The 198 “Hail and Ride” Bus service has been cut.
The 192 University, Highgate Hill, West End service has been cut.
Helen Abrahams says that the residents of Highgate Hill have no bus service along Dornoch Terrace. Residents already have to walk up one of the steepest hills in Brisbane but now they have to walk even further to a bus service.
The Hail and Ride service links the West End Peninsula to the Mater and Princess Alexandra Hospitals. It provides a vital service to the residents in West End, Highgate Hill and South Brisbane who do not own a vehicle to have direct public transport access to hospital. This route was reviewed previously but retained because of the high need for the elderly and those with reduced mobility.
It is not acceptable that patients have to travel to the Cultural Centre to then travel outbound to the hospital and then a similar indirect route home.
3,072 dwellings (18.2%) in The Gabba Ward have no car. compared to 9.5% for Brisbane. Highgate Hill has 17.7% private dwellings with no car.
Many of these residents rely on public transport as their form of transport. They will be left with no service along one of the main roads in Highgate Hill. The Gabba Ward is over-represented with people without a car, that is why these cross suburb services are so important.
The review has focused on commuter travel and ignored the needs of the elderly, those people with reduced mobility and those people needing to attend hospital regularly.
Further, the loss of these two services in the West End Peninsula means 21 streets in Highgate Hill are more than 400 metres from a bus route and even further to the bus stop with this change. The State Government’s own policy is 400 metres between bus stops so a distance of 200 metres for passengers to walk to a public transport service.
“I have already had elderly residents contact me about their concerns about getting to the hospital and their shopping centre if this service was reduced. I am sure they will be horrified to hear it has been cut,” said Helen.
The 109 service from the CBD to the University across the Eleanor Schonell Bridge was the first high frequency service. Additional services were introduced in the second week of operation due to demand for this route. Now it is extended to the Kelvin Grove Campus. The review does not clarify the frequency, but it may be 15 minute services rather than the 5 minute or 10 minute service delivery at the moment. So a successful bus service becomes twice as long, and passengers may have to wait twice as long for a bus.
The 230 and 235 routes that service East Brisbane residents will have generally the same frequency.
A petition to save our local bus services is available at Helen’s website: www.helenabrahams.com
TransLink Transit Authority Public Transport Infrastructure Manual
2.1.2 Principles of bus stop placement
It is important to ensure that all stops along a bus route are accessible to an acceptable standard to maintain equitable access for all passengers. Failure to implement accessible bus stops will reduce the quality of the public transport experience for passengers and may consequently hinder the development of a high-quality public transport system that is easy to use. The concept of providing a quality journey from decision to destination (as outlined in the TransLink Network Plan) must be recognised for a passenger catching a bus who is also a pedestrian at each end of a bus trip. As a result, a bus stop is not interpreted as simply a location for boarding and alighting a bus, but instead as the key connection between the surrounding land use and a public transport service (i.e. as a point of interchange between a pedestrian trip and a public transport trip). Additionally, bus stop planning and design is to be done in conjunction with appropriate pedestrian planning to ensure a highly-accessible environment.
The following section highlights the foremost considerations when locating bus stops in the early planning and design phase.
It is intended that stop spacing on a bus route is ideally between 400 metres and 800 metres for most services. In the case of inner city or densely built up areas, a spacing of less than 400 metres may be warranted along a route while express services may range greater than 800 metres between stops.
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