You’re golden until you consider the impact on busway capacity of adding another high frequency BRT route to the already congested inner city busway, especially when it would be a new route that doesn’t result in the removal of duplicate services in the way that M1 & M2 do. If the proposed “Metro 3” line to Capalaba comes to fruition, that will mean you have 4x 3min frequency metro services running between Roma Street and Mater Hill, as well as everything else. I’m not sold on the concept of a Metro line to the Airport at all for this reason - it’s chewing up inner city busway capacity along a stretch that will be pretty saturated already.
I’d rather see some more connections to Skygate from outer transport hubs, along the same lines as the 590 (Garden City to Toombul - I’d also tweak this route to connect to either Cannon Hill or Murarrie Station). Then maybe another route between, say Hamilton, Ascot/Doomben, Skygate and up to Northgate? That could tie in with the Doomben Line, Caboolture Line and the Gold Glider when/if council get it online.
I think the reality is bus capacity is already over stretched, so going forward the options need to be proper bus reform along with investment in higher capacity modes.
I really believe if the government was actually willing that they would be able to find the funds for at least some of the projects that are needed.
Red team did sit on their hands when it came to basic frequency upgrades. The off-peak train service upgrades came in under Blue Team from 2013 onwards.
It’s not clear why such an unwritten policy was pursued.
I’m also open to considering BRT conversion of the Doomben line, which I won’t elaborate on here, as it has its own thread.
Utility should be demonstrated not presumed. Let’s see a proper side by side business case covering both a conversion and upgrade in place option.
Regarding the LNP stab at ALP over the off-peak frequencies, whether you like or dislike them, they do have a point as the ‘Blue’ were the ones that introduced the Northgate and Cannon Hill weekday off-peak runs, plus fixing the earlier contra-peak issues with the Ferny Grove line when the ‘Red’ first introduced 15 min services to Ferny Grove.
I was on the NAIP service, came to a stop at Lawnton which is always a bad sign and then sat there for about 20-25 mins before another unplanned stop at Strathpine.
Great job from the guard on my train, who did announcements every 10 minutes to keep us updated on exactly what was happening. We also had a pretty good run into the city afterwards which surprised me because I’m sure it threw the normal schedule into chaos. Some fine work behind the scenes as well to find a slot for all the delayed services without causing other issues.
I’ve always said that compared to other cities in Australia QR does a great job at handling unexpected issues. On the odd occasion where major delays occur they always get things fixed pretty quickly as long as there’s no major infrastructure damage. I’ve been on trains even in Europe where a signalling issue has resulted in everyone being kicked off in the middle of nowhere and forced to catch a local bus to the next station.
I also value a lot the fact that most QR employees are always open for a quick chat or just a simple “hello”. It makes things feel a bit more human in general.
On a different topic: let’s see how Clarks is doing with the new busway extension…
To be completely fair to Clarks (and the busway extension itself), the majority of the late services there are those returning from the CBD to Loganholme - that first inbound service is probably the result of the bus running late on the preceding outbound run. I would put it down as probably a result of the congestion and construction works at Cultural Centre and North Quay.
And I say this as a Logan resident who has to put up with this services being late.
I got to take a look around the new Rochedale busway station today. Overall looking very nice! Some notes:
The platforms seem about the same length as EMP and UMG, so hopefully shouldn’t have to lengthen them anytime soon. There is a little bit of landscaping to the north of the station that could be converted to platform if it needed in the long term
I’m pretty pleased with the pedestrian entrance from the Underwood road overpass, although in my gold-plated world it would have had a direct pedestrian connection to the inbound platform from the overpass as well.
The platform shelters are full length and actually seem slightly higher than the ones at the other south east Busway stations
Being right next to the M1 it’s not the nicest place to hang out as it’s quite noisy, but it’s tolerable. There’s enough of a buffer so it doesn’t feel as bad as those freeway median stations in Perth
For the first day of opening, the park and ride was pretty well patroned, I’d say about half full. I expect this will fill up completely in the coming weeks. Hopefully it will take some strain off EMP
I’m not sure if the PIDs were working properly. The 555 seemed to arrive not according to the times on the PID. They were running late according to google maps, so not sure what’s going on there
There was still some workers there finishing off the landscaping at the northern end of the platform
Interestingly, the pedestrian wayfinding gives directions to Gardner Road. This is notable as the Gardner road connection has not actually been built to the station yet. So they were thinking pretty far ahead with this particular sign!
Logan City Council has done a good job of upzoning the area immediately south of Underwood road. There’s a few apartment buildings already, including a really nice mixed-use development on Centre Place. Let’s hope the area east of School road could be developed similarly, if BCC upzones accordingly. Likely this won’t happen until the Gardner Road extension is built.
BCC better get off their backside and punch that road through. I suspect the State Government were expecting it to have been done by now (or at least be very close to completion) to have included it on the signage.
I believe I raised it in one of our meetings with the Metro team back in RBot days. If I recall correctly they were having issues with land acquisition. I expect someone is holding out. I don’t know what council’s power is with compulsory resumption compared to the state but I imagine it probably has less teeth
Something that has occurred as part of the Busway Extension opening that wasn’t advertised by Translink as part of it, and which I (and others on the local community pages) only discovered when catching it, is that the route 575 has seen a rather substantial rerouting.
Firstly, the inbound service has been redirected down Cinderella Drive and Fitzgerald Avenue to service Springwood Station Platform 3 - before this, inbound 575s didn’t service Springwood Station at all and continued straight down Springwood Road under the highway. Personally, I think this detour is a bit superfluous - no one used any of those three stops to board or alight this morning - and quite convoluted in its routing
After this detour, it runs along the access road to get back on to Springwood Road to service the existing stop at Sports Drive as per usual. However, where it would turn left onto Logan Road and then use the Lexington Road onramp (my expectation was that it would continue back into Springwood Station to get on the busway), but now it turns right onto Logan Road and continues up to Underwood Road, servicing stops at Kingston Road (serviced by the 554), Celia Street & Harris Road (both serviced by the 545) and Eight Mile Plains Primary School. It then gets onto the busway at the Underwood Road entry. (Outbound follows this same route, but the EMP State School stop is replaced with Logan Road @ Underwood Villas, just around the corner).
This all made the route a bit longer, but while I think the Springwood Station deviation is a bit superfluous, I think the extension along Logan Road is actually quite a useful extension to an area that isn’t all that well connected - Springwood CBD to Underwood. However, this reroute only affects the peak hour 575 route, and not its all day 574 counterpart which still terminates at Springwood. I would like to see the 574 extended to Rochedale via this alignment as well.
Judging by the map there, looks like they’re trying to create the busway station connections to encourage people to use it as a feeder route to the 555
No one who commutes regularly in this area is going change to the 555 during morning peak - if it’s not already at standing room only by Springwood, it’s not far off!
For those interested in the recent reintroduction of 3 car units on some peak services (@Ozbob I know you were one) something interesting caught my eye on QR’s social media today.
I was unaware the Exhibition loop was closed, this would also explain why my PM peak train which usually comes into Roma Street from Mayne Yard has been coming from South Brisbane or Milton instead.
Personally I feel like QR could have communicated this, I have changed my morning commute due to my usual service becoming a 3 car every day, if it’s going to be full length again from the 23rd it would have been nice to know.
