They won’t. I know I’m being a Debbie Downer here, but I honestly think we need to get used to transitways, because outside of Olympics commitments, they’ll be the only things politicians will have the stomach to build. Between the cost of land and the cost of labour, transport projects have become much more expensive, and I don’t see the costs falling anytime soon.
Northern Busway as well…
RIP.
The Newman government killed all planning for them.
@Ozbob, did you archive any relevant documents on RBoT?
Thanks for checking 
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Just because Govt can’t see they way past widening freeways to fund public transport is no reason to sit by idle why they do it!
Govt can spend more on public transport
They just chose not to!!
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Anyone have link to the project documents for the full corridor?
I’d believe that.. has anyone got receipts?
Or receipts for the alternative Bljgh-era flood-austerity explanation?
All progress regarding the eastern busway was stalled in 2011. However, the state government were successful in conducting a business case/evaluation report on the feasibility of extending the eastern busway out to Carindale and Capalaba.
The evaluations regarding Carindale and Capalaba’s aren’t made public by Infrastructure Australia, with the authority bluntly mentioning ‘transitways’ as the ideal approach for the Carindale to Chandler section.
However, the evaluation made available to the public, recommends that tunneling is the preferred option, for the stretch from Langlands Park busway station and Coorparoo Junction.
Infrastructure Australia report: https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-06/QLD_Eastern_Busway2b3_Brief2011_0.pdf
The eastern busway (buranda to langlands park) was absurdly expensive for the distance. Basic economics probably stopped it.
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I’ve concluded that neither Premier’s Anna Bligh or Campbell Newman can be held to account, for expunging the ambition of extending the eastern busway to Capalaba out of relevance.
Rather, I believe the main culprit would’ve been the 2011 Queensland Floods.
We all seem to forget about the 2011 Queensland Floods – extensive rainfall that flooded 75%> of the state.
It had profound economic implications as well: 28% of Queensland Rail’s network was displaced; $4 billion in losses were incurred across mining, agriculture, and tourism; and 19,000 kilometers of road were damaged. The floods lasted from late 2010 to January of 2011.
Subsequently, the state and federal governments’ had to fund $6.8 billion in relief efforts.
Langlands Park busway station was opened on the 29th of August, 2011, highlighting that the Queensland 2011 Floods could’ve played a sizeable role in the state government losing appetite over building more bus-priority infrastructure.
They were too busy – justifiably – injecting millions in funds to flood-stricken areas throughout QLD.
In sum, I believe the better question to ask is: “Why didn’t Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk expand the eastern busway to Capalaba, when she was in office from 2015 to 2023?”
Sources:
2011 Queensland Floods: https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/flood-queensland-2010-2011/
Langlands Park: Langlands Park busway station - Wikipedia
Relief effort: https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-the-Assembly/Tabled-Papers/docs/5311t4643/5311t4643.pdf
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Other Priorities - CRR
Cross River Rail was seen as a higher priority, and costs escalated on that project. Remember, there was no federal funding for Cross River Rail. It was all state funded and then a PPP (which has to be paid off).
How is Cross River Rail being funded?
(Frequently Asked Questions - Cross River Rail)The current approved budget for delivering Cross River Rail’s core scope of works is made up of $6.519 billion in state funding, along with private financing of $1.499 billion secured through a Public Private Partnership (PPP).
There are also a range of other supporting activities being delivered by the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority, the Department of Transport and Main Roads, and Queensland Rail, including upgrading stabling yards, accessibility upgrades to surface stations, new stations, the European Train Control System and integration.
The Eastern Busway is a reasonably good project, but given the amount of time that has elapsed, it should be reassessed with a rail mode option if the intent is to extend to Redlands eventually.
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My gut-feeling tells me that Palasazck did set aside the funding for the recently opened Rochedale busway station - so that’s something (bus-mode wise)
The eastern busway plans were archived over on RBot. Fairly sure @Metro posted them on here in a thread somewhere too
Extraordinary claim to blame the Palaszczuk government for failures in public transport when they built Cross River Rail which the Newman government had tried to kill as well as tearing up just about every transit lane in the city.
Hard to find quotes from back then but here’s a Courier Mail article that is clearly the Newman government softening everyone up for cancelling all future busway development. No Cookies | The Courier Mail
I don’t agree with this, I’m afraid. Cancelling transport infrastructure projects is a human decision, not a natural event. The State government clearly had plenty of money to waste on freeway expansions and many other (in my view) patently silly ideas in the years since 2011. This is even without raising extra revenue which they have done many times since then, including via the Flood Levy from 2011 onwards.
We need to be clear-eyed about why the project failed to get built last time if we’re going to get something good this time. Cost was clearly relevant, but costly projects get built all the time. I’m more interested in the other reasons politicians felt comfortable cutting the Eastern (and Northern) Busway but not other projects.
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I’m up for more discussion and debate - I apologise for ruffling people’s beliefs by suggesting that Palaszczuk should be lumped in with Anna Bligh and Campbell Newman.
As the Courier Mail explores, Newman did cancel the busway expansions insofar as we know.
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No apology needed!
You may actually be right to assign some blame to Pala for the demise of the busways, since she was actually the Transport Minister under Bligh from Feb 2011 until Newman won the election. She was appointed in the “flood reconstruction” Cabinet reshuffle.
So far in this discussion people have blamed both the Bligh and Newman governments, but no one is totally sure when the project first got canned.
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But as for the ‘reasons why politicians would’ve felt comfortable scrapping the eastern/northern busway as opposed to other infrastructure projects’ is still an interesting inquiry.
There is one possible hypothesis I can think of:
- In the early 2010s, people could’ve still doubted the busways as achieving ‘mass transit’ in the long term, decreasing the morale for future expansions.