15 March 2013

Belconnen to City Transitway launching today

| Barcham
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$10.5 million in the making, the Belconnen to City Transitway was launched today by Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Shane Rattenbury.

Or at least that’s what the press release says. In reality it has not yet been launched, but what can we expect from the Time Travelling bus-way.

“The Belconnen to City corridor on Barry Drive is one of the busiest bus commuter routes in Canberra connecting people to Civic as well as the University of Canberra, CIT Bruce Campus, Calvary Hospital and the ANU,” Mr Rattenbury said.

“The completion of the transitway will improve public transport for people travelling between Belconnen and the City by cutting the journey time, particularly during peak periods.

“Surveys undertaken in 2011 during the morning peak period along Barry Drive show that 1800 people were being moved in 31 buses along the corridor between 7.45 am and 9.15 am. This made up around 25% of all people travelling during that period and that figure is only expected to increase over time.

“Buses will now connect into the new bus station at ANU Exchange. The design splits outbound and inbound platforms into two locations. The inbound platform will be located adjacent to the ANU’s two new student accommodation buildings, while the outbound platform is located adjacent Latin American Plaza on Marcus Clarke Street.

Johnboy took the below photos of the now launched transitway around 2:30pm today.

transitway transitway no entry transitway transitway transitway

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Action must have thought this was opening sooner… since Wednesday the drivers on my bus have had to manually set the swipe machines so people can tag on/off for the first bus stop (towards the city) on Marcus Clarke St and just around the corner in Alinga St. Apparently the GPS signals that automatically do it have been deactivated.

gazket said :

shouldn’t the universities pay for this

Why in the feck should the Uni’s have to pay for roadworks to benefit ACTION? What are you smoking? ’cause it’s obviously a lot better than what I’ve got.

shouldn’t the universities pay for this

I’m giving it a go on Monday, just for teh LOLZ.

Every student wants a magical time travelling bus way (spelt Road).

Aren’t they spending 12 million to duplicate parkes way?

Just clicked on the link above to the statement. Says: “Buses will be using the new transit lane from Saturday 16 March 2013. Some minor works will continue for the next few weeks on Barry Drive to complete the widening works.”

Keijidosha said :

I’m surprised Mr Rattenbury is jumping the gun on a project that (according to ACTION) is already a month behind schedule.

It is opening tomorrow, so why is it jumping the gun? Though the whole mess is far from being finished though, just that buses will be able to use the new bit.

Overall about the only thing this does is provides the opportunity for buses to turn into Civic off Barry Drive from the left. Other than that I don’t see what else it is going to achieve.

Other than this turn the rest of the money would have been better spent on providing a bus lane over Black Mountain Belco bound, but instead they have actually shortened the small stretch of bus lane going up the hill and buggerised the rest of the roads in the area.

Institute said :

DrKoresh said :

Admittedly I don’t catch it much these days, but I used to twice daily catch a 300 on the civic to belco route and barry drive was one the shortest, easiest legs of the journey. Got from the ANU to Calvary in less than 5 minutes, the worst past being trying to cross northbourne to get the interchange.

Was there even really a need to alter barry drive?

Heading from Belco into Civic, the buses from the ANU bus stop have had to change into the right lane to turn right onto Marcus Clark. This is the issue they are addressing I think, however it’s yet to be seen if this will change much. My understanding is that buses will now turn right from the far left lane across at the new set of lights shown in final photo above. Will be interesting, shame it has to cause disruptions for six months for this little experiment.

On top of having to get over to the right hand lane, buses would also cause snares along Marcus-Clarke St, especially at the first stop after turning off Barry Drive. Now that they will skip that section completely, normal traffic should move more smoothly along that section. Well…at least once they stop frigging with it and the area stops becoming a permanent road works zone.

Transitway? Which is actualy what we used to call “a road”, isn’t it?

DrKoresh said :

Admittedly I don’t catch it much these days, but I used to twice daily catch a 300 on the civic to belco route and barry drive was one the shortest, easiest legs of the journey. Got from the ANU to Calvary in less than 5 minutes, the worst past being trying to cross northbourne to get the interchange.

Was there even really a need to alter barry drive?

Heading from Belco into Civic, the buses from the ANU bus stop have had to change into the right lane to turn right onto Marcus Clark. This is the issue they are addressing I think, however it’s yet to be seen if this will change much. My understanding is that buses will now turn right from the far left lane across at the new set of lights shown in final photo above. Will be interesting, shame it has to cause disruptions for six months for this little experiment.

Admittedly I don’t catch it much these days, but I used to twice daily catch a 300 on the civic to belco route and barry drive was one the shortest, easiest legs of the journey. Got from the ANU to Calvary in less than 5 minutes, the worst past being trying to cross northbourne to get the interchange.

Was there even really a need to alter barry drive?

I’m surprised Mr Rattenbury is jumping the gun on a project that (according to ACTION) is already a month behind schedule.

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