ACT Government announces plan for new rapid bus routes

[vnguyen]

The government has released a plan to inclue 7 new rapids by 2020.

You can read the article here.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/act-government-announces-seven-new-rapid-bus-routes-in-network-overhaul-20160826-gr24zs.html

[Barry Drive]

Rapid network map (from ACT Light Rail website ):



(Edit: previous link to ACT Chief Minister's facebook announcement has broken)

[vnguyen]

I'm assume the Green Rapid from Manuka to Woden will go down Captain Cook Crescent and follow on to the current routes 4 and 5 from Goyder St. Another possibility is to go via Jerrabomberra Avenue and Hindmarsh Drive.

[Sylvan Loves Buses]

I'm just thinking about it now, it won't be hard for us, but all the elderly, and such will become very confused with all this I would imagine, so many rapid colours to remember and such.

With the yellow rapid though, would I be right to presume that it would go to the business parks, and not actually into the airport (cause as some one told me recently there's a charge or something that you have to pay to enter, which is why ACTION buses haven't gone there since '98)?

-I kinda got the impression that the 250 was supposed to be the pink rapid cause of the colour that is used for it on the timetables.

Also, cause i'm pretty sure this is related to that other topic, does this also mean the thing about different coloured buses? (at least there isn't a brown *cough poo* coloured one this time {yet} ).

[Northside]

I still don't understand what the obsession is with drawing colourful lines on a map. The gov't panned the Liberals, with good reason, for their maps, then they go and copy them!

I agree, the bus system could do with an overhaul and more rapid routes in place, but seriously, who is coming up with the designs? The reason behind the success of the red and blue rapids is that they act as fast/frequent feeder services for local lines and they do not replicate existing lines. Introducing a rapid line to Watson, for example, would either replicate existing services or replace them (meaning a much longer walk to a bus stop) and will not feed into any other services. The Weston line replicates existing services that could be streamlined to provide the same service without replication.

You can easily combine a few similar routes together to provide similar 'rapid' lines between town centres and local centres, increase the frequency and stop buses from running identical routes. This would also free up buses for inter-town routes throughout the day that take a more direct route and bypass the city - ie Belco to Woden/Tuggers via the parkway.

Until you have a complete plan for the system including how all the pieces fit together, don't bother drawing pretty lines on a map, we aren't fooled!

[Sylvan Loves Buses]

I totally agree with you @Northside

in my opinion though, there should be other routes that should be made that are more convenient as apposed to certain slightly different routes that just (like Northside mentioned) replicate other routes - they should be routes that are accessible, but also good for other uses.

For example the 705 Tuggeranong-Belco and back all day would be one to suggest (well at least before it had its Weston extension put back), cause it's convenient, and takes 15-30 minutes less time to get to the either ends of Canberra than the 300s.

Another few that I thought of were a Tuggeranong-Hume-(possibly airport)-City or Gungahlin (via behind Mt Ainslie on Monaro or whatever it's called).

or even a redesign of the 250 to continue along William Slim instead of turning right to pass Kaleen. - I say this one like that, cause I was up at Gungahlin some time ago, and I had the choice of either a sweaty hot (with the option of natural cool air) PR3 51, or a not-as-nice-out-of-my-control-artificial-cool-air Euro6 250, and a few minutes before they came, I checked their times, and noticed only a difference of 5 minutes. The 250 is supposed to be the express route to Belconnen, yet during the middle of the day, there's only a 5 minute gap between it and a windy suburban route. If they cut off the Baldwin Drive turnoff, and made it go the same way the 51/52 go, (judging by the times I just checked), it would save another 6 minutes. 11 minutes vs 5 is more express like imo. - Hope they thought of that too for the Black Rapid

(actually, maybe I should tell them that - who do I email/call?)

[Bus 503]

To get people to catch public transport, it doesn't matter how many 'rapid' routes you have, you need to make routes get to where they need to go, faster and more efficiently. The 300 series currently takes too long to connect the major town centres. What they really need to do is create a blue rapid equivalent of the route 202. There are much to many stops on the route 300, and as far as I know, from Belconnen to Woden, all stops are used and there are no ones that are skipped so I'm really not sure how that's 'limited stops'. It may be more convenient for passengers to have stops everywhere on rapid routes so they get off exactly where they need to go, but that is not the point of a rapid bus.

There are lots of questions I have because some of the routes are quite pointless in my opinion. Does there really need to be a rapid going from Belconnen to Watson, or Belconnen to the Airport? City to Airport is a much better alternative I think.

