16 October 2009

Cross border busses

| UrbanAdventure.org
Join the conversation
37

Having grown up in that jewel of public transport, Melbourne, where you quite literally do not need a car, and where a car can be less convenient than public transport in the inner suburbs, I find the public transport in Canberra a bit lacking. But I find the public transport between Canberra and Queanbeyan to be appalling. 🙁
Yes, there are busses. And yes, they are generally clean, the staff are generally polite, and they generally run on time. I have no complaints about that. However, the fares on these busses are extremely expensive compared to the ACT. I recall a friend of mine complaining that her one hour transfer ticket was going to go up to $2.90 soon. I sat there and told her that a one way non transfer ticket from the Queanbeyan interchange to Manuka cost me $5.90, (or $10.40 return) and that I had been twice charged $6.10 by drivers who insisted that the fare to manuka was the same as the fare to Civic (which it is not supposed to be)

Okay, I understand that the company running the busses is a private company, and that they have to make ends meet. But why are they running big 52 seat busses that most of the time are more than half empty? Why not go for 20 seat Coaster style busses? And for that matter, why is it that the ACT busses stop at the border? Big deal that there’s a border there, who cares? The journey out to Queanbeyan is shorter than the journey out to Mitchell, Gunghalin and Tuggers. Why do Action Busses only go as far as DFO?

I asked a driver on an Action bus this and his reply was that Action had an agreement not to run busses to Quenabyean. An agreement with who? And how can such an agreement benefit people from Queanbeyan. Another driver said it was because Action drivers would require NSW Driver Authority cards, which makes more sense. If running a service where your passengers pay a fare in NSW, that is the case.

But big deal, they’re not hard to get. Why not run the busses out further than DFO and have them terminate in Queanbeyan? You don’t need every driver to have a driver authority card. Just the ones on that run.

Even the existing services could be improved. Why does the Woden and Civic busses have to depart the same time? It makes for delays as two busses try to pull into one bus stop at the same time. It delays traffic. It can confuse passengers. Why not run them at separate times. EG, instead of on every hour. Run the Civic one every hour on the hour, and the Woden one every hour on the half hour. Also, why run two busses along the same route for considerable distance? Why not run one via Crawford street / Uriarra Rd, and the other via Canberra Avenue and Gilmore Road so the industrial estate has a regular bus service?

I am more than frustrated that I pay the same taxes as people across the border, but they get a better bus service. There’s over 33 thousand people in Queanbeyan / Jerra. Almost every morning probably half of them pile into cars and head across the border, most of that on just two roads. If the bus service was more affordable, then more would use it.

Join the conversation

37
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

Dear Santa

I made a choice to live in one city and work in another that’s in a completely different state. Suprisingly, the market has a solution to my transport needs but I don’t want to pay the going rate. Please, Santa, won’t you bring me a government who’ll absolve me of any responsibility for my choices and rig the market so I get everything I want for free?

Yours sincerely
Virginia

Gotta pay that one. Spot on. Your 4th word says it all. Choice. People who live in QBN choose to live there for what ever reason.

Woody Mann-Caruso10:27 am 19 Oct 09

Dear Santa

I made a choice to live in one city and work in another that’s in a completely different state. Suprisingly, the market has a solution to my transport needs but I don’t want to pay the going rate. Please, Santa, won’t you bring me a government who’ll absolve me of any responsibility for my choices and rig the market so I get everything I want for free?

Yours sincerely
Virginia

Not true, the NSW government subsidises the ACT for the medical care that is given to NSW residents at ACT hospitals.

Key point here – subsidises not reimburses – I understand that the money the ACT gets only goes part of the way to pay for the cost of servicing NSW patients and we get the very expensive end of procedures which are high $$.

The difference with Tweed and Vic border is that there is a fairly equal number of patrons travelling each way – here it is primarily NSW folk travelling into Canberra for work/school/play so there is less incentive. Also why should the taxes paid by ACT people which subsidise the cost of an ACTION bus fare be used to subsidise transport costs for those whose taxes go to the NSW Governement that currently makes no contribution (and previously has not been interested in such) to this service. Deanes fares reflect the full cost of a bus trip.

UrbanAdventure.org said :

Damn, and you take it so personally too… Hey, here’s news to you mate. I use your libraries, public toilets and post offices too! And that’s not the worst of it. Peoplwe who rent don’t even pay rates so they’re using everyone’s resources for NOTHING! Oh the humanity!

