29 April 2009

Hooray for REDEX?

| johnboy
Join the conversation
51

[First filed: April 28, 2009 @ 14:05]

The Greens’ Amanda Bresnan has expressed joy at “the REDEX trial”.

    “Rapid transit routes are the first step towards the modern, sustainable transport system that Canberra has needed for too long.”

    “The two qualities that bring people onto public transport are frequency and speed and the Greens are determined to make improvements in both areas.”

    “We congratulate the Chief Minister for taking this on, and we will continue to work with the Government towards a sustainable transport plan.” Ms Bresnan said.

Sooo… What is this REDEX thingy?

UPDATED: Hooray! The Chiefly Mr Stanhope explains all!:

    Commuters can expect a bus every 15 minutes during peak times and every 30 minutes during off-peak times on high demand weekday routes when the ACT Labor Government trials new rapid transit buses,Chief Minister and Minister for Transport Jon Stanhope revealed today.

    The Budget will provide $1 million for the new service, REDEX – Rapid Express Direct, to be trialledin 2009-10 between 6:30am and 7pm on weekdays during school terms.

    Mr Stanhope said passengers and businesses would benefit from better transport access to town centres and the Parliamentary Triangle.

Commencing in October.

ANOTHER UPDATE: For the Liberals, Zed is furious with what he sees as the Greens giving a free pass to Labor:

    “In the media yesterday, Mr Stanhope claimed that proposed REDEX service, that has only two separate routes connecting major hubs, has met the obligations of a guaranteed bus frequency of 30 minutes. This was one of the promises made by Jon Stanhope to get himself re-instated as Chief Minister.

    “However there seems to be confusion between Labor and the Greens with Greens Convenor Meredith Hunter saying this was only ‘one step forward to get closer to a 15-minute frequency but also a 30-minute frequency during the day’.

    “It is clear that two routes is not the whole network and this does not meet the goal of 30 minute frequency for all bus routes. Mr Stanhope said this element of the agreement now ‘meets obligations’.

Umm OK Zed… but moving forward what do you think of this proposal and what would you do differently?

Join the conversation

51
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

I feel obliged to point out that the acroynm REDEX does not match the name Rapid Express Direct (that would be REXDI or something like that). REDEX suits Rapid Direct Express.

However, I suspect the naming of a new (retro?) bus service this requires a redefinition of “rapid”, “express” and “direct”.

If the ACT GovCo really wants people to start catching public transport everywhere, they need to stop suburban sprawl… not so simple in Canberra as pretty much the entire city is suburbs.

From my travels around the world, I can happily say that although Canberra’s road network has it’s flaws, it really is one of the best in the world. Build one of the best private transport networks in the world, then try to force people onto inferior public transport that can take anywhere up to 10 times as long to get somewhere, it’s not going to work.

I do mean 10 times as long. Back in the day, I used to live in Holder, had a girlfriend in Weetangra. At 16, I was too young to drive to her place, so had two options, ride a push bike through Coppins Crossing, about an hour, or catch a bus, which on weekends took up to 2.5 hours. Car, 15 minutes.

That said, some ACTION routes are great, especially in peak hour. I now live near the Curtin Shops, catch the 732 Xpresso to the city, it takes around 10-15 minutes in the morning, and around 25 mins in the afternoon. Considering I save over $10 a day this is brilliant. However, there are only three of these buses each day each way, so I’m limited regarding what time I can get into and leave work. Miss these buses and I have to take route 2, which zigzags though Deakin, Yarralumla, Deakin again, Parilament house, Barton, then finally the city. Half an hour on the bus each way vs 10 minutes in a car.

As other’s have said though, more than half an hour to get to where they’d like to go, and people will continue to shun public transport.

Unless the Government somehow comes up with many billion dollars to build a fast, comprehensive, cheap to use, underground rail network with trains every 2-5 minutes, then public transport in the ACT will continue to be a semi-viable transport solution for when your car is being serviced.

Yes, yes yes!

In Canberra’s cold weather, who wants to stand around at bus stops.

Drive to a nearby park’n’ride, and catch a bus that goes frequently to the major centres.

EPIC would be a great spot for one.

