South/West Belconnen & Kippax services

[Barry Drive]

I intend to write to ACTION with these ideas for improvements to the services to South and West Belconnen:

(1) Extend Intertown Routes 318 and 319 to Kippax along Southern Cross Dr, Moyes Cr, Flack St to Kippax. This will provide a 15 minute direct service between Kippax and Belconnen and provide connections with the new routes below. (To offset extension to Kippax, off-peak intertown to be reduced to 4 routes: 114, 115, 318 and 319 which run every 7-8 minutes; 114 and 115 will only travel as far as Woden Interchange. Route 12 can be re-numbered as 48 and commence/terminate from Cohen St instead of Cameron Ave.)

(2) Replace routes 13, 16, 17, 43 and 44 with loop services from Belconnen via Kippax. Any of these services can be run as a short-working service to or from Kippax as required or extended onto Intertown services during peak. They are also all suitable to be run 7 days a week on an hourly frequency.

(a) Route 41/42 - Charnwood, Dunlop, Kippax, Holt, Scullin, Page

BELCONNEN BUS STATIONS, Nettlefold St, (R) Coulter Dr, Ginninderra Dr, Tillyard Dr, Lhotsky St, Kerrigan St, (possible diversion along Lance Hill Av to West Dunlop,) Ginninderra Dr, Archdall St, Handcock Cr, Florey Dr, (L) Southern Cross Dr, Moyes Cr, Flack St, Hardwick Cr, KIPPAX, Hardwick Cr, Luke St, Starke St, Beaurepaire Cr, Southern Cross Dr, Spofforth St, Drake Brockman Dr, Kingsford Smith Dr, Wirraway Cr, (L) Ross Smith Cr, McGinness St, Chewings St, Petterd St, Ogibly Cr, Nettlefold St to BELCONNEN BUS STATIONS

(b) Route 43/44 - Charnwood Shops, Dunlop, Macgregor, Kippax, Higgins, Scullin

BELCONNEN BUS STATIONS, Nettlefold St, Coulter Dr, Ginninderra Dr, Tillyard Dr, Lhotsky St, Florey Dr, Ginninderra Dr, Lance Hill Av, Kerrigan St, Ginninderra Dr, Archdall St, Osburn Dr, (possible diversion along Ecceles Cr to West Macgregor,) O'Reilly St, Southern Cross Dr, Starke St, Luke St, Hardwick Cr, KIPPAX, Hardwick Cr, Luke St, Starke St, 1st Fullagar Cr, Castieau St, Kingsford Smith Dr, Wirraway Cr, (R) Ross Smith Cr, Mackinolty St, Belconnen Way, Benjamin Way, College St, Nettlefold St to BELCONNEN BUS STATIONS

(c) Route 46/47 - Florey, Latham, Kippax, Higgins, Hawker, Weetangera (current routes 16 and 17 joined together with variations in Holt)

BELCONNEN BUS STATION, Nettlefold St, Coulter Dr, Southern Cross Dr, Ratcliffe Cr, Krefft St, Kingsford Smith Dr, O'Loghlan St, Onslow St, Dalley Cr, Macrossan Cr, Dalley Cr, Southern Cross Dr, Starke St, Moyes Cr, Flack St, Hardwick Cr, KIPPAX, Hardwick Cres (past K-S school), (L) Starke St, Fullagar Cr, Findlay St, Kinsella St, Drake Brockman Dr, Kingsford Smith Dr, Belconnen Way, Murranji St, Erldunda Cct, Murranji St, Beetaloo St, Hawker Pl, Springvale Dr, Gillespie St, Schumack St, Coulter Dr, Nettlefold St to BELCONNEN BUS STATIONS

(3) Modify route 45 to travel as far as Charnwood Shops then turn around and return.


BENEFITS:
Additional links from Kippax to Charnwood and Dunlop.
No removal of existing links to Kippax.
All but 3 sets of bus stops from existing services remain serviced.
Charnwood, Dunlop and Holt benefit from more direct services.
Only the Intertown services will terminate at Kippax eliminating the excessive layover times.


Questions, comments, additional suggestions welcomed.

[Snorzac]

That is a great idea. I think that the intertown should just be a service from Kippax to Tuggeranong meeting with suburban feeder services at Kippax and Interchanges. The weekend network has the right idea but it isn't executed properly.

