Look at the number of driveways on Mains Road, including entrances to businesses. Also, there are many side streets that don’t need signalised intersections.
The other thing is, there are many scooter riders in the area, especially with food delivery for local businesses. Having them use the centre lane and cut accross a bus lane to access shops and homes is extremely dangerous.
Mobility /bike should be in own lane That is a given.
Unskignalked side streets could be made permeable to active transport only using Low Traffic Neighbourhood techniques.
Businesses can be assessed if they truely need car parking (a major cause of our congestion)
Driveways can traverse across Bus Lane into traffic lanes and over time as corridor densities be replaced by rear access to properties.
We need to make hard sessions to make change not trying to balance everyone’s needs.
I’m not sure if you realise the argument you’re making, and the difference between bus lanes and bus only lanes. Bus lanes allow for vehicles to enter and turn into local properties and side streets, and allow mopeds to use them, whereas bus-only lanes do not. Bus-only lanes require cars to wait in the middle lane to turn accross the bus lane into local properties and businesses - a major safety hazard on a busy road like Mains/Pinelands Roads. I don’t understand why you’re so vehemently opposed to the former, and so focused on the latter, in a highly built up suburban area like Sunnybank with lots of local access.
Mobility /bike should be in own lane That is a given.
Mopeds can’t use bike lanes for more than 50m at a time. Also, in the context of food delivery, they’d be pulling in and out of businesses, meaning it’d be much more convenient to use a bus lane on the roadway instead of a hypothetical separated bike lane.
Driveways can traverse across Bus Lane into traffic lanes and over time as corridor densities be replaced by rear access to properties.
As much as I love public and active transport, people in suburban areas like to drive cars. Realistically, making turning cars wait in the centre lane to turn across a bus lane into businesses and homes will cause congestion and is highly unsafe. And while densifying the entire Mains Road corridor, to have rear access to properties (requiring developers to wait for properties on Mains Road, and the properties behind, to be for sale) is a lofty goal, it would take a very long time and have a lot of construction involved (which would certainly require road access from Mains Road). This would effectively make a bus-only lane impractical until the entire corridor is densified. A bus lane, however, can be implemented immediately with the current density. Also personally, I think higher-density development should be focused around major transit stops and shopping centres.
Businesses can be assessed if they truely need car parking (a major cause of our congestion)
Again, as much as I wish more neighbourhoods were walkable, people in these areas have a largely car-centric suburban lifestyle, due to the design of these suburbs. Therefore, businesses do need road access - not only for parking (there are many elderly residents and families who drive to shops), but for supply deliveries and food delivery. Even in the densest areas, businesses still have road access. I like your ambition but ultimately, completely changing the built environment of suburbs like this to be entirely car-free would take multiple decades and face significant community opposition. People choose to live in these suburbs because of their suburban lifestyle, and it’s not something we can ignore.
I don’t understand why you are so averse to having bus lanes on Mains Road, when it’s the most realistic and logical solution at this point in time, to a very busy corridor with lots of competing interests.
Yes, it is a bit worrying isn’t it? I agree that an effective solution will ideally have broad public appeal rather than a proposal that features punitive elements to it.
Especially in a community that is as diverse as this, with a lot of older residents from CALD backgrounds (my family included). A statement like…
we need to make hard sessions to make change not trying to balance everyone’s needs
…just comes off as insensitive and ignorant to me, when coupled with ideas like removing all parking from businesses along Mains/Pinelands Road that would drastically alter peoples’ lives. I am usually anti-NIMBY, but in communities like this, consultation and listening to locals is critical. People have moved to this area from across the world for the lifestyle it brings, and are accustomed to how things work. That can’t be ignored, especially when there are way more viable and sensible options (like regular bus lanes, not bus-only lanes).
Yeah gonna second what @brisbanebuses said that this seems particularly problematic. You can’t just brute force public transport upgrades against people’s will in a democracy
The scale of change needed in our region is enormous and only making changes that don’t upset the norms are just not going to make the degree of change needed.
