Cross River Rail - Back On Track?

Brisbane's urgently required Cross River Rail has a painful history of not being funded, and being used as a political football. After a 4 year delay due to the ALP Newman government's BaT-ty idea, the ALP Palaszczuk government has now announced Cross River Rail Mk3.

The route of Cross River Rail Mk3

Detailed information is currently lacking. However, based on available information, what are the good, middling, and unknown aspects of the latest $5.2b version of Cross River Rail?

Good 

• The return of a station of Park Road / Boggo Road. The lack of this was the BaT tunnel's achilles heel, as it provides essential interchange between the Cleveland Line, existing lines, Cross River Rail, and the Eastern Busway. 
• Station at Exhibition. 
• No unnecessary bus tunnel - SE busway congestion can be resolved by bus network reform instead. 
• Connections with existing rail network at both ends - though this alone only allows for small network capacity increases. 
• Based on the much reviewed route via Park Rd, Woollongabba, Albert St, Roma St, Exhibition. 
• Setting up of statutory authority for delivery. 
• Federal funding is likely to be a hot topic as ALP Bill Shorten has promised funding. 

Neutral

• Alignment moved back from George St to Albert St. One block further away from the casino, but probably overall better placed to serve a larger area. Not sure of reason for change.

Unknown

• Have connections for a future Trouts Rd (Northwestern Transportation Corridor) been incorporated into the design? This line is essential for large scale increased in capacity from the North. 
• With a tunnel portal around Dutton Park, how will capacity be significantly increased from the South? Significant track enhancements are required between the portal and Beenleigh. Will this be included in the $5.2b funding?
• What changes will be made around Mayne junction to increase capacity from the North?
• How will this be funded?

And finally...

• Lord Mayor Graham Quirk is refusing to partially fund Cross River Rail, claiming that Brisbane City Council do not fund rail. Just a second, Quirky, your metro idea is rail isn't it? With Graham Quirk wanting to build the Brisbane Metro which is likely to have a poor/fraudulent business case vs excellent past business cases for Cross River Rail, it appears that Graham Quirk does not have Brisbane's interests at heart and is playing destructive political games. 
• Bob Katter and Rob Pyne are throwing their toys out of his pram over more funding for Brisbane. Hmmm, Mt Isa and Cairns probably need a bit of a population increase before they get a metro system. Unless they want a metro for kangaroos and cattle?

Cross River Rail website:

http://www.crossriverrail.qld.gov.au

BrizCommuter Rail Capacity Study:

http://brizcommuter.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/the-brizcommuter-rail-capacity-study.html

Quirky Metro - The Slow Coach?

BrizCommuter has been bagging the Quirky Metro quite a lot recently, though this is entirely justified. BrizCommuter promises this will be the last post on this subject for a while. It has already ascertained that the capacity of the Quirky Metro will be less than the existing busway. But what about journey times?

Assumptions

In this article, BrizCommuter makes the following assumptions:

1. Bus journey times - based on MyTransLink app and TransLink Journey Planner around 8am. The journey time from Wooloongabba to Herston by bus is given as 15 minutes. 
2. Metro journey times - based on an average speed of 30kph, which is halfway between the average speed of traditional Paris Metro lines (20kph) and the driverless Line 14 (40kph). With numerous tight slow speed curves along the 7km Quirky Metro route, BrizCommuter expects this figure to be reasonably accurate. This results in a journey time from Wooloongabba to Herston of 14 minutes.
3. Bus routes compared - only bus routes that run via the existing inner SE and Northern Busway have been included. Some "Rocket" bus routes that bypass the the inner busways would also bypass the Quirky Metro and thus have not included.  
4. Interchange times - no information has been provided on interchange design by Team Quirk (they probably haven't even though about it), so a nominal 2 minutes figure has been given to transfer from bus to metro (and vice-versa). 
5. Wait times - from available data, the Quirky Metro will run at 4 minute peak frequencies at opening. This is an average waiting time of 2 minutes. Of course, this could be worse during the off-peak. Bus waiting times are based on the current peak bus route frequency, divided by 2 for the average waiting time. 