You know, last time I checked Canberra has a huge amount of public facillities that have been paid for mostly by tax payers out of the ACT. My friends out in Western Australia have complained long and hard that their state props up the tax incomes of the eastern states. Much to my surprise, they seem to be spot on. Mining taxes from WA far outstrip government spending in WA.

Who cares which part of the pie the money comes from? We all get taxed using the same taxation scale. GST all comes from the same place. We’re all from the same country here. It’s not like I’m asking to build a bridge to New Zealand or something. Though that would be nice, as long as there’s an Action Bus service on it. 😉

Actually people who rent do pay rates, though clearly not directly. The landlord pays the rates then passes them on to the renter in their rent price. Indeed people who rent end up paying more rates than people that own their homes as rental properties have land tax too.

As for you using library’s and public toilets, fill your boots. They are built for the benifit of ACT residents and cost next to nothing for the small amount of use by others. As for the post office, last time I look that was a commercial venture not funded by the ACT rate payer. But what you are asking is for the people of the ACT to pay for and subsidise a bus service to another state. As I said before if the NSW government payed for it, or the service payed for itself through the fare box then I am all for it. But not if the ACT government has to subsidise it. At the end of the day it is a problem for the NSW government, not the ACT.

Oh your right about the source of GST income, no argument there, it is good how the GST system was set-up to fairly spread the money around. But it doesn’t change the fact that using some complex forumla the ammount allocated to the ACT was allocated to provide services to people who live in the ACT. The amount is around $850m, oddly the ACT budget is $3500mm where do you reckon the balance comes from? Hint, ACT rate payers.

Again if it was adjusted to give more to pay for services to the people of QBN then no problem, but at present that isn’t taken into account.

RayP said :

Toriness,there is a problem with your approach that may not be apparent to people on high incomes or who already own houses in Canberra.

People on low incomes, or even moderate incomes, can’t now afford to buy a house in Canberra, pay rent in Canberra or pay high transport costs from Queabeyan. What, then, are they to do?

I also don’t think that it makes sense for people to have to spend a high proportion of their income on basic housing or getting to work. To accept this is to accept failure by the relevant governments.

For a viable city and reasonable lifestyles there should be both affordable housing and low cost public tranport.

And bd84, I think your examples from Australia are great. If Queensland and Victoria can sort out cross border public transport with NSW, why can’t the ACT Government?

And why is this the problem of the ACT Government and the ACT rate payer? Next you will be saying the ACT government should be paying for buses to Murrumbateman and Yass.

PS you will find there are places in the ACT that have affordable housing too. With QBN there is just a higher concentration due to the more lax planning laws.

@#30: Forget advertising for one car pool. What we could use in Queanbeyan are “Slug Lines”. They are popular in Washington DC for people commuting in from outside.

Basically in “Slug Lines”, people (Sluggers) congregate at empty lots near the freeways and those who want to keep driving but want to use the HOT lanes (kinda like T3 lanes) pick up slugs so that they can use the HOT lanes without paying the Non-HOV toll.

It’d need some adaption to work here. We don’t have HOT lanes, and while 3 for free parking is the next best thing, we don’t have that in Civic. What we could do is think up a fair amount (say $2 each way) as a “gratuity” and think up places to congregate and disembark at each end. For example, you could have:

AM Pickup Points
Old Cooma Road (between Harris Park and Showgrounds)
Campbell St at Morton St (near the Swimming Pool car park)
Henderson St near Crawford Street (near the Railway Station car park)

You could then drive in via Oaks Estate Road/Pialligo Ave/Fairbairn Ave/Limestone Ave/Donaldson St

AM Dropoff Points
Donaldson at Ballumbir
[Turn left onto Ballumbir]
Canberra Centre Car Park (Entrance or Rooftop)

PM Pickup Points
Canberra Centre rooftop parking (lift lobby) above Big W
[Head out of the carpark and turn left on Ballumbir, continue onto Cooyong, left on Northbourne]
80 Northbounre (The loading zone and half hour parking spaces at Infrastructure House, just near the bus stop that Queanbeyan buses depart from)
[Take any route to Queanbeyan Railway Station (Presumably Capital Cct, Canberra Ave, Norse Road, Uriarra Road), then drop off at the pickup points as required

The driver then heads home.

If everyone paid $2 each way (or, dare I say it, dropped $2 in the car’s ashtray without being asked or told off if they don’t), the driver would only need 5 passengers (eg 2 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon, or vice versa) to pay for the all day rooftop parking at the Canberra Centre. Presumably the driver was going to pay for that regardless, or worse, pay even more for the return bus fare, so any passenger at all would be of a benefit.

