Anyone who wants to get out to Ipswich or Logan in the Redlands has to head practically into the city to head back out again. It’d be a game changer to avoid city travel
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It would be, but it would be an extremely expensive project for what I feel would be limited popularity.
At this stage, East West routes like this would be better served by improved bus connections.
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Yep. PT pyramid.
If we’re proposing a new rail line on a route/corridor that doesn’t even currently have a bus, we have to explain why it’s necessary to go with rail ASAP, and that there should also be interim buses to meet that demand until the construction’s done.
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Agree. Quick and dirty, you could do something like this tomorrow, with connections (marked in red circles) to Ipswich Line, Springfield Line, 100 BUZ, 130 BUZ, 150 BUZ, Beenleigh Line, 555 (amongst others).
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This is almost exactly the proposed B15 from the Greens’ 2024 Brissie Bus Boost! Great idea.
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Not quite the same… there’s a bit of difference.
The Greens version had the added bonus of going via Sunnybank Hills shopping centre - Hellawell Road is a convenient route due to its connection to Learoyd Road, but there’s no anchor stop location at Pinelands Road - I think it needs to either go via Sunnybank Hills or Pinelands Plaza),
However, it missed the opportunity to connect to the Beenleigh Line Stations, opting instead to continue down Compton Road to Springwood. This is probably the most direct way to get from Sunnybank Hills to Springwood, but it goes through a lot of nothing and the nearest station (Trinder Park) is still a reasonable deviation to get to.
I personally would question whether it is absolutely necessary to get it all the way to Springwood, as all the lights can make that section of Logan Road a bit painful at times. I would consider turning up Warrigal Road, down Underwood Road, onto the Busway at Rochedale, Stop at Rochedale and then terminate at Eight Mile Plains (only because you can’t turnaround at Rochedale). This might be a quicker, easier option.
Maybe - the main idea is for it to be as quick and direct as possible while also connecting major activity centres. Anyway, whatever the details, the point is a bus can very plausibly perform this orbital connector without the huge expense of a rail line.
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My only real issues with this are:
Wacol Station is an absolutely awful place to get in and out of. It can literally add several minutes to the route, at times.
No connection with the Gold Line, which I guess you could fix be having it stop at Fruitgrove, but it’s slow enough already.
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Gold Coast line is hard to get to with its current stopping pattern. That’s OK - it doesn’t have to connect to everything.
An alternative to stopping at Richlands and Wacol is just to go up and terminate at Darra, which wouldn’t be too bad.
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In a post CRR and LGCFR world where we have more frequent services on both lines, the issue of not directly connecting to the GC line I feel isn’t as substantial a one.
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As part of LGCFR, Trinder Park is being moved to be much closer to Compton Rd.
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Yeah used to work around Wacol, it might be the worst road system around a station. The intersection next to the prison gets backed up all the way to the level crossing and can add 30+ minutes in peak hour.
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It’s really only moving about 500m closer to Compton Road - there’s still a not-insignificant ~3km deviation from Compton Road to the station and then back up Zyanza Street to Compton Road.
Also, Trinder Park Station is probably one of the worst stations for such a bus to connect to, given the relatively lack of local bus connectivity. If they went for a station like Fruitgrove, for example, that also connects you up to the 150. Also, where a 3km round trip is needed to get from Compton Road > Trinder Park > Compton Road again, ~4.5km will get you from Fruitgrove all the way to Rochedale Station.
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3km is not that big considering the length of the route as a whole, and you’re not considering the distance it takes to get to Fruitgrove. I’d also say that we can’t make a fair judgement of the connectivity of a revised station before it is built, and there could very well be more routes connecting to the new Trinder Park station in future compared to the old one. Springwood too has more connectivity to other services than Rochedale does.
