On the Broad Gauge

Time for the Hamilton NorthshoreTrain

2008-10-02T18:25:00.003+10:00

The Urban Land Development Authority (ULDA) has released details of the Master Plan for the Hamilton Northshore site.

Those of you know know the area know that it is served by Kingsford Smith Drive, which gets incredibly busy. Heaven knows how it is going to cope with the 26,000 people who are expected to work there every day!

Luckily, the master plan suggests the extension of the Doomben line into the site - an extension of less than a kilometre.

I sincerely hope the state government takes them up on this option. Otherwise, chaos can be expected.

Now it's two tunnels!

2008-09-18T12:16:00.003+10:00

Information about the Inner City Rail Capacity Study is dribbling out. Today's Courier Mail reports that the state government needs in the order of 14 billion dollars to "save southeast Queensland from rail chaos". The article goes on to say

The study findings are expected to be released later this year and details are still sketchy. However, options being considered include "doubling of existing capacity by building two dual-track tunnels connected to the existing network by 2026, with other upgrades to the surface network to support freight".

It's a sum of money that's so mind-boggling big it's hard to comprehend. In scope though, the project is not that different from Melbourne's underground rail loop of the 1970s. If you think about it, two deep level tunnels under Brisbane River with a number of city stations wouldn't come cheap.

Can the work be avoided? I doubt it can. Certainly at the moment there are some 21 trains coming off the Gold Coast, Beenleigh and Cleveland lines across the two-track Merivale Bridge then around a sharp curve and through a short tunnel to a flat junction with the lines from the Ipswich line. Factor in a built-over Central Station (with no real room to grow except downwards), suburban rail extensions (Springfield, Coolangatta, Maroochydore, Redcliffe - maybe) and there's a heck of a lotta trains to handle.

I hope more details on the study are released shortly. It's so frustrating not being able to discuss things properly.

Time for a proper Sunshine Coast public transport connection

2008-08-14T21:07:00.008+10:00

My new boss and a number of my key clients are located up the Sunshine Coast, so I am finding myself up there about once a months for various meetings and workshops that can't be done remotely.

It's a really tedious trip to make, averaging about 1.5 -2 hours by car. This means a typical 90 minute meeting pretty much wipes out a day, once you take into account travel and preparation time.

Unfortunately, the Sunshine Coast is not currently linked to Brisbane by any serious public transport. There are long term plans for a suburban rail extension from Beerwah to Maroochydore (the so-called CAMCOS line) but this is at least 15 years away, if not further. In the meantime, the closest rail link is the North Coast line which passes through the Sunshine Hinterland to Nambour.

TransLink provides a bus service connecting with trains at Landsborough that is the main PT link to the Sunshine Coast. Unfortunately both the train and bus are really not good for business-type trips from Brisbane to the coast. It takes 2 to 3 hours do do the trip and there are also a grand total of 4 services that arrive on the Coast before midday.

It's about time to do something serious about this.

Not only does CAMCOS have to be brought forward (instead of being pushed back as is constantly rumoured) but some decent interim solutions need to be found

more contra-peak Nambour trains need to be run (if the network can cope - it's a single track line)
all trains at Landsborough need to be met by a direct bus to Mooloolaba and Maroochydore (not deviating through Chancellor Park back streets, although I guess the University is acceptable)
in fill express buses need to be provided from Caboolture direct to the Coast at times when the Nambour rail line is at capacity

I can't be the only one who would rather not have to drive.

Time for a PT solution for the middle suburbs

2008-07-31T19:51:00.005+10:00

Just about all the proposals I have seen for enhancing Brisbane's PT network fall into 2 categories

(1) expand into new outer suburban areas (and if necessary enhance CBD capacity to cope)
(2) put something clever (e.g. light rail) up the inner city corridor between West End and the Valley.

I would like to put in a plea for those missing people. People like me who live in the middle suburbs, who are not far enough out to benefit from the suburban rail and busway networks as they currently stand, and are not high profile inner city 'renewal' areas. Instead we have to put up with congested roads complete with buses stuck in congestion.

This past Monday as my ''express" bus edged down in the inside lane of Musgrave Road in Red Hill I counted no fewer than 7 local buses stationary in traffic in the outside lane. Many of these buses had standing passengers.