If there is a long queue at one of the pickup points and you pull in to park there, you could consider driving all the way after collecting 3-4 passengers. It shouldn’t be hard to find equilibrium that way.

Either way it can’t be any worse than our half hourly bus service.

The pickup points were chosen because there are places you can park a car, or chain up a pushbike, without much hassle, and because they are vaguely near bus stops without actually being at bus stops (thus unlikely to create significant issues with Deanes before the scheme gets off the ground).

Any thoughts?

Easiest option by far for Queanbeyan residents that work in Civic would be to fit a bike rack to the back of your car, park in any lcoal street anywhere to the north or east of Civic, and ride the lsat 1-2km on a pushbike. It’s flat, and it’s not far enough to break a sweat or even to get rain affected except on the worst of rainy days.

(Leave a change of clothes and a towel at work)

Russell is also an option. It’s a bit distant, but there’s that overflow carpark right on Constitution Avenue half way up the hill. You’d barely have to pedal if you get a good start down the hill and timed it for a green light at the bottom of the hill 🙂

not making up anything at all urbanadventure – simply quoting right back at you what you are saying yourself. please don’t be boring by making foundless ‘legal action’ threats. i have clearly stated (well agreed really what numerous others have already said) why i disagree with you. if you don’t like the $$ bus fares i guess you will do your sums and work out it’s cheaper to drive one of your 2 cars – or you will continue catching the bus. how about you put up a little poster in downtown queanbeyan organising a carpool or something for those commuting into ACT – then you can drive the costs down even further. but don’t expect ACT rates and ‘piece of the pie’ to subsidise your locational decision.

UrbanAdventure.org9:18 am 18 Oct 09

toriness said :

urbanadventure.org – you have not 1 but 2 cars it transpires (not mentioned in your original post!) but you post a lengthy rant for completely unselfish and altruistic reasons as it turns out. yeah, right 😉 also it turns out that you left melbourne for the soulful town of queanbeyan! perhaps if ACT lacks such soul and depth you might like to refrain from travelling into our boundaries full stop. wouldn’t like you become soulless would we?

That’s right, if you don’t have a coherant argument, resort to personal instults and making up rubbish against the poster. It makes far more sense to argue the point, not argue with the person. There’s no need to make this personal, and some pretty dire legal concequences if you continue down that track.

Perhaps you might like to rephrase this in terms of why you don’t agree with my points, instead of making false personal statements about me?

ACTION = Australian Capital Territory Internal Omnibus Network.

Internal.

In the interests of cross-border friendliness and breaking down of the economic barriers, I am happy for the ACTION owners, the ACT Government, to change their name – after the NSW Government proportionally funds ACTION such as occurs with Hospitals.

Of course, where does the new network stop? Should it go to Gundaroo? Cooma? Yass? Goulburn? There would seemingly need to be full economic fares to supplement the NSW Government funding..

UrbanAdventure.org11:15 pm 17 Oct 09

JC said :

Why would ACTION want to run buses to QBN? They are not going to make a profit (or break even with ACT fares) so why should the ACT pay to support public transport in another state. It is bad enough those who CHOOSE to live in QBN use medical and school services in the ACT at the expense of the ACT rate payer without us having to pay for their transport requirements.

Damn, and you take it so personally too… Hey, here’s news to you mate. I use your libraries, public toilets and post offices too! And that’s not the worst of it. Peoplwe who rent don’t even pay rates so they’re using everyone’s resources for NOTHING! Oh the humanity!

You know, last time I checked Canberra has a huge amount of public facillities that have been paid for mostly by tax payers out of the ACT. My friends out in Western Australia have complained long and hard that their state props up the tax incomes of the eastern states. Much to my surprise, they seem to be spot on. Mining taxes from WA far outstrip government spending in WA.

