A guest post by Brisbane-based writer, urbanist, planner and researcher Linda Carroli on the South East Queensland review of bus services, previously discussed on LP in comments here.
(Cross-posted from placeblog)
Yesterday I read about the State Government’s review of SEQ bus services, which is outlined online at http://translink.com.au/travel-information/service-updates/seq-bus-network-review. This has now prompted a small lobbying and letter writing campaign, as it appears that the direct bus route which runs mostly along Gympie Road will now terminate at Chermside Bus Interchange and require commuters to transfer. It will also include a few more back street detours to make the trip longer. The points I raise with elected representatives and the local newspaper are noted below. If anyone can think of additional points, then please let me know.
As an Aspley resident, I regularly use the 340 and find that this route, as a continuous route from Aspley to the city running every 15 minutes is not only efficient for me but also provides convenience and safety. I applauded the introduction last year of greater frequency of the 340 and noted news reports that stated this resulted in higher bus usage.
As I understand it, the proposal from the State Government is to discontinue the direct service from Carseldine/Aspley (and beyond) to the city. There is now an expectation that local residents change bus at Chermside to access buses to the city and the along teh Gympie Road corridor. I question the assertion that this is efficient. Data indicates that Aspley residents commute 9km for work, on average. This would mean significant numbers are commuting well beyond Chermside and towards the city, as the major employment and economic node. My experience using the 340 or 341 during peak times indicates that there are significant numbers of longer distance commuters using the bus.
The proposed changes will result in negative impacts which will become disincentives for bus usage including:
- Added inconvenience and commute lengths, a loss of the gains made as a result of the northern busway and higher frequency. Council’s data indicates that people will only tolerate travel times of around 45 minutes for work. It is already taking 30 to 40 minutes to commute from Aspley to the city. This disrupts work/life/travel balance.
- Inefficient linkages/transfers and unreliable connections for outer northern commuters at Carseldine Station and Chermside. Despite the high frequency of buses from Chermside to the City, there are times when I have waited up to 15 minutes for a connecting bus.
- Issues of safety and security for night time commutes in areas which do not have significant passive surveillance, such as Chermside Bus Interchange
- Value for money. Brisbane residents are already paying the third highest public transport fares in the world. The changes do not provide value for money from a user perspective.
- The local area and Chermside do not offer the full range of employment, recreational, cultural, health and sporting opportunities required for social inclusion and wellbeing. Providing a local area service does not cancel out the need for direct routes to and from the city.
I believe the expectation of commuters to change buses on a major corridor – as the bus runs directly along Gympie Road for most of its journey – is ludicrous. The service seems to work well now and I believe most users, like me, are satisified with the current service. Corridors are built for transporting people and goods directly, not for imposing unnecessary disconnects and inconveniences for travel. This recommendation is not just poor planning but also poor service design.
Australia’s low density development, as is evident in Brisbane, means that outer suburbs are particularly vulnerable to social exclusion and disadvantage due to transport access and inequitable distribution of economic and social opportunities. Those residents tend to be car dependent and make more trips per day than residents of areas closer to the CBD or other centres. Similarly, some households, particularly low income households, are vulnerable to financial stresses from petrol costs. Dodson and Sipe’s VAMPIRE (Vulnerability Assessment for Mortgage, Petroleum and Inflation Risks and Expenses) Index identifies the extent of socio-economic stress in metropolitan areas, finding an overall national trend of a widening vulnerability gap. With urban structure and car reliance resulting in long commutes to employment, congestion negatively impacts on wellbeing and social capital. While the provision of increased public transport may seem like a solution to this issue, commutes on public transport can be crowded and longer than driving. Service and network design are key issues for public transport – this means enhancing the experience and accessibility. Public transport networks are rarely comprehensive and outer suburbs tend to experience more sparse servicing than middle and inner areas. Any reduction in mobility – be it for reasons of access or affordability – means that people are less able to connect with social, environmental and economic opportunities.
I have just participated in the BCC’s Active Aspley Community Planning Team which highlighted the strong links between public transport, walkability and cyclability. A small change to the bus service that generates disincentives can have a ripple effect and push people back into their cars.
The report itself is almost impossible to find on the Qld Govt’s website, and the survey is also very difficult to access.
I only found out about this because handbills have been posted all along our bus route (planned for the chop)
I may have had a ‘male’ look but I didn’t see any reference to population growth as a major cause of conjestion in your post.
Cities with people shoulder to shoulder have much better public transport but people are still shoulder to shoulder.
If you accept population growth as a good thing, then you accept a hot, crowded, polluted, resource depleted, dog eat dog existence.
Giving the hella-Spock side-eye/eyebrow-raise at that “‘male’ look” quip, Salient Green (but any further discussion of that tangent should take place on the Overflow thread).
Cities with people shoulder to shoulder have much better public transport but people are still shoulder to shoulder.
Salient: that’s untrue. Sài Gòn is incredibly densely populated, but has piss-poor public transport – worse than Brisbane. In fact, Brisbane – despite being sparsely populated, has more public transport usage than a lot of American cities.