These people are trying public transport but I fear that as road improvements (such as Hale Street Bridge and the Western Link) come on line, will switch back to car.

I'd like to make a special plea for this corridor. I believe that something has to be done to provide a dedicated public transport facilities for the Waterworks Road corridor. What I would love to see is a light-rail based solution. It would be expensive and would involve tunnelling, but I think it is needed. I rather fancy something like the SF "Muni" solution: light rail that runs in a tunnel in the city centre and where needed plus median running on the street where there is room.

Imagine it, something whizzing past and under traffic from Ashgrove Village, under Red Hill, down and around Latrobe Terrace Paddington and onto the City, the Valley, Newstead, maybe under the river to Bulimba. The possibilities are endless.

It's not going to happen. The planners won't buy it because we don't deserve PT because we don't live in high density housing units, and the engineers are too busy building road tunnels - supported by politicians who should know better.

Oh well...

Getting people out of their car: a new rule of thumb

2008-06-12T21:08:00.008+10:00

Around Australia, each state Department of Transport or equivalent conducts regular household activity and travel surveys. These are massive affairs surveying thousands of households to understand their travel behaviour. In part the huge amounts of data are needed to calibrate the equally massive strategic transport models that (more or less) predict future travel demands.

Mostly, the data from these surveys is kept confidential which means it is not available to outsiders without special permission. An exception to this is the NSW Transport Data Centre which is brilliant in that lots of the data is released, so you can examine behaviour by local government area. (The outputs of the travel models are, of course, terribly commercially sensitive and almost never shared with anyone)

Not long ago I downloaded a batch of their Sydney data and whacked it into Excel to see what I could do with it.

One of the first things I did with it was to take the figure which showed the average mode share for car driver by LGA (1997-2001 average) and did a simple linear regression against the 1996 'transit access' figures that I had previously calculated for my thesis in 2005.

Transit Access (a percentage) is defined as the proportion of an area that is within 800m of a train station or 400m of a bus route that runs at least every 15 minutes during the day and at least every 30 minute at night and on Sundays. (I had previously developed this measure and found that it was about the minimum public transport level needed to generate a reduction in private vehicle VKT).

This time I was more interested in overall number of car trips, because this can be very important in understanding traffic impacts (and hence infrastructure requirements) of a urban development.

The result of this regression is shown below (my apologies if the graph is a bit blurry)

In short, it shows a 70% correlation between increase in 'full time' public transport coverage and decrease in car driving. I am so happy with this, I am now using it as a convenient 'rule of thumb':

Each 1 percentage point coverage in full time public transport generates a 0.25 percentage point drop in car driver use.

It's not perfect, but it's a start.

SEQIPP 2008 - Exciting times ahead

2008-06-04T21:05:00.007+10:00

The South East Queensland Infrastructure Plan and Program (SEQIPP) for 2008 was released yesterday (June 3).

For the past few months various rumours have been floating around suggesting that major transport projects would be pushed back or dropped altogether. It seemed the government wanted to dampen expectations with regards to major projects.

Well, it turns out the rumours were wrong.

I have had a quick look through the SEQIPP document, and in particular the summary tables of works. There is a lot of motorway work, but there is also an incredible amount of infrastructure work now scheduled and budgeted for PT. Most of these are new for 2008.

Rail

$872 million for Darra - Springfield Rail (delivery by 2019)
$1.4 billion for Ipswich to Springfield Rail (commencing 2012)
$1.3 billion for Gowrie to Granchester Rail (Toowoomba Range freight bypass I presume) (commencing 2019)
$550 million for Petrie to Redcliffe (commencing 2019)
$1.1 billion for Robina to Elanora (underway)
$650 million for Elanora to Coolangatta (commencing 2019)
$650 million for Caboolture to Landsborough duplication (underway)
$800 million for Landsborough to Nambour duplication (planning to start now)

and of course the biggie:

$7.3 billion for Inner City Rail Capacity (commencing now)

Bus

$310 million for Centenary Highway bus lanes Ipswich Motorway - Toowong (commencing now)
$2.5 billion for Northern Busway - RCH to Kedron - Bracken Ridge (underway and continues over 20 years)
$3.1 billion for Eastern Busway - Buranda to Capalaba (commencing now)
$365 million for SE Busway extension to Springwood (commencing 2011)

$420 million for a mysterious Brisbane Cross River Bus Access (commencing 2012)
$750 for an HOV network program (commencing now)

and then there is the strangely named

'Public Transport'

$1.7 billion for Gold Coast Rapid Transit (commencing now)
$3.1 billion for CAMCOS - Beerwah - Caloundra - Maroochydore (commencing 2012)
(CAMCOS is supposed to be a suburban rail extension, so I don't know what it is doing here with GCRT that will probably be LRT)

Exciting times ahead!