I keep saying this, but well-placed Park n Rides would work better. Park n Rides in a paddock near population centres, with useful buses then ferrying the people to popular emmployment locations (Russell, Barton, Civic, etc) woudl be more effective and get people on those buses.

Doh, they were 203s, not 404s. Dunno why I thought that. Although the 404s were plenty tough too.

The cat did it said :

A Redex Trial? I look forward to fleets of restored Peugeot 203s ferrying Canberra commuters …

Hooray, so I’m not the only one who thought a fleet of restored cars.

While they’re not quite in the same class for trademark issues, why are we covering our natural gas powered buses in advertising for international companies that produce oil, oil additives and lubricants?

(IE: These guys, Redex, who sell oil derivatives in the australian market).

The cat did it9:04 am 30 Apr 09

A Redex Trial? I look forward to fleets of restored Peugeot 203s ferrying Canberra commuters …

Agreed that he shouldn’t have let the work experience kid write the press release without proof reading. However he does have good point in that the two routes don’t mean the government have complied with the Greens’ requirements of 30 mins buses, it’s only 2 hardy useful services.

Though they may come in useful for people who want to go to/from russell or barton to one of the town/group centres, otherwise the route is useless. The people catching this service will have to disembark at an interchange and wait around in the cold to catch another service home. ACTION is only going to gain patronage if the services are fairly direct from their place of work/school to their home. Making the routes 30 minutes apart is not going to get more people onto buses when they don’t go where people want to go in a reasonable time. Also, realistically every route shouldn’t run at 30 minute intervals if there is not sufficient patronage to justify it, it’s just a waste of money.

…though at least it wasn’t full of typos like my above post!

PM said :

Zed didn’t make the promise, as far as I’m aware – he doesn’t need to pretend he’d deliver the same thing if he were in charge. He’s holding Stanhope to account, and rightly so in this case.

Zed is probably going to need to gain the support of the Greens if he wants to ever form Government, so he does need to explain how he’d work with them on issues like public transport. His press release is hopelessly written by the way – the sentences are repetitive and there’s no much for a journalist to copy and paste into their article.

Umm OK Zed… but moving forward what do you think of this proposal and what would you do differently?

And that’s why I didnt vote liberal. They never seem to offer any viable alternative.

bd84 said :

How on earth is this an express service? The buses may come every 15 minutes, but the scenic route that it will take will take at least an hour, if not more.

Perhaps it will be like the old commuter express services that were axed in Network 98, where they only picked up and set down at marked stops (Generally every second one in the suburbs) and did not pick up between interchanges.

gun street girl5:46 pm 29 Apr 09

SheepGroper said :

gun street girl said :

So essentially what they’re offering is a re-jigged version of a service they dismantled years ago, only not as good as the first version was. Great idea!

I don’t think we’re supposed to remember the old service existed, just praise our Glorious Leaders for improving our wonderful service still further.

All hail 333 Redux.

I catch a bus from Chisholm to City West – and this takes 45 minutes (approx 25 minutes more than driving). Any measure that can get me there faster and I’ll cheer loudly.

Zed didn’t make the promise, as far as I’m aware – he doesn’t need to pretend he’d deliver the same thing if he were in charge. He’s holding Stanhope to account, and rightly so in this case.

What about weekend services? It’s terrible at the moment, and very hard for people without vehicles (like young persons and elderly). They were supposed to reinstate what we used to have, about a year ago after they took the axe to it. Still no show.

Having the buses go every half hour instead of hourly from Gungahlin is a vast improvement. It may even make the whole system workable.

I don’t care what we had when the streets were paved with gold. I want things better than they are now and I’m glad to see it happening.

re post #9

What does “guaranteed” mean in a government services context? If the bus is late can I get my taxes refunded?

gun street girl said :

So essentially what they’re offering is a re-jigged version of a service they dismantled years ago, only not as good as the first version was. Great idea!

I don’t think we’re supposed to remember the old service existed, just praise our Glorious Leaders for improving our wonderful service still further.