“Lack of population density”=”Lack of public transport” is a furthy.
Interesting post.
I’m obviously not aware of the specifics of the situation in this area, but there are ongoing conversations on a number of transport blogs about general issues that are raised in this post.
On the issue of connections, I’d like to point to this post by public transport consultant Jarrett Walker about a redesign of Auckland’s transit network.
As he points out (HT The Urbanist, the network offers more frequent connections between more places at no extra financial cost. The catch – more interconnectors.
As he puts it:
I don’t know (and given the axe being wielded in Queensland at the moment, I doubt) whether this particular move is just a hasty budget-cutting measure or part of a wider plan to rationalize the network. But more interchanges may not always be a bad thing.
Australians need to divorce themselves from the ‘one trip, one seat’ mentality. Each service making a redundant run into a CBD is one less – assuming funding is constant – available to provide enhanced services where it may be needed: cross-suburb routes, or on denser corridors downtown. I second that anyone interested in tackling transport issues from a network perspective read Jarrett Walker’s blog. He campaigns tirelessly against memes such as the one-seat ride.
While I agree in principle, it can be very difficult in practice. In places like Sydney’s inner suburbs and London, services are very frequent and quite often more than one service will take you to your destination, which makes it very easy to transfer between different routes and forms of public transport. However, most places in Australia don’t have that level of choice. It is one thing to accept the need to transfer services if missing your connection means a 10 or 15 minute delay and quite another if it means a 30 to 60 minute delay.
The connection problems are why so many people still choose to drive (either directly to work or to their local transportaton hub.)
Indeed, Emgem, connections are a fail if services don’t run frequently.
Im living on the other side of town. We are losing 2 major services linking West End with other social hubs, including 2 major Hospitals. We are also totally losing the one bus that travelled round the back streets of our suburb taking local people to the shops or the ferry, and picking up kids to and from school. This combined with a lack of safe, light operated pedestrian crossings means many kids and old folk will find it more and more dangerous and difficult to make their way from home to school.
My brief look over the Translink shakeup leads me to see that they have made a conscious decision to only service major routes in and out of the city. The ‘spoke’ approach. This will severely impact the social cohesion and mobility of our communities.
My road has 3 buses that run along it, the link UQ, major shopping hubs and Hospitals with the communities they serve. If this plan is implemented we will have none. None. These services have run since I first moved here more than 20 years ago.
Im my more paranoid moments I wonder if it has anything to do with our Labor local councillor, our Labor State MP and our federal Labor (ex PM) MP…
The implications of that are quite significant. If you want to maximum of a 15 minute delay with one transfer then your services need to run every 7.5 minutes as you could just miss the first bus, followed by just missing the second bus. I only rarely take public transport (when they only come every 15-30 minutes and the trip takes 50% longer than by car its just too much of a waste of time) and I never do if I’d have to transfer buses.
I agree, and I’m suggesting that one possible barrier to increased frequency is the dilution of assets across many infrequent services, rather than using them on fewer, frequent routes designed to connect.
You can do this without significantly affecting coverage.
I think I’ve mentioned previously, but the mooted changes seem to explicitly target Griffith University’s Nathan campus for destruction – five bus routes that stop there are simply being removed, or routed away from the campus, and the replacement that actually does have a stop on campus takes a fairly leisurely tour around the suburbs before arriving.
That’s about the size of it Nick. The services that we’re told we’ll be able to connect to for Nathan Campus don’t go through the Griffith University Busway Station, thus requiring a walk of 500 metres between the stop at the Transport Department depot and the Busway Station (or vice versa) to connect). The inter-campus shuttle buses by themselves won’t be able to handle all the passengers wanting to connect at the Busway Station.
Paul, and indeed, it wouldn’t just be a matter of increasing the GU fleet – those single-door buses aren’t well suited to dropping off large numbers of passengers in a timely fashion. You’d also imagine the expensive refurbishment of the Circuit would’ve been planned differently if they’d known that virtually no buses would be stopping there.
Once again it’s a state government childishly playing silly buggers with peoples’ lives and work, and adults have to pick up the pieces afterwards.
One bus route is going to service the suburbs of Annerley, Moorooka, Salisbury, Rocklea travelling along Ipswich Rd from Garden City. It will be more frequent than before. All the Tarragindi and Holland Park West services will be removed. Everyone I know will be severely disadvantaged by this. Old people will have to travel a long way to catch buses and then a long way at the other end. School children will have far more difficulty getting to and from school. University students will have more difficulty getting to both UQ and Griffith on the southside. A review was necessary and some services were inefficient, but putting more buses on Ipswich Rd. seems like madness as a solution, because it is both very overcrowded and very slow moving. The frequent buses will be late and full by the time they get to the inner suburbs.
I am not a Queenslander, but from what I’ve read above the proposed changes seem idiotic.
Does the government receive large donations from the fuel industry and auto sales industries?
Because it seems that more people will be forced off the public transport system and into private car use to get where they want to go.
My daughter lives in the north east of Adelaide near the North East Road, which is the main bus route. This spoke is augmented with circle lines for people who don’t wish to travel into the city for connecting buses.