19 April 2013

ACTION providing free buses to the ANZAC Test match

| Barcham
Join the conversation
12

Heading to the League match tonight? Want to be packed into a small confined space with a bunch of drunken football fans? Why not catch the free shuttle bus!

With a crowd expected to exceed 25,000, those going to the historic Anzac Test Match at Canberra Stadium on Friday night are encouraged to catch the free shuttle buses and avoid the stress of battling the traffic and finding a place to park.

In order to cater for the larger than usual crowd, ACTION will operate shuttle services from the City, Tuggeranong, Woden, Gungahlin and Belconnen interchanges.

Services will commence from Tuggeranong at 5.30, Woden 5.47, City and Belconnen at 6 and Gungahlin at 6.15.
Full details of all shuttle services are available on the ACTION website and return buses to all major bus stations will commence 20 minutes after the game.

This is good news for people attending tonight. I wonder why we don’t see this happen more often at events.

Where was this on Canberra Day?

Join the conversation

12
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

Thats a strange route to take, especially since the act gov have spent tens of millions building bus lanes between belconnen and civic to shave minutes off the commuting time.

gooterz said :

Yet plenty of 300’s were driving straight past the gates. Its really not ‘that’ much of a walk from Haydon drive.

I was waiting in Belconnen for a 300, yet all the buses kept stopping and then driving on really quick. It wasn’t obvious that they were picking up footballers.

The bus I was on was practically empty. (10 people) 2 nice looking girls asked to be dropped off along Haydon drive near Battye St.

Why not just put a stop near Battye St, its the government’s job to make the Canberra people happy and to preserve resources.

You mean pay to board those buses? Can’t have that:

X71 said :

I tried to catch a bus two Saturdays ago from Harrison to gungahlin raiders club. The bus was 5 min late so I decided to walk the 20 min instead. Of course the bus went past me 3 min later!
On the way home from the game I caught the bus and they wanted $4 for the 2 bus stops!

No wonder no one catches a bus. ACTION would make more profit by scraping all bus services and buying a fleet of electric cars that would be positioned around the place for people to use.
Until that tech exists, maybe they could buy everyone a cheap car and put their money into building more roads.

X71 said :

puggy said :

puggy said :

Sorry for the quote foobar above, should be cut after …”banks are closed”

So, you are saying that the bus shouldn’t stop within 2km of my house?
It was raining that day when raiders got beat 40 zip. I would of preferd to sit in a warm dry bus than walk in the rain.
As for a card…I only catch a bus about twice a year. Why should I be penalized for being an occasional user?

I went out to the game tonight, and caught one of the free buses from Civic. Hopped on at 6.40pm, and eventually just made it in time for kickoff 80 minutes later. To be fair though, part of that was because Canberra Stadium – even knowing the game was a sellout – didn’t see fit to open all of the entry gates. So a massive scrum of people were trying to get through the 6 gates that were open, while another four sat there closed.

It was a very slow trip. The bus from Civic for some reason went up Northbourne, before meeting up with Kingsford Smith near the hockey centre. The trip from there up to the Caswell Drive intersection took about half an hour.

I heard on the bus that there had been an accident on Caswell drive too, which might explain the OP’s husband’s woes.

Heading into the stadium parking area (on the eastern side) was chaos. The car park was chockers, people were just having to pull over wherever they could, while the car park attendents still took $5 from poor suckers who had no chance of getting a proper park, and would have needed to turn around and find whatever they could. Nice scam going there…

Over all though, even though the bus was slow, it was no slower than it would have been in a car, and at least I didn’t need to worry about finding a park.

Putting on buses for events like this is great, but with no type of special bus infrastructure in the area you still end up with the same drawbacks as you’d have if you drove. It’s not like they could close off lanes heading to the stadium and turn them into bus lanes, at least not without causing absolute traffic bedlam. So the bus had to deal with the same traffic jams as everyone else.

Special mention goes to whoever at ACTION put the timetable together too, with times out to the stadium estimated as though there was no extra traffic at all!

grunge_hippy said :

don’t start the accolades yet. I just got a msg from hubby. He caught the 6:15 bus from Tuggers and is still sitting on the bus at 7:20. He says it took longer to drive along Caswell drive than it did to go on the parkway.

If they are going to offer a shuttle bus, one would think they could have an express lane for such service.

Yet plenty of 300’s were driving straight past the gates. Its really not ‘that’ much of a walk from Haydon drive.

I was waiting in Belconnen for a 300, yet all the buses kept stopping and then driving on really quick. It wasn’t obvious that they were picking up footballers.

The bus I was on was practically empty. (10 people) 2 nice looking girls asked to be dropped off along Haydon drive near Battye St.

Why not just put a stop near Battye St, its the government’s job to make the Canberra people happy and to preserve resources.

dungfungus said :

davo101 said :

Rollersk8r said :

Erm, free to the user, dingus.

I read the headline and just assumed they were laying out some fungus bait, but he hasn’t appeared to have taken it yet.

I was too busy sitting under a bridge, with my tin foil hat on, eating a Chiko roll that someone had lowered on a fish hook .
Meanwhile, lynchpossy was channeling me.

I do like a chiko roll every now and then. And you can pretend it’s healthy because it’s full veggies. Or, alleged veggies, anyway.

grunge_hippy said :

don’t start the accolades yet. I just got a msg from hubby. He caught the 6:15 bus from Tuggers and is still sitting on the bus at 7:20. He says it took longer to drive along Caswell drive than it did to go on the parkway.

If they are going to offer a shuttle bus, one would think they could have an express lane for such service.

Yes, but people would still have more than 12 items…

grunge_hippy7:22 pm 19 Apr 13

don’t start the accolades yet. I just got a msg from hubby. He caught the 6:15 bus from Tuggers and is still sitting on the bus at 7:20. He says it took longer to drive along Caswell drive than it did to go on the parkway.

If they are going to offer a shuttle bus, one would think they could have an express lane for such service.

I have it on good authority that these buses are powered entirely on the tears of libertarians.

davo101 said :

Rollersk8r said :

Erm, free to the user, dingus.

I read the headline and just assumed they were laying out some fungus bait, but he hasn’t appeared to have taken it yet.

I was too busy sitting under a bridge, with my tin foil hat on, eating a Chiko roll that someone had lowered on a fish hook .
Meanwhile, lynchpossy was channeling me.

Rollersk8r said :

Erm, free to the user, dingus.

I read the headline and just assumed they were laying out some fungus bait, but he hasn’t appeared to have taken it yet.

lynchpossy said :

ACTION does not provide free services to the football matches. These services are charter services paid for by the event organiser, stadium, clubs etc. While they may be free to the user, ACTION receives payment from these hirers. ACTION simply couldn’t afford to provide services at its cost to all of the events in the ACT.

Erm, free to the user, dingus.

ACTION does not provide free services to the football matches. These services are charter services paid for by the event organiser, stadium, clubs etc. While they may be free to the user, ACTION receives payment from these hirers. ACTION simply couldn’t afford to provide services at its cost to all of the events in the ACT.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.