“REDEX 1 will be a return service to Gungahlin, Dickson, City, Russell, Barton, Woden, Erindale and Tuggeranong. REDEX 2 will be a return service to Kippax, Belconnen, City, Russell, Barton, Woden, Erindale and Tuggeranong. “

How on earth is this an express service? The buses may come every 15 minutes, but the scenic route that it will take will take at least an hour, if not more. When will these idiots learn that people DO NOT want to catch a bus that takes any more than 20-25 minutes to get to their destination. This service is no more than a scenic version of the existing 300 series buses? A true fix would have them making routes shorter to a central destination, not travelling through 7 places.

Getting rid of the 333 was a major mistake. It was the one part of ACTION buses that used to work well, and was well patronised.

This sounds promising though.

gun street girl8:57 pm 28 Apr 09

SheepGroper said :

“Commuters can expect a bus every 15 minutes during peak times and every 30 minutes during off-peak times on high demand weekday routes”

We had better than that around a decade ago, the 333s were 5 minutes apart between the major centres.

+1. So essentially what they’re offering is a re-jigged version of a service they dismantled years ago, only not as good as the first version was. Great idea!

Felix the Cat8:44 pm 28 Apr 09

So where are they getting all these extra bus drivers from? Last I heard ACTION was struggling to recruit drivers. Has anybody noticed that there seems to be quite a lot of female bus drivers? Seems a bit of an odd occupation (not saying bad, just unusual) for a female. You don’t see many female truck drivers for instance.

It is great that something is happening, but….

What is missing is any information on how long the journey will be. I appreciate there are a large (shrinking) number of fed public servants in Russell and Barton but do I have to travel through there to get to Civic! I know this is a ploy to justify parking fees in the triangle.

We are missing a huge employment area in Fyshwick and Hume though where lots of young kids work in apprenticeships/low paying jobs and would love a decent bus service.

This sounds really good.

SheepGroper said :

“Commuters can expect a bus every 15 minutes during peak times and every 30 minutes during off-peak times on high demand weekday routes”

We had better than that around a decade ago, the 333s were 5 minutes apart between the major centres.

The 300-series buses do that now.

Woody Mann-Caruso6:27 pm 28 Apr 09

this is what got them across the Nullabor

Did you know that Nullarbor is an Aboriginal word meaning “no, it isn’t?”

That was the standard for suburban routes, though. We will have to wait and see what happens with special routes, I think.

“Commuters can expect a bus every 15 minutes during peak times and every 30 minutes during off-peak times on high demand weekday routes”

We had better than that around a decade ago, the 333s were 5 minutes apart between the major centres.

Let’s give credit here. It’s a good step, if five years overdue and barely scratching the surface.

If the ACT chooses to let developers build houses so far from Civic, then its planning system ought to inbuild a decent transport system for the poor mugs who have to travel from the outer suburbs. Routes from the outer suburbs can require 20-25 bus stops, and this takes up to 55-60 minutes to get to work in peak hour.

Not good enough; we want it done in half that time. Here’s a target: can we get outer suburbs residents to Civic in 30 minutes in peak hour? We’re a modern city, so surely we can deliver.

Transport is not just more buses, new timetables or green buses. It’s getting the roadmakers to devise a priority system that prevents buses from being caught up in peak-hour traffic. Good transport needs good engineers, not just green buses or new timetables. It actually needs some imagination. (I wonder if we should sublet the task to Terry Snow, as he clearly knows how to get things done in this town).

Bottom line is this: Canberra commuters who live in the outer suburbs don’t just want public transport, they want Rapid Public Transport. We don’t care if it’s green or ungreen as long as it’s economical and rapid.

This is fantastic!! Just brilliant! Congratulations to government and Greens on this one, and thank you very much!

: )

Yes, but Qbn is a dormitory for Canberra, and all those cars are going to keep clogging the roads and carparks. A half-decent park’n’ride at the Harman Paddocks would work, I reckon.

Best be asking the NSW government about that.

Where’s the qbn one? I was on Canberra Ave today, between Qbn and Fyshwick, before 8am and it is a carpark.

REDEX 1 will be a return service to Gungahlin, Dickson, City, Russell, Barton, Woden, Erindale and Tuggeranong. REDEX 2 will be a return service to Kippax, Belconnen, City, Russell, Barton, Woden, Erindale and Tuggeranong.