Who cares which part of the pie the money comes from? We all get taxed using the same taxation scale. GST all comes from the same place. We’re all from the same country here. It’s not like I’m asking to build a bridge to New Zealand or something. Though that would be nice, as long as there’s an Action Bus service on it. 😉

urbanadventure.org – you have not 1 but 2 cars it transpires (not mentioned in your original post!) but you post a lengthy rant for completely unselfish and altruistic reasons as it turns out. yeah, right 😉 also it turns out that you left melbourne for the soulful town of queanbeyan! perhaps if ACT lacks such soul and depth you might like to refrain from travelling into our boundaries full stop. wouldn’t like you become soulless would we?

rayp, nothing wrong with my approach at all – it’s called facts of life. we don’t live in a communist country where everyone gets the same goods & services no matter what they do. people train or educate themselves or work hard to earn an income to keep in the lifestyle which they want. yes there are SOME exceptions which the system provides you, those in genuine need and unable to adequately provide for themselves, like those who are physically or mentally/intellectually disabled and less able. however please let me know if i am mistaken and indeed this actually is the society we live in – a communist one – and i will go and live in a residence far away from where i work or socialise but can travel there off others’ backs and sweat. but no, this is not the case so please do tell me why i should pay a higher mortgage/rent to live closer in (i walk or ride my bike to work in the main) and my rates etc (ie ACT govt specific taxes) should go towards subsidising NSW residents who live in queanbeyan which is undeniably cheaper to rent/mortgage property.

we do have different states and territories (and corresponding state/territory and local governments) for a reason – historical partly but continuing because people vote for representatives of their region to provide for their needs. if you don’t like it, move.

JC said :

CHOOSE to live in QBN use medical and school services in the ACT at the expense of the ACT rate payer without us having to pay for their transport requirements.

Not true, the NSW government subsidises the ACT for the medical care that is given to NSW residents at ACT hospitals.

GregW said :

What’s more the ACT government provides much of the infrastructure and services you rely on every day, and yet by living in Queanbeyan you are depriving them of much of the taxation revenue they require to provide those services, in a way it is surprising that there aren’t tolls for traveling to the ACT from Queanbeyan to account for this. Thus, it is the governments interests to discourage you from even entering the ACT.

Much like being located close to Canberra deprives Queanbeyan businesses the revenue of people who shop/work in Canberra. According to the ABS, in excess of 2/3 of the employed population of Queanbeyan worked in the ACT in 2006. Why would it be in the interest of the government to stop these people from spending money at ACT businesses and reducing the skills shortage in the ACT? What’s more, by my workings for every 2 Queanbeyanites that work in the ACT, there is 1 Canberran that works in Queanbeyan, so it is a two way street. The paper I’m drawing data from is “Canberra, a social atlas” from the 06 census if anyone is interested.

Trunking symbols said :

Buses, not busses.

i just though maybe gollum had written the OP…

UrbanAdventure.org7:45 pm 17 Oct 09

kincuri said :

I say they should bring on the light rail, but shudder to think what the ACT might do to it!

I agree. Until you have a tramline you’re just another country town. 😉

I’ve seen cities overseas with larger area and less population but a lot better public transport. State College in Pennsylvania for example. Heck, Geelong and Bendigo in Victoria as examples closer to home.

Toriness,there is a problem with your approach that may not be apparent to people on high incomes or who already own houses in Canberra.

People on low incomes, or even moderate incomes, can’t now afford to buy a house in Canberra, pay rent in Canberra or pay high transport costs from Queabeyan. What, then, are they to do?

I also don’t think that it makes sense for people to have to spend a high proportion of their income on basic housing or getting to work. To accept this is to accept failure by the relevant governments.

For a viable city and reasonable lifestyles there should be both affordable housing and low cost public tranport.

And bd84, I think your examples from Australia are great. If Queensland and Victoria can sort out cross border public transport with NSW, why can’t the ACT Government?

UrbanAdventure.org7:37 pm 17 Oct 09

toriness said :

moving from melbourne to queanbeyan was your first mistake,.

I’m glad you agree. Yep, Melbourne sure is a lot better than Canberra. 😉 /humour

I actually chose to live in Queanbeyan because after driving around Canberra for some time, I realised that it did not seem to have much of a soul. It seemed very fake. I found the main street of Queanbeyan to be a lot more real and like a town should be than Canberra. Though I do grant that Dickson does strike me as being real and having a soul.

To be honest, I don’t really catch the transborder bus much. I have 2 cars, I don’t *need* the bus. But I do volunteer work for people who have either physical and/or intellectual disabilities, and they *do* need the bus. The only time I catch the bus is when I’m taking them where they need to go. To see a disabled person who can not drive be slugged with higher fares simply because they live one side of an imaginary line is a bit frustrating. As a driver I have a choice, they on the other hand do not.

anonymous gungahlian7:29 pm 17 Oct 09

JC and toriness, -could’nt agree more.

moving from melbourne to queanbeyan was your first mistake, urbanadventure.org. your second is expecting, as has been pointed out by many here, ACT taxpayers to subsidise your transport. i suspect you chose queanbeyan as a place to live because it was cheaper than canberra. well now you have discovered one of the many reasons that that is the case.