Also, this 'rapid' branding really annoys me, because all I can see are bus services running quite frequently for no reason at all going down suburban streets in the proposed plan. I think they need to make buses compete with cars in the time sense because it really is frustrating going from Belconnen to City in peak hours in around twenty-five minutes knowing that a car could probably do it in ten or fifteen minutes, and that you're stuck on this bus because people have to keep getting on and off, even though the route is branded as an 'express' service with 'limited stops'.

[Buzz Killington]

would I be right to presume that it would go to the business parks, and not actually into the airport

You'd be wrong. The stated intent is to run to the terminal. You'll notice that the pink and yellow Rapids aren't projected to commence until 2020, allowing plenty of time to negotiate arrangements with the Airport management.

[Sylvan Loves Buses]

Well that makes sense for sure with that time-frame, and I must say it is about time they did something like that (if it really does happen) esp as there hasn't been a direct route since the 80 (which also did go from Belconnen) back in '98-'99.

although (once again imo) a direct route to the airport from Tuggeranong as well as Belconnen, and possibly woden/gungahlin too would be good also.

[Barry Drive]

You can change buses, you know. Are there really hoardes of people all wanting to go to and from the airport at all hours of the day from all over Canberra?

[The Love Guru]

2 x 15 minute frequency runs to the airport is a ridiculous idea. Complete waste of money.
They will still run peak services as they do now and replace the 11 with a rapid run. Call it good. 15 min service to/from the city is enough.

Same as the Erindale rapid. If the local services were scheduled and designed correctly they could achieve a 15 min frequency to our from direct from Erindale to Woden/Tuggies.

After the election they'll claim they have no money and can't do it anyway.

Only got to look at the 6 month weekend network we got, 6 or so years ago

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[Northside]

You can change buses, you know. Are there really hoardes of people all wanting to go to and from the airport at all hours of the day from all over Canberra?

Exactly why these plans are awful. Have one rapid route from the city to the airport and business parks makes sense. Then for ppl heading south they can transfer to a rapid route from city or even Russell (akin to an all day 79# that actually runs express, as opposed to the 'rapid' bus that winds its way through every inner south suburb in the current plan). Having more frequent routes means that transferring services should be a smooth/attractive thing to do, as opposed to the nightmare it is now.

[Sylvan Loves Buses]

2 x 15 minute frequency runs to the airport is a ridiculous idea. Complete waste of money.
They will still run peak services as they do now and replace the 11 with a rapid run. Call it good. 15 min service to/from the city is enough.

Oh, no no no no no, I was thinking of hourly (or 90min like the 81/88) services for the airport runs, not rapids - cause it was just an idea (sure, I admit it was a slightly off-topic idea). I was thinking it, cause the Tuggeranong/Woden Valley and Northern suburban residents have to travel to get up to 3 buses just to get to the airport (atm, to get near it, and walk a couple hundred yards), cutting it down to 1-2 would be more convenient imo.

Waste of money? what does that matter? ACTION already loses $50mil (or whatever it is now days) a year anyway. Just imagine how much more they'll lose annually with this rapid scheme. - not to mention the trams overall annual cost too.

[Northside]

Oh, no no no no no, I was thinking of hourly (or 90min like the 81/88) services for the airport runs, not rapids - cause it was just an idea (sure, I admit it was a slightly off-topic idea). I was thinking it, cause the Tuggeranong/Woden Valley and Northern suburban residents have to travel to get up to 3 buses just to get to the airport (atm, to get near it, and walk a couple hundred yards), cutting it down to 1-2 would be more convenient imo.

Waste of money? what does that matter? ACTION already loses $50mil (or whatever it is now days) a year anyway. Just imagine how much more they'll lose annually with this rapid scheme. - not to mention the trams overall annual cost too.

I'm pretty sure The Love Guru was commenting on the government's proposal of 2 x 15 mins Rapid routes to the Airport proposal. Which is a complete overkill, and still will be by 2020.

[Sylvan Loves Buses]

oh right, sorry

[Bus 503]

Waste of money? what does that matter? ACTION already loses $50mil (or whatever it is now days) a year anyway. Just imagine how much more they'll lose annually with this rapid scheme. - not to mention the trams overall annual cost too.

Where do you get this "50 million dollar" loss each year? Have you got any evidence to back this up?
As for the loss on the proposed rapid routes, sure there will be losses because people in Canberra just don't take buses, so who knows why they think buses are going to work. Not sure what you're going on about with the tram though.

[The Love Guru]

I think you'll find the loss is around double the $50M stated

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[Sylvan Loves Buses]

I think you'll find the loss is around double the $50M stated

Yeah, that's likely, although I did check out the TC annual report, and I saw 33.7mil for last year, so I was merely averaging it (cause i've been told, and have several newspaper articles on different 8 figure sums for several different years)