Sunday, March 20, 2016

Quirk Wins - Disaster for Brisbane's Transport!

Source: https://www.facebook.com/RAILBackOnTrack/photos/a.6532098313598 74.1073741825.160527347294794/1232188283462023/?type=3&theater
Despite opinion polls showing the opposite, LNP Lord Mayor Graham Quirk has won a surprising landslide victory in the Brisbane 2016 Council elections. With the LNP having a history of destructive public transport policies, and wasting hundreds of millions on poor value for money road projects, this is very very bad news for sustainable transport. So what does this mean for Brisbane?

  • Bus Network - continued failure to reform the inefficient and confusing Brisbane City Council (BBC) / Brisbane Transport (BT) bus network. Suburbs such as Centenary and Northern Suburbs will continue to be public transport black holes, with car reliance continuing. Bus queues across the Victoria Bridge (above) and along the SE Busway will continue for years to come. Graham Quirk truly has his head buried in the sand when it comes to bus network design. 
  • Cross River Rail - continued lacking BCC support for the urgently required Cross River Rail, at a time what new underground rail lines are progressing well in the much better governed Sydney and Melbourne.  
  • Brisbane Metro - Quirk will continue to promote the massively flawed Brisbane Metro idea. This $1.5b (though more realistically $3b) plan will not increase capacity compared to the busway, force time consuming changes from bus to metro, not serve UQ or RBWH, will push many bus routes back into congested streets, and cause bus chaos during the 6 year construction.  The Metro idea is bizarre given that Quirk has been quoted as saying that Brisbane commuters do not like to change buses as an excuse for not reforming the bus network. Yet the Metro will forced most bus users to change from bus to metro just outside of the CBD! BrizCommuter hopes that the business case will show that the Brisbane Metro is not financially justifiable, however plenty of government resources will still be wasted dealing the with this ill-advised plan. It needs to be noted the state government own most of the busway infrastructure, so it is not like BCC can just do what they like with it! However, if the LNP get back into state government (which is more than likely) it is scary what could happen in regards to this quite frankly dumb idea. 
  • Kingsford Smith Drive - $650m will continue to be wasted on reducing "congestion" on a road that is rarely congested, and has just had a billion $$$ spent on a toll tunnel bypass. As with the Wardell St/Samford Rd intersection upgrade, it will just move the congestion to the next set of traffic lights, or make no difference at all. 
Well done Brisbane voters - you have just voted to continue Brisbane's path of being a laughing stock among "World Cities". 

3 comments:

  1. I laughed my a... off when I found out that the "on-time" KPI's of public transport are among the best in the world. The reason? Not only do we have one of the loosest definitions of "on-time", but almost any delay you can think of "doesn't count". For instance, let's say a train breaks down due to poor maintenance and everyone is delayed four hours - nope sorry, doesn't count.

    When are people going to realise that "the lucky country" was always an ironic pun, that the book's main point is that we have succeeded in spite of constant and almost incomprehensible incompetence? This run of luck can't keep going with public transport like Brisbane has.

    So... let's steadily maintain the nightmare we have while we invest in magic subway beans..... we might just stay lucky.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The amount of fat in timetables is also worrying. It used to be only Xmas holidays you'd be sitting on the side of the road for 5+ mins "cos we are early" now its daily peak and off peak

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brisbane is a highly developed city, so getting to know the trouble it has come under in regards to its transportation system, is simply unacceptable. The relevant authorities ought to take matters into their hands immediately to prevent any further delays especially during peak hours of each day.

    ReplyDelete

All comments are reviewed before being published, and it may take a few days for comments to appear. If comments do not add to the conversation, or are just plain stupid, they will not be published.