In this day and age you shouldn’t need the ACT (or NSW) government to seek funding from the other for running cross-border services. Since the GST the source of state (and territory) revenue now mostly comes from the same place anyway. Funding of cross-border services can be co-ordinated via the (Federal) Grants Commission, which divvies up GST revenue and assigns it all to the various states and territories via a complicated but adjustable formula.

Just adjust the formula and the problem goes away.

RayP said :

People in other places have sorted out public transport systems that run across state borders. Washington D.C. has a public transport system (including a commuter rail) that runs across borders into the states of Maryland and Virginia. New York has a public transport system that runs across borders into the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Developing these systems would have involved considerable negotiating talent. But, if people in other places can develop large public transport systems that run across state borders, then it should be possible for people with reasonable negotiating talent to sort out the issues involved in having an integrated public transport system that links Canberra and Queanbeyan.

Why use the Americans as an example? Decent services with mostly reasonable prices operate between NSW and QLD (Tweed Heads and the Gold Coast) and NSW and VIC (Albury and Wodonga). The major hurdle here would be getting the NSW Government to fund the services.

The whole system is horrendous! I’ve recent returned from an overseas trip to Tokyo, London and Paris and can’t believe the massive gap in quality of public transport in those three cities and what we have in Canberra.

Sure, Canberra’s population is much smaller, and more spread-out, but having caught an ACTION bus since returning, the setup in the ACT is terrible.

Why do we have so many different routes running to the same parts of town? Why are there 20 different routes between Civic and Tuggeranong? Shouldn’t 2-3 routes between major city centres (Tuggers, Woden, Civic, Belco etc.), along with feeder services into suburbs be for efficient? Why is it so hard to determine what routes service which bus stops, once you move away from an interchange, its nigh impossible.

I feel sorry for any tourists that attempt to use our system.

I say they should bring on the light rail, but shudder to think what the ACT might do to it!

People in other places have sorted out public transport systems that run across state borders. Washington D.C. has a public transport system (including a commuter rail) that runs across borders into the states of Maryland and Virginia. New York has a public transport system that runs across borders into the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Developing these systems would have involved considerable negotiating talent. But, if people in other places can develop large public transport systems that run across state borders, then it should be possible for people with reasonable negotiating talent to sort out the issues involved in having an integrated public transport system that links Canberra and Queanbeyan.

Trunking symbols said :

Buses, not busses.

I am shocked it took that long for someone to point out!

Trunking symbols10:14 am 17 Oct 09

Buses, not busses.

Why Action buses don’t go to Queanbeyan: The ACT taxpayer covers 80% of the cost of running the bus, bus fares the other 20%. Residents of Queanbeyan don’t pay ACT taxes.

Why Deanes runs those big buses: Like most bus companies in country towns they probably make all of their money by transporting kids to and from schools so they need the capacity. The rest of the day it’s cheaper to run the big bus empty than buying and operating an extra small bus.

Why I bought a car when moving to Canberra: It’s cheaper to buy, maintain and operate a private vehicle than travelling on the bus to QBN.

Why would ACTION want to run buses to QBN? They are not going to make a profit (or break even with ACT fares) so why should the ACT pay to support public transport in another state. It is bad enough those who CHOOSE to live in QBN use medical and school services in the ACT at the expense of the ACT rate payer without us having to pay for their transport requirements.

If the NSW government payed a subsidy to ACTION to operate it then it would makes sense, but not at present.

As someone who grew up in country NSW there’s a very simple reason why the NSW government doesn’t subsidise transport in places like Queanbeyan. It’s because NSW is an abbreviation for Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong.

On a more serious note, I imagine the businesses in Queanbeyan (through their chamber of commerce) apply a lot of pressure to prevent cheap public transport options into Canberra. They don’t want locals shopping in Canberra if they can prevent it.

Why is the cost of bus services to/from Queanbeyan the fault of ACTION / the ACT government?

They used to say that for every dollar a passenger of ACTION pays, the government, and therefore ACT citizens pay $3. If you live in NSW you do not pay anywhere near as much in state government taxation as ACT residents, and even if you did the NSW government doesn’t reimburse the ACT government for the cost of providing such public service so you are asking others to pay your way.