[Irisbus Rider]

Sounds great! It's a much better way of providing a (better) service to West Belconnen without using any more buses than are being used at the moment.

If only there were some way to get ACTION to wake up, smell the coffee, and realise there is a much much better way of doing things!

[Buzz Killington]

Excellent ideas there Martin. Definite improvements over what's there already.

Network 98 initially did have Intertowns that ran from Kippax to Tuggers (316 and 317) but they got canned pretty early on IIRC.

[smitho]

....and there were those 100 Link Intertowns from Kippax to Woden which ran both in peak and off-peak and which got axed last April (08) as I recall.....

[Irisbus Rider]

I think the difference between those are that the 116 and 117 went via the suburbs between Kippax and Belconnen, whereas, this proposal would provide a direct link (similar to the current route of the 43) between Kippax and Belconnen.

[ajw373]

Ancient thread I know, but in light of the discussion in the budget 2012/13 thread and the specific relevance to this topic thought it was worth reviving.

So in the almost 3 years since this was written at least one of the suggestions has come true which is the 318/319 extended to Kippax. So for my suggestions will keep that and also add the 313 as a Kippax terminator, meaning a 300 series bus from Kippax every 10 minutes, 5 in peak. I have also tried to change the thinking that everything needs to go to Belconnen with Kippax as a major focus point.

However the suggestions above for a 41/42, 43/44 I don't like too much as I personally reckon Dunlop residents in particular would be short changed by having excessive time added to their trip and I reckon advantage needs to be taken of having the 3 300 series buses terminating at Kippax (meaning less need to run suburban buses through Kippax onwards to Belconnen)

So for my routes as you can see I am old school 80's with my numbering. (excuse street spelling where wrong you get the idea)

Route 450.

Starting at Fraser West, R Shakespeare, L Kerrigan, R Lhotsky, R Tilyard, R Gininderra, L Florey, R Osbourne (the end closest to Kippax) L O'Reiley, L Southern Cross, R Starke terminate at Kippax.

Route 451.

Starting at Fraser West R Shakespeare, R Kerrigan, L Lance Hill, R Gininderra, L Archdall, R Osbourne, R Cannan, R at roundabout, then follow through onto MacFarland Burnett, L Southern Cross Drive, R Starke Street Terminate Kippax.

Route 452.

Starting at Kippax, L Southern Cross, R O'Reily, L Osbourne L Archdall Street, L Ginninderra, R Kerrigan, R Lance Hill, L Ginninderra, L Florey, R Lhotsky, R Tilliard, L Gininderra, L Compaingion, L Kingsford Smith Drive, R Verbrughan, R Copland, John Cleland, R Coulter, then through all the Belco stops. Frequencies the same both ways, as passengers from Macgregor/Dunlop can either go to Kippax to change for 300 series or go otherway to Belconnen. Main reason for this route doing what it is, is to provide a connection through to the Copland College area but also serving Kippax for those in Macgregor, Charnwood and Dunlop and Belconnen for Charnwood, Flynn and Melba.

Route 453.

Start at Kippax L Flack, R Moyes, R Starke, L Fullagar, L Castieu, R Kingsford Smith, L Wirraway then follow current 313 route to Belconnen to terminate. Gives passengers from Fraser, Charnwood and Macgregor access to Kippax and express buses to Belconnen and then serves part of Higgins, Scullin and Page, so really could be two routes if need be.

I would also look at some of the other routes in Holt/Higgins/Latham etc to see if maybe it was faster, during peak in particular to have the flow heading towards Kippax for people to change to buses to Belconnen from there, though being closer to Belconnen back-tracking to Kippax would be less ideal compared to Dunlop and Macgregor.

So a complete rethink taking advantage of the 300's extending to Kippax and no need for any new terminus.

[smitho]

I think the difference between those are that the 116 and 117 went via the suburbs between Kippax and Belconnen, whereas, this proposal would provide a direct link (similar to the current route of the 43) between Kippax and Belconnen.

When I operated these routes, I was impressed at the amount of patronage collected off-peak in the suburbs; in fact, I was surprised that these 100 Links were axed at all. I guess one difference now is that Belconnen Mall has better 'pulling power' now compared with Woden, which was no so much the case 5 years ago.