Busway blues

2008-05-28T20:21:00.004+10:00

Brisbane's new Inner Northern Busway opened on May 19th. My bus route was one of those changed to use it.

The new cross-platform arrangement with trains at Roma Street is pretty neat (although the platform is the used once-a-day standard gauge platform).

Apart from that, I must say I am particularly underwhelmed by the changes.

Under the old system, my bus came down Countess Street, turned left at the lights onto Roma Street, stopped outside the station, continued along Roma Street, turned left at Turbot Street, right at Edward Street, stopping outside Central Station then left into Queen Street to a terminus outside the GPO.

Under the new route the bus runs down Countess Street, turns sharp left at Roma Street onto the busway on ramp (stop at lights) then up to the busway through route (stop at lights), turn right, stops at the Roma Street station, along the busway, into the left lane just short of King George Square station (stop at lights), turn right and out of busway onto Roma Street again, turn right (no signals) onto Roma Street slip road, left at Turbot Street and then as before to Central and the GPO.

Seeing as I get off at the Central Station stop, the whole deal has probably added 2-3 minutes to my trip in the morning.

There's no improvement in reliability either because the congested part of the bus route is Musgrave Road through Red Hill before you get to the city. Roma Street was never any problem.

Woo! Go BRT!

What is a metro - and does Brisbane need one?

2008-05-09T20:00:00.006+10:00

On Wednesday I posted a set of pictures, and asked which ones were from a so-called 'metro' and which ones weren't.

This is what they were:

1. A high end 'light rail' system, the Tyne and Wear Metro
2. High capacity electric 'heavy' railway, the Berlin U-Bahn
3. Lightweight diesel railcars ('Pacers') from the West Yorkshire Metro
4. High capacity electric 'heavy' railway, the original Paris Metro
5. High capacity electric 'heavy' railway, the District Line of the London Underground
6. A high end 'light rail' system with city centre tunnel, the Docklands Light Railway (also in London)
7. A bus from the Adelaide metro (which also features some diesel railcars on a rather run-down railway network)

The Berlin and the two London examples aren't called 'metro'. All the others are. Looks can be deceiving!

(My offer of a half-mark was for recognising that the District Line began its life as the Metropolitan District Railway! I have also noticed that the Berlin U-Bahn web page refers to it in English as "metro". I don't recall hearing the term used in Berlin myself)

Obviously I picked this list for a point, and not just because they are all systems I have ridden on. The dictionary definition that is simply 'an underground railway like the one in Paris' isn't enough on its own: West Yorkshire and Adelaide don't have underground parts to their 'metro', and in London it's always 'the Underground' or more often 'the Tube', never 'the Metro'.

As a professional transport planner, I have had to deal with various demands for a 'metro' for Brisbane. When I sat down with a rail engineer we discovered that we had very different ideas about what defined a metro. He immediately thought big and bulky like the London Underground; I thought fast and flexible like DLR or Tyne and Wear. It was just what we were used to. What we agreed on, though, were:

It's a railway
It serves a city
It offers a frequent service
It is high capacity and probably has lots of standing room on board
It has closely spaced stations for maximum coverage
It is preferably designed with lots of doors for fast loading and unloading
It serves in part a distribution function (not just a home-work commute function)
It is a marketing term

We agreed that it would probably be underground for at least part of its route because this was the only way it would serve the inner city area. We also agreed that the Brisbane Citytrain system already shows many characteristics of a metro, and with improved vehicle design (for faster loading and unloading) and more frequent services (especially in the off peak) it probably ought to be called one.

What we also agreed upon was that Brisbane doesn't need a totally new independent underground rail line or loop of the London Underground or Paris Metro type: it simply doesn't have the population numbers or city size and shape to make it worth while. Certainly, any attempt to curtail Citytrain's operations at the city fringes and make people transfer to a metro for their final destination ('like London') is a very bad idea - and bad history to boot.