Education of the general public is vital so they understand why the norm is so bad for all of us. They need to be championing the changes not having them forced upon their needs.
Agree with this. If something is so good and beneficial, why does it need to be brute forced? Big picture - we will lose broad public appeal if proposals are impractical and/or look and feel like punishment.
For example, if people can’t legally get out of their own driveway or it causes a fatal accident, such a proposal will not land well.
Big picture and disruptive thinking is essential, but such proposals need to go through a process of working up, refinement and adjustment so they have a reasonable chance of adopted by government.
I’d love to see how you’d go as the communications manager on this project, trying to “educate” this highly diverse suburb, with many older residents who can’t speak much English and just want to get to the local shops - like my grandparents. It again comes off as insensitive, and an approach that is basically “the government tells everyone whats happening to them”.
Realistically, as others have said, you can’t brute force your way to achieving what you want, against the needs of the local community. Sensible proposals are the only way that transit improvements will be accepted by government.
My other question is, if you believe in densifying this area at all costs, how far do you want to take it? Should we densify every inch of suburbia without consulting anyone? As much as you might wish people can be “educated”, some people (especially in CALD and lower socio-economic communities) do value a low density lifestyle. By ignoring their needs entirely, you risk demonising all forms of transport projects and sensible densification.
Thinking about the Main Rd corridor and the timeframes for any future replacement beyond BRT in SEQ I think median-running would be best. Avoids all the crossovers but prioritises the buses. Who knows what you would replace BRT with along the corridor so any investment in light-rail like stations is likely to run close to end of life if not be retained if it is replaced by LRT.
PS densification is require right across SEQ in well serviced location (e.g along Mains Rd) because current low-density development is not meeting society’s needs.
EDIT: Reported this morning 50 years to save a deposit for a house. BAU has failed spectacularly on so many levels. Where is our political leadership? Too busy yelling “Look at how great we’ve done”
Median lanes could certainly work, I thought about this initially. I don’t think it would avoid “all the crossovers” though, traffic lights would have to be reworked with a few extra phases to accommodate this. My only concern would be whether there’s enough room in the existing corridor for disability-compliant stations in the median.
And I do agree with densifying well-serviced locations - in the example of mains road, it would be around the major transit stops and shopping centres. But as much as I would like it to be, and while they should be pedestrian-focused, realistically, this sort of development in suburbia can’t be completely exclusive of cars, when surrounding suburbs are very car-centric.
Got to start somewhere or we don’t start at all
How about we don’t start with this?
If this group is going to have any relevance, this sort of dogmatic approach is kryptonite to that outcome.
Now might be a good time to draw us back to my original question.. can anyone take this further than @ari’s great first stab above?
It’s not an idle or academic question.. the reason I’m keen to find out is because it tells a story- one which we’ll need if we’re going to win political fights like this one: ie a lot of people would benefit from bus lanes!
Not start densifying our city around shops? Dogmatic? Seems highly sensible?
I mean insisting on bus only lanes on Mains Road when considerable complications exist with that approach (and where bus lanes deliver functionally the same outcome without them).
Bus-lane or not bus lane the Main Rd corridor suits median bus or bus-only lanes to reduce complications you mentioned.
What you’re advocating for is a fundamental reshaping of the suburban built environment and road priority, to encourage higher density and making it less convenient to drive. And sure, I like the broad aim, as I’m sure most users of this forum do also. But, let’s appreciate how big that change is and the likely reception from the public.
People generally don’t like rapid change to their neighbourhood or lifestyle, particularly when imposed from above. It has to be implemented in a way they’ll accept, or they’ll vote for a government that promises to bring everything back to the way it used to be. Yes, educating people on the benefits is great, but I think education can only do so much in a short amount of time. Convincing people of the need for big changes can take a generation or two.
If you want a society where the approach is to find out what the technically or scientifically best way to do something is, and then just go ahead and do it without balancing everyone’s needs and opinions, then I’d say go to China. That way of doing things got them the world’s longest high speed rail network and three longest metro systems. But it didn’t give them a democratic society.