You’re barking up the wrong tree.

… What’s more the ACT government provides much of the infrastructure and services you rely on every day, and yet by living in Queanbeyan you are depriving them of much of the taxation revenue they require to provide those services, in a way it is surprising that there aren’t tolls for traveling to the ACT from Queanbeyan to account for this. Thus, it is the governments interests to discourage you from even entering the ACT.

I made a submission to the Senate Subcomittee on Rural and Regional Transport for the Canberra Region (phew) pointing out that this regulatory problem impacted upon both Queanbeyan and Canberra negatively. I recommended that regulations be removed or altered so that both ACTION and Deanes could run revenue services on both sides of the border, and even offer proper routes integrated into a Capital Region transport network (integrated with light rail of course).

You can read the submission here:http://actlightrail.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=101&Itemid=38

I am aware that Stanhope and the Mayor of Queanbeyan have met to discuss public transport recently,and in the latest Sustainable Transport Action Plan, Queanbeyan is seen as another town centre to be integrated into a Canberra public transport solution.

As for the idea of ACTION running across the border, the fares could be justifiably kept the same as those charged to Canberra residents because the ACT government gets a share of GST revenue from the grants commission from NSW as it is deemed to have provided services to NSW residents (Health for example. Just get the Grants Commission to rejig the payment rate to include transportation, and ACTION could then be able (or even required) to run buses to and from Queanbeyan,

Why run full size buses? That one’s easy. The economics of running a bus are as follows. Your main cost is the driver. He gets paid about twenty bucks an hour. You then have the cost of employing him/her (superannuation, payroll tax, training etc), so the driver ends up costing something like $30-35 an hour all up. Fuel is less than a tenth of that. The cost of the bus is a sunken cost. As such, it costs the same to run a large bus as it does a small bus, plus or minus a buck an hour in diesel. In reality, it actually costs more to run smaller buses, because you have to buy two fleets of buses instead of just one, and you need to buy more land to keep both fleets locked up overnight, and pay more land tax on the extra depot space.

If you need the full 50 seats at least once a day, you may as well run that bus the entire day instead of buying one fleet of buses for peak hour and school runs and a second fleet of coasters or rosas to run off peak.

What irks me about the bus service in Queanbeyan is that the same company runs the airport buses but doesn’t run a service from Queanbeyan to the Airport. IMHO they need to merge the two routes, so that buses from Civic go to Queanbeyan down the current route, maybe do a quick figure 8 through the CBD (Crawford, Isabella, Old Cooma, Lowe, Morisset, Addison, Bungendore), then straight up Yass Road to Brindabella Business Park, the Airport, then straight back to Civic.

That change would let people from Queanbeyan get to jobs at BBP, flights at the airport, Civic via either route (thus doubling the frequency if you get the times right), thus turning a half hourly service into something resembling a quarter hourly service.

Right now if you live in Queanbeyan East, getting the bus to Civic is a joke. Ditto anyone that lives in Karabar or down Old Cooma Road, having to walk to Morriset Street to get the bus. This change wouldn’t be perfect but it’d go a long way to making the buses potentially useful.

Oh, and it’d make crew change easier for the company too, since their depot is not far from Yass Road. If a driver needs to go on a break or end their shift, they just get off at the take away and take their cash box with them, walk to the depot, while a replacement driver was waiting there with their own cash box.

On the weekends they could put both buses on a single unidirectional loop at twice the current frequency, or maintain the current frequency and provide the extra service (maybe ditching the Brindabella Business Park section) letting Queanbeyan residents get a bus to and from the Airport for weekend flights.

Totally agree, it’s frustrating

Hells_Bells749:16 pm 16 Oct 09

Ended up a topic in a chatroom I was in earlier. It’s a silly situation I agree the bus relations between borders are woeful.

Ask the NSW Government, they are the ones who should be subsidising the Deanes services. The cost of the services and lack of funds from the NSW Government to subsidise the NSW part of the service would be the number 1 reason why ACTION does not operate over the border, plus costs of having the applicable licences for the entity and drivers.

In the current situation if ACTION did decide to run services over the border, you would likely find that the prices of the tickets would be similar to what Deanes charge, to cover the costs of running the service. The ACT Government would not and should not subsidise the travel of those living in NSW.

It frustrates me too!

Let’s just get over it and make Queanbeyan another suburb of Canberra! There’s no other cities in the NSW region even close to Queanbeyan! Sometimes I think it gets forgotten by the NSW government.

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.