As the inner areas of Australia's capital cities increase in population through densification and urban renewal, there will be a need for improved public transport. Except for Melbourne (where the trams still have much potential) this is going to mean new dedicated facilities. I personally feel that there is much benefit in exploring the 'lightweight' metro of the Tyne and Wear or DLR model as a complement to the existing suburban railways, rather than trying to copy London or Paris.

Which of these is not a metro?

2008-05-07T21:20:00.002+10:00

Metro appears to be the transport buzz word of the moment:

Brisbane Courier Mail:
Designer advises Brisbane to go underground for metro rail

Sydney Morning Herald:
Bye heavy rail, now for a north-west metro

The "Eddington Report" from Melbourne:
melbourne metro -‘new generation’ rail tunnel (warning PDF)

But what is a metro anyway?

The dictionary defines it as

metro

• noun (pl. metros) an underground railway system in a city, especially Paris.

So, quickly now, which of the following is doesn't have "metro" anywhere in its name? (I'll accept two or three in the answer)

1.

2. (please excuse gratuitous picture of me)

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Answers next time - and with it some rational discussion on why it matters.

(for images 1, 4, and 6 I am indebted to Wikimedia Commons, and in particular photographers Chris McKenna and "Pline")

Quality control

2008-02-22T18:36:00.002+10:00

From a conversation at work today:

Me: So you are saying it is better to be consistent than right?
Boss: Yes

Says a lot, really.

Rain

2008-02-08T19:49:00.000+10:00

So far, 2008 has been wet.

Really really wet.

Rain nearly every day this month.

Brisbane's dams are now over 30% of capacity (up from something like 15% this time last year)

There are gullies across my back yard where the water running under the fence from my neighbour has pushed aside the gravel. The whole lower back yard is a damp mess. The vegies, especially the tomatoes have given up the ghost with the swampy ground.

Amazingly there was just a little bit of sun yesterday and this afternoon, so for the first time in 3 weeks I get to mow the lawn, which is inches high. Of course, I run out of petrol half way through.

Bet it rains tomorrow again!

On projects and confidentially

2008-02-02T08:17:00.000+10:00

OK, I'm bad. No post for 10 weeks.

The thing is, I have been really busy at work on all sorts of potentially very interesting projects. Unfortunately, none of the work is in the public domain and I'm not really allowed to talk about it. One of the projects would lead to a potentially multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects so I can understand why Queensland Transport wouldn't want any information to get out, apart from what it lets out itself.

At least I am going to get a report out on Monday for the other project which has been keeping me insane for months.

I can't wait for the reports to become public so I can make comment.

Sigh.

Gratuitous holiday shot

2007-11-22T22:35:00.000+10:00

(Ribblehead Viaduct for those who were wondering)

Fight Ignorance

2007-11-19T07:35:00.000+10:00

I guess Saturday's post needs a little explanation.

On Friday I went on a trip on business up to the Sunshine Coast. I was appalled at the number of "One Nation" and Pauline Hanson posters (it is election time). ON's slogan appears to be "We're not PC. We tell it like it is" and Hanson's is "Protecting the Australian way of life".

Sadly too many people believe them, and can't and won't see that other people have other viewpoints that just might not be inferior to their own narrow 1950s view of the world.

I wanted to say something that rejected their point of view, without giving them and potential legitimacy through mentioning them by name.

Hence the slogan.

Thought of the day

2007-11-17T14:23:00.000+10:00

Word text annoyance

2007-09-02T11:25:00.000+10:00

I write lots of statistics papers.

My everyday word processor is, like millions of other people, Microsoft Word. The 2003 version in my case.

There is one thing that really annoys me. There is no simple way to generate an 'over bar' text decoration, without having to go the whole Insert-Object-Microsoft Equation 3.0 route. Which is really frustrating because this decoration is

(a) about the only symbol you can't easily reproduce using normal text in Word, and
(b) about the most common statistical symbol (sample mean).

There's got to be a better way: perhaps a specialist font I can install?

