Attention Belconnenites - Bus chaos commences on 25 May

Felix the Cat said :

What’s up with the formatting on this board? This (above) is the second post of mine that continued the italic font of the quote above it.

You probably missed a bracket somewhere..

Anyway once they’ve done belconnen they should start on Woden interchange, the current one should have been demolished years ago much like the one at Belconnen. It’s an eyesore and poorly designed for what is required these days. Plus it would probably reduce crime by 80% in Woden.

Though new interchanges is probably little incentive to catch buses that still don’t go anywhere quickly.

What’s up with the formatting on this board? This (above) is the second post of mine that continued the italic font of the quote above it.

TP 3000 said :

Tixylix said :

But Belconnen Town Centre will look different in a few years, with the Winchester Centre* being shut down…

Really? Why? It’s reasonably new (in comparison to the cop shop and the remand centre.

I’m all for the changes, even though I bought my first car a few weeks ago and now rarely use the buses (thankfully).

Whenever I want to go visit the bulk billing doctors surgery just up the hill from the bus depot, it’s tedious to merely read up on which routes are running on that day to that stop at The Basement. Now all the buses from the south/east/northeast will.

Ditto when I wanted to go ten pin bowling. Only two buses presently stop near the bowling alley. Now all the buses from the west/northwest will.

As far as I can see, the plan is to spend the next few years building a new busway through the site of the current bus interchange, but instead of dropping down to Benjamin Way, it will continue above Benjamin Way, into a new interchange at Westfields, where buses heading up the busway to nowhere can go straight ahead down a new ramp, and those terminating or heading on local routes to the west diverge in the current government carpark near the police station and head straight ahead up the hill to the depot from there. It will streamline things immensely.

Taking the bus layover functions away from central Belconnen and splitting them in half, over near the bowling alley and up outside the bus depot, simply makes sense regardless. It means buses can serve more actual destinations without hogging massive amounts of land near Benjamin Way that should be redeveloped pronto (along with the adjoining car parks). Major bus stops should be surrounded by actual destinations, not parking lots that bus passengers have to traipse through to get anywhere.

As for Light Rail, blah, I’m not fussed. Canberra will never get trams, it was never designed for them and trams are not that useful anyway. Canberra might one day get trains though, and they can be elevated or in subway, so design isn’t especially relevant to this bus interchange.

Trams have fewer seats than buses of an equivalent length, since design compromises usually require the entire tram to be low floor wheelchair accessible (meaning space is taken away from passengers to allow for the wheels to rise into the compartment) whereas with buses only the section from the front door to the centre door is low floor. Besides, there are only two ways to make trams effective. You can either put in so much engineering work that you may as well have built heavy rail so that the trains rise above or drop below traffic, or alternately, you can put in the sort of traffic light priority measures that you may as well do with buses.

Melbourne does neither, so the trams are merely running as glorified buses on high visibility routes. We don’t want that, don’t need that, and shouldn’t be focusing on styming bus interchange plans to achieve that.

Tempestas said :

Any sign of any shelters yet, no doubt they will be as sheltering as the ones in Civic.

The bus shelters will be those AdShel bus shelters, by 27th May 2009, expect a smashed window at each bus station

I heard a kid on the bus this afternoon talking to his mate, calling the new bus stops ‘shortchanges’ instead of ‘interchanges’.

The original design of the bus interchange allowed for inclusion of rail based rapid transit. .

See http://www.engineer.org.au/chapter03.html down where it says ‘belconnen interchange’.

In all the ‘new Belconnen interchange’ proposals that have been floating about since 2000 (when i moved to belconnen), future light rail use was included. As recently as the ‘time travelling busway’ this was the case.

“Of course if anyone thinks that all buses will always go through all stops for all time they are going to be dissapointed.

So will these new timetables allow lay overs at each stop or is it going to be a lot of there goes my bus…”

The ACT government has made it quite clear that ALL buses will stop at ALL of the four bus stations. This means not only will most route distance be longer, but the time (extra distance, where applicable, aside) will also take longer to get from A – B.