Journey time comparison

Chermside to King George Square

Busway - 31mins (2m wait, 29m journey bus (333)) 

Quirky Metro - 35mins (2m wait, 22m journey bus (333), 2m change, 2m wait, 7m journey metro)

RBWH to UQ

Busway - 27.5mins (2.5m wait, 25m journey bus)

Quirky Metro - 34.75mins (1.25m wait, 2m journey bus, 2m change, 2m wait, 14m journey metro, 2m change, 2.5m wait, 9m journey bus) 

RBWH to Mater Hill

Busway - 15mins (2.5m wait, 15m journey bus)

Quirky Metro - 19.25mins (1.25m wait, 2m journey bus, 2m change, 2m wait, 12m journey metro)

QUT to Roma Street

Busway - 5.25mins (1.25m wait, 4m journey bus)

Quirky Metro - 5.75mins (2m wait, 3.75m journey metro)

King George Square to UQ

Busway - 19.5mins (2.5m, 17m journey bus)

Quirky Metro - 22.5mins (2m wait, 7m journey metro, 2m change, 2.5m wait, 9m bus)

Eight Mile Plains to King George Square

Busway - 27.5mins (2.5m wait, 25m journey bus)

Quirky Metro - 27.5mins (2.5m wait, 14m journey bus, 2m change, 2m wait, 7m journey metro)

Tarragindi to Cultural Centre

Busway - 26m (5m wait, 21m journey bus)

Quirky Metro - 30.75m (5m wait, 17m journey bus, 2m change 2m wait, 4.75m journey metro)

Conclusion

As expected the results are pretty damning towards the Quirky Metro. In all but one case the journey time via the Quirky Metro is slower than using the existing busways. This is mainly due to the forced change between bus and metro at Herston and Wooloongabba, but also due to the lower frequency of the metro at opening compared to the busway. Even with improved metro frequencies in the future (2 mins instead of 4mins), and taking into account buses being delayed compared to the timetable, there is no realistic justification for a $1.5b business case based on improving journey times. Delays along the congested busway could easily be resolved at negligible financial cost just by redesigning Brisbane's bus network, something that Graham Quirk and Brisbane City Council rejected in 2013, but has been achieved on other cities such as Auckland.

Team Quirk's claims of end to end journey times of 12 minutes is unrealistic and potentially misleading. This would result in an average speed of  35kph which would be closer to automated driverless metro lines with long station gaps, and no tight curves. The Quirky Metro would have multiple very tight, low speed curves, and is not driverless. However there are a few "higher speed" sections and reasonable station spacing. It should be noted that Team Quirk's average journey speed claim is more than 10% faster than the Ferny Grove Line which averages 31kph between Ferny Grove and Bowen Hills!

It should also be noted that Cross River Rail would be expected to take approximately 6 to 7 minutes to run between Wooloongabba and Exhibition (near Herston). This is less than half the time of the Quirky Metro.

In previous posts we have assessed that the capacity of the Quirky Metro is likely to vary between 4,500 and 14,300 (depending on calculation) compared to the existing busway with a capacity of 12,000 to 18,000 (depending on source of data). With less capacity and generally decreased journey times, any business case would surely have to be be in the realm of fraudulent? However, this is Brisbane where business cases for two toll road tunnels were made around overtly optimistic (and almost impossible) usage figures - be afraid!

Appendix

Distance map below using Google Maps

April Fools?

Recently re-elected LNP Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk wants to do the following:

• Replace a busway that can handle at least 12,000 passengers per hour, with the Quirky Metro that can handle only 9,000 passengers per hour (or even less at opening). 
• Disrupt bus services for 6 years whilst constructing the Quirky Metro.
• Force passengers to change from bus to metro only a few km from their destination, increasing journey times.  
• Terminates at an abandoned Children's Hospital. 
• Force passengers travelling to RBWH to have to change from metro to bus just one stop short. 
• Quirky Metro will have drivers, even through driverless metros have been around for more than 30 years. 
• Spend $1.5b of tax and rate payers money for all of the the above. 
• Doesn't appear to support Cross River Rail (which Brisbane urgently requires, unlike the Quirky Metro.)
• Isn't interested in improving bus services to public transport black holes such as Centenary Suburbs and Northern Suburbs. 
• Isn't interested in making Brisbane City Council's bus network more efficient and less confusing. 
• Is spending $650m on widening a rarely congested road that has just been bypassed by a road toll tunnel. 

Ha, Ha, April Fools....

...It's not an April Fool you say? Oh s**t!!!