Also in the news...

Quite a few relevant news items have appeared in the last few days, with added BrizCommuter commentary:

Expert panel to review Cross River Rail - the Newman LNP government has announced an "expert" panel of just 3 people to review Cross River Rail in only a 4 week period. Given that considerably more time and effort was put into selecting and refining the Cross River Rail route in the first place, this is somewhat concerning. Was the Courier Mail's mistake of showing the plans of the half-baked "Cleveland Plan" instead of Cross River Rail in this article an omen of what the outcome will be from this expert panel?

Phase 2 train timetables still missing in action - reports from BrizCommuter's sources at two recent QR CRG meetings is that QR still can't say when the new timetables will be available in draft, be implemented, or in fact say anything else about the new timetables. If QR was a private company, they would be out of business if they treated customers like this!

Sydney CityRail cutting the fat - a contender for the world's most inefficient rail operator award - Sydney's CityRail will be cutting 750 middle managers, be restructured, and there are threats of up to 4,000 potential job cuts. Expect similar things to occur with Queensland's bloated QR. This document is an interesting read (thanks to RBoT member Simon for finding this):
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/b2b/releases/fixing-the-trains-information.pdf

Cultural Centre - Full to bursting?

Northern Busway Services - new Northern Busway services have been announced by TransLink, starting on the 18th June 2012. Although it is disappointing that bus services have not been completely restructured to improve efficiency, some of the improvements are very welcome. Firstly, the routes 330 and 340 have been BUZ'ed, making them every 15 minutes off-peak and every 10 minutes or better during the peaks. This could help with the ongoing Inner Northern Busway overcrowding woes. It will significantly improve frequencies by up to 200% on the Inner Northern Busway and Northern Busway corridor during Sunday mornings and late at night. BrizCommuter would like to see the 340 diverted to serve the The Prince Charles Hospital main entrance as opposed to dropping off passengers on Hamilton Road which is still quite a few hundred metres away. The 340 has been diverted away from Cultural Centre, now travelling across the Captain Cook Bridge to Wooloongabba. Is this further evidence that Cultural Centre is at saturation point? A new cross-town route 369 from Mitchelton to Airport DFO, replacing the current route 358 may be useful for those travelling radially. The almost useless route 393 is being cut back from Normanby to RBWH, however it would have been more useful to have extended it to Roma Street. This cut back now means that passengers trying to get from Normaby to RCH/RBWH may have even more problems trying to get on a bus that isn't already full in the am peak.  Changes are also occurring to a multitude of other bus routes, with details (and no timetables yet) here:
http://translink.com.au/travel-information/service-updates/bulletin/1337063833