There’s also not going to be any physical space left for light rail to integrate with the buses, despite the government’s professed desire for it.

Tempestas said :

Of course if anyone thinks that all buses will always go through all stops for all time they are going to be dissapointed.

So will these new timetables allow lay overs at each stop or is it going to be a lot of there goes my bus…

Well actually all buses will have to more or less go through all stops. The reason being there is no where for the buses to terminate at the middle stops. So a bus from the west will have to go through all stops then to a driver layover area behind the ten pin bowling centre. Buses from the other direct run through all stops to a layover at the depot.

S4anta said :

Time for pubs to be located at each bus stop PM. do it, do it now!

Well… The Basement will be just across the road from one of the bus stations…

But I’ll remain at the Pot Belly, S4anta 🙂

I think there’ll be a lot of there goes my bus. As someone with a Vision Impairment, i think I’m goin gto miss more buses than i get. I can’t wait for the fun to begin.

Posh said :

Can’t wait til the 25th to see the chaos of people trying to cross the road on Cameron Avenue. At the moment you can hardly get across the road in the morning and afternoon with all the traffic going / coming out of the ABS carpark and the immigration staff driving to and from work along Cameron.

Pedestrian crossing wouldn’t have gone astray.

This is going to be the new accident centre of Belconnen. Here’s hoping no one is seriously injured or worse.

Any sign of any shelters yet, no doubt they will be as sheltering as the ones in Civic.

Of course if anyone thinks that all buses will always go through all stops for all time they are going to be dissapointed.

So will these new timetables allow lay overs at each stop or is it going to be a lot of there goes my bus…

Can’t wait til the 25th to see the chaos of people trying to cross the road on Cameron Avenue. At the moment you can hardly get across the road in the morning and afternoon with all the traffic going / coming out of the ABS carpark and the immigration staff driving to and from work along Cameron.

Pedestrian crossing wouldn’t have gone astray.

PM said :

More traffic, longer bus routes, less parking.

Time for pubs to be located at each bus stop PM. do it, do it now!

dvaey said :

Wouldn’t it make more sense to move that Emergency Services stuff that needed to be moved, out to the ESA headquarters in Curtin?

Well the ESA are moving over to a new headquarters (that is currently being built) out at Fairbairn Park. The helicopters that are currntly stored at Fairbairn Park during the fire season will now be stored out at SouthCare Helicopter Base, with a new training area there as well. RFS will move up the road to this new ESA base & all current ESA staff will move to the new Fairbairn Park base. This includes the Curtin building, equipment storage out at Belconnen & possibly workshop out at Kambah Fire Station. With all communication to go through the new Fyshwick building.

TP 3000 said :

All Emergency Services (Police, Fire, Ambulance, SES) is to be moved to a new building in Fyshwick & all other Police Operations are to be moved to Parkes (apparently).

Wouldnt it make more sense to move that Emergency Services stuff that needed to be moved, out to the ESA headquarters in Curtin?

More traffic, longer bus routes, less parking.

Tixylix said :

Is there a direct correlation between this development and the bunch of new traffic lights in Belco?

Yes, as every bus will run through Belconnen, lights were put in along Cohen Street & Emu Bank & for safety lights will be put in at Lathlain Street/Luxton Street.

If it is planned properly then this new system should work. But as everyone is aware of, all this was originally planned for just after the ANZAC Day long weekend.

But Belconnen Town Centre will look different in a few years, with the Winchester Centre* being shut down, Belconnen Remand Centre being demolished, new Belconnen Police Station & new buildings being built around the current Belconnen Interchange.

All Emergency Services (Police, Fire, Ambulance, SES) is to be moved to a new building in Fyshwick & all other Police Operations are to be moved to Parkes (apparently). With a new Belconnen Police Station being built on the current Winchester Centre. Well that is the plan.

Is there a direct correlation between this development and the bunch of new traffic lights in Belco?

ugh. I hope I have my new wheels by then.
so over Action buses as it is!

(although without them I would ahve been screwed the last few weeks)

But given the confusion in the process to date does anyone have much confidence?

No.