Brisbane Inner City Rail Capacity Study

2007-08-26T09:54:00.000+10:00

According to a story in today's Brisbane Sunday Mail, there is a 'bold new government plan' to develop new a new underground railway for Brisbane:

BRISBANE could have two under-the-river rail tunnels and a new rail bridge in a bold State Government public transport plan.

There could be major new train stations at Woolloongabba, Gardens Point and the "financial district" at Eagle St, and a redeveloped Exhibition line for year-round use.

Transport and Main Roads Minister Paul Lucas will today unveil details of a $5 million feasibility study to develop options for connecting the rail network north and south of the Brisbane River.

I don't think I will be breaking any rules of confidentiality if I mention that this project is one of the reasons I haven't been able to post anything in the last month :-p

The bus goes where?

2007-06-09T16:21:00.000+10:00

Information in the Brisbane bus system is generally pretty good. The Translink website is pretty comprehensive, timetables are available from most council libraries and various information centres. Buses all have clear route numbers and destinations, with all but the oldest buses having very bright digital displays. Just about every stop in the network has a timetable, bigger stops in the city and at interchanges have maps too. At many major stops and interchanges there are also digital displays indicating the next few bus departures (this is based on a recorded timetable, not real-time, though)

There is one really weird feature of the system that can cause confusion to the new user.

Most bus routes have two "different" destinations depending what form of information you are looking at. If you use the printed timetables or look at the bus itself you get one destination. If you look at the digital displays or on timetables posted on timetables you get a completely different destination listed!

Take my route for example, if you have a look at the printed timetable (or its pdf version) you will be told that it is 433 Kenmore South to City (all stops). When the bus comes along its destination sign will tell you 433 Kenmore via Indooroopilly (or 433 City via Indooroopilly) depending on the direction. Fair enough I guess.

Now, however, if you look at a timetable posted on a bus stop, or at one of the digital displays (see above) it will be 433 Kilkivan. Where? Well the final stop on this route would appear to be Stop 39A ("Kilkivan Av Opp Cromarty St") which has been loaded into the electronic system as "Kilkivan".

Similarly there is no such place as "Centenary". Bus 106 goes to Mt Ommaney Shopping Centre (in Mt Ommaney), which is located just off Centenary Highway.

There is, however, a place called Moggill and as the bus terminus is a turnaround at a corner paddock, it's called Moggill. The destination will be 444 Moggill BUZ.

Confusing? Yes.

Destination Downtown

2007-05-05T17:22:00.000+10:00

I was thinking the other day about bus destination signs (sad, I know). I thought it a bit odd how different cities' services label the CBD destination.

Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane all have destination "City". Melbourne's trams often use a combination of "City" and street name or just the street name. Or at least they used to, I don't know what the modern ones do. I *think* Hobart uses "City" too.

Sydney buses are a little different and they use the "district" of the CBD that they terminate in. These are mostly the same as the railway station. Some that I remember are "Wynyard", "Circular Quay" and of "Railway" (for Railway Square/Central Station). I have a vague recollection of "City-Wynyard" as well. I wouldn't mind knowing what some of the longer distance suburban services (e.g. Westbus' services from Castle Hill) say.

Finally there is Perth. For some reason, the default is "Perth", not "City". Older buses will say "Perth" or "Wellington Street Bus Station". Newer buses use "Esplanade Busport" or "Welllington Street Bus Station". Some of the services from the outer Northern suburbs use "Perth City Centre".

Odd. Not important, but odd.

Daily Commute

2007-04-28T09:36:00.000+10:00

Inspired by The Age "Management Line" Blog article Daily Commute Blues, here is my typical morning commute, as recorded by me last Monday.

7.15 am leave home, walk to bus stop
7.22 am arrive at bus stop
7.31 am bus arrives at stop (7 minutes late)
7.59 am bus arrives at Indooroopilly Bus Station (12 minutes late)
walk to Indooroopilly Railway Station
8.04 am arrive at railway station
8.06 am train departs Indooroopilly (1 minute late)
8.23 am train arrives Central Station (1 minute late)
walk up hill to office
8.30 am arrive office (dead on time)

The last few days the bus has been arriving at Indooroopilly as late as 8.02 am meaning I get the 8.08 stopping train.

