin and Burpengary without provision for this though and as for Narangba which was upgraded nearly a decade ago, it only has 3 platforms.
Then we would have it where Caboolture services become a branch of the Redcliffe line and stop all stations between Northgate and Caboolture.
Then Sunshine Coast line would get all of its tracks to itself beyond North Lakes.
After further thought though, this wouldn’t work anyways and I have discarded this idea. The only reason I thought of it was so Sunshine Coast trains can skip the bit between Petrie and Caboolture
This is the bit that’s always made zero sense to me. The population between Petrie and Caloundra (encompassing Caboolture West, Beerwah East, Caloundra South) is projected to increase by over 100,000 people over the next few decades, and that’s on top of ongoing TOD/densification in surrounding suburbs.
Many of these people are going to commute into Moreton Bay and a lot of the Sunshine Coast and Caboolture terminators are already standing room only in the AM and PM peak now, how are TMR/Translink/QR going to realistically increase capacity AND manage express interurban services from the DSCL + Freight & traveltrain with only 2 tracks?
Dakabin could maybe get away with having platform 2 turned into an island platform with another two tracks on the western side of it through the current parking/drop off zone.
Burpengary on the other hand… I don’t think it was redesigned with the intention of ever having a 3rd or 4th platform which is a damn shame.
I would love to see Caboolture turned into a proper large interchange point with great metro-style transfer/connections to Caboolture West and Bribie Island but I do wonder how limiting those 2 tracks are.