Once again Weston Creek misses out on any decent express bus services!

And I thought I had these somewhere after scanning some old slides for my parents. If you’ll excuse the Off-Topicness, this is what got them across the Nullabor:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v390/ozhair/Slides/?action=view&current=Slide004.jpg

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v390/ozhair/Slides/?action=view&current=Slide015.jpg

🙂

Heh, my mum and a couple of her friends drove from Sydney to Perth in, I think, ’54, in an old clunker they bought for about 50 quid. No paved roads at all across the Nullabor. They even ran in to some of the Redex teams, who were surprised by what they were doing 🙂

… and somewhere, I have photos of us and another family, both with HOldens, camping on Mt Kosciusko.

Yep, agree totally VYBerlina. Our old EH took us all kinds of places (it wasn’t old then of course), and the 504 Peugeot after that was even better. WE had a family camping trip on Cape Tribulation in the 70s. It rained, and all the creeks flooded, so we just camped and waited for the creeks to go down.

When we made it to the Punt back over the Daintree, there was a lot of tough-looking 4WDs. The Punt guy told us that the 4WD blokes had been impressing each other with tales of near creek death and other close shaves when our little Peugeot farted its way onto the punt. They were rather grumpy about us.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy3:24 pm 28 Apr 09

They weren’t 4WD either (reference to the snow thread).

I was recently flicking through an old MOTOR magazine from the late 1970’s, and they had an article about preparing your family vehicle for outback touring. Their advice was that unless you planned to tackle very serious off road conditions, standard 2WD was fine provided you were careful and carried appropriate recovery kit.

A far cry from today where we hear you can’t even drive down a hill in the wet on sealed road without 4WD or AWD (which is really little more than a marketing gimmick anyway).

Thanks random, the CM’s media release has only gone online in the last few minutes.

Also via Stanhope:

Commuters can expect a bus every 15 minutes during peak times and every 30 minutes during off-peak times on high demand weekday routes when the ACT Labor Government trials new rapid transit buses,Chief Minister and Minister for Transport Jon Stanhope revealed today.

The Budget will provide $1 million for the new service, REDEX – Rapid Express Direct, to be trialledin 2009-10 between 6:30am and 7pm on weekdays during school terms.

ant said :

Yeah, snap Peterh, I was visualising a plucky little Peugeot 404 ploughing its way through the desert to victory. Actually a bunch of them made it, didn’t they?

They weren’t 4WD either (reference to the snow thread).

Imagine writing a press release and leaving the background out. FAIL.

but they were allowed to travel at the highest possible speeds that their cars / drivers could handle. NFSA has the original documentary on film, very entertaining.

From this; Green/ALP Agreement

“2.4 Adopting a goal of guaranteed bus frequency of 30 minutes. The first stage of the
proposal, considering time periods and appropriate locations should begin
implementation by the middle of 2009.” Pge12 of 16.

Ah, but he called them ‘nutjobs’ … such devastating wit obliterates the need for any real argument.

They seemed to have four more MLAs than the Oyster Party last I looked.

A Noisy Noise Annoys An Oyster said :

Does anybody even listen to anything the Green nutjobs say?

The smarter ones do…

A Noisy Noise Annoys An Oyster2:43 pm 28 Apr 09

Does anybody even listen to anything the Green nutjobs say?

motor endurance rally over rough terrain and unsealed roads. Don’t think it is the same thing, somehow…

Have you seen some of the local roads recently?

Yeah, snap Peterh, I was visualising a plucky little Peugeot 404 ploughing its way through the desert to victory. Actually a bunch of them made it, didn’t they?

They weren’t 4WD either (reference to the snow thread).

Imagine writing a press release and leaving the background out. FAIL.

A rule of thumb for writing pressers should be that if the term isn’t known to Google or Wikipedia, you ought to explain it.

only redex trial i know about is the the Round Australia 1954 Redex Reliability Trial – a 15,450 kilometre motor endurance rally over rough terrain and unsealed roads. Don’t think it is the same thing, somehow…

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.