I also recorded it the week after Easter when both schools and universities were on
vacation:

7.15 am leave home, walk to bus stop
7.22 am arrive at bus stop
7.26 am bus arrives at stop (1 minutes late)
7.45 am bus arrives at Indooroopilly Bus Station (2 minutes early)
walk to Indooroopilly Railway Station
7.50 am arrive at railway station
7.51 am train departs Indooroopilly (1 minute late)
8.05 am train arrives Central Station (1 minute late)
walk up hill to office
8.12 am arrive office (18 minutes early)

What a difference education trips make!

About my job

2007-04-22T10:50:00.000+10:00

When I interviewed with my employer in February I interviewed for a transport planner job, and said that strategic planning with an emphasis on modelling was where I wanted to go, so to speak. This was seen as acceptable all round.

In the 2 months I have been there, I have probably spent 60 minutes on transport planning. Instead I have been working full time as a project manager. This means:

* Writing weekly and monthly progress reports
* Defining staff tasks and setting deadlines
* Monitoring staff progress
* Organising meetings and workshops, and attending same
* Writing minutes and agendas
* Collecting data and reports from clients
* Allocating staff time to budgets and reallocating as required
* Organising contracts and work tasks for subcontractors
* Sorting out the mess caused by not having everything in place properly the first time

Emotionally draining and intellectually stultifying.

There is absolutely no way I want to do this full time for the rest of my career. In fact, I don't know if I will last till the end of the month, the rate I am going.

grr >:/

April had better be wet

2007-04-07T10:10:00.000+10:00

No sooner had I published yesterday's post than we got a spot of rain. Just enough to layer the dust and make me bring the washing in. According to the bureau 1.2mm at Brisbane Airport weather station.

Still, April (and May, June, July) are going to have to be incredibly wet if Brisbane is to avoid disaster. Jan/Feb/Mar are supposed to be the wettest months, but in the March just gone we got less than 1/5 of the average rainfall for the month.

Check the graph below which shows average and past 12 months' rainfall for Brisbane (airport).

I have heard on the grapevine that 'apocalypse' scenarios for Brisbane are being considered: when does trucking of drinking water start, what are the evacuation options if the pipes run dry.

Scary stuff.

Why do they keep saying it will rain?

2007-04-06T11:23:00.000+10:00

I have come to the conclusion that the Bureau of Meteorology model to predict short term rainfall needs serious recalibration.

It seems like every week for the past 6 weeks the forecast has been "fine" with showers later in the week. As the week goes by, the forecast slowly changes to "fine" with a few showers by the middle of the next week, and by the middle of the next week, well, you get the picture.

There was even a day (when I was in the country) when I was warned to get home early because a major storm was approaching Brisbane. Brisbane had 1.4mm of rain that day.

The fact is that in the two months that I have been in Brisbane there has been one day of reasonable rain that I can remember, plus one very light sprinkle yesterday.

I get the feeling that normal service won't return any time soon.

Here

2007-03-31T17:27:00.000+10:00

Yes, I am here, alive and kicking.

Well sorta.

I was planning posts about the drive across the Nullabour. They may happen yet, but till then I have only 2 words: do it.

I've been flat-chat as I'm working full time and have been plunged into the deep end managing a project reviewing a rail corridor and station location in SEQ. Going from 3 years as part-time student and part-time self-employed to an 8.30 - 5 office job (with a 70 minute commute either end) has been a killer.

More on that later.

Goodbye Perth

2007-01-28T18:24:00.000+10:00

This will be the last post I make from Perth. There is little left in the flat but a whole lot of packing cartons, some semi-disassembled furniture, and a computer.

It has been a roller-coaster of a three years. There have been some terrible lows and some amazing highs. I have met some wonderful people, and I would like to say thank you to them for being such great friends. I'd especially like to single out AH and AM - you know who you are!

The removalists arrive at 7.30 am tomorrow and then we are in the car on Thursday morning for the next big adventure.

See you there!

Goodbye, it's time I sought a foreign clime,
Where I may find there are hearts more kind than I leave behind.
And so I go to fight the savage foe,
Although I know I'll be sometimes missed by the girls I've kissed.

In some Abyssinian French dominion I shall do my bit,
And fall for the flag if I must.
Where the desert sand is nice and handy, I'll be full of grit,
You won't see my heels for the dust.

...

Goodbye. Goodbye. I wish you all a last "Goodbye".
Goodbye. Goodbye. I wish you all a last "Goodbye"