If you missed the bus today the new schedule might be why

Anna Key said :

Once again, ACTION fails to deliver a bus service that picks me up from my front door at the moment I’m ready to leave, has plenty of available seats, and drops me right at work

You know, for may last job that’s almost what I had! Bus stop out the front door (10m) and 400m from the interchange to the building. Not quite the same with my current job though.

Anna Key said :

Once again, ACTION fails to deliver a bus service that picks me up from my front door at the moment I’m ready to leave, has plenty of available seats, and drops me right at work

Isn’t that a taxi service? But yep spot on.

beeshive said :

It is irrelevant that this case is a child going from A to B. do you seriously think it is acceptable to take so long to travel on a bus from A to B anywhere in Canberra? It takes me up to 105 mins to travel from home to civic on a bus and takes me 25 mins when I drive and park. I havent looked if the new timetable will improve that journey but given the frequency of the bus hasn’t increased, i doubt it. I have seen people turned away from the bus after 4pm when it is full (btw interchanges). But that can be the only bus going to particular subrubs after the interchange. It might be 5 mins for the next 300 series bus but you will still sit at the interchange for 30mins at peak hour waiting for the next bus to your suburb.

I am in the same boat, but am smart enough to realise that there isn’t all that much that can be done about it. Simply put Canberra is way too spread out and our work is generally decentralised (which goes against the 1960’s design of suburban Canberra), this makes it impossible to provide a more direct bus between every possible destination. So we spend time going around the suburbs picking up people before going somewhere to change. It all adds up, but impossible to make substantially faster.

That being said some of the initiatives such as the red rapid and what ever the rapid is (green?) that goes through the Parl triangle is very positive ways of reducing travel times to major work area’s away from the town centres, but yes it still takes time.

housebound said :

JC said :

beeshive said :

Perhaps they would if the government didn’t close it.

Unless I am very much mistaken where the government has closed schools they have provided school bus services to the areas effected, so doubt that’s the issue.

Maybe there are things you are mistaken about.

It can also be hard to get to high school or college without changing buses – they tend to be less than local.

Example then please and remember we were talking about a primary school child, not high school of college.

Overall I have no problem with the service action puts on weekdays (weekends are another matter). I have no car and must travel frequently around the northern suburbs for work (I make 4-7 bus trips per weekday). A few bus times have changed for me but have generally things are neither better or worse.

The only difference is that the 58 and 56 (which run from Belco-Gunners) used to be timed to depart Belco 30minutes apart. Now the 58 is 15 minutes after the 56 so instead of 30minutes between buses you have a 15 minute gap then 45 minutes. This is ridiculous considering both transport large amounts of uni students from UC to Kaleen, Giralang and Gungahlin. There is a similar problem going in the opposite direction but that has always been there. Had I realised this when they released the draft timetable, I’d have pointed it out in my feedback so in a way I’ve only got myself to blame.

It is good to see a direct weekend service from Gungahlin to the city on weekends but it should be half hourly, not hourly.

Sorry southsiders, I rarely travel southside (and when I do it is just to Woden) so I can’t really give my thoughts on what things are like for you guys.

Once again, ACTION fails to deliver a bus service that picks me up from my front door at the moment I’m ready to leave, has plenty of available seats, and drops me right at work

It is irrelevant that this case is a child going from A to B. do you seriously think it is acceptable to take so long to travel on a bus from A to B anywhere in Canberra? It takes me up to 105 mins to travel from home to civic on a bus and takes me 25 mins when I drive and park. I havent looked if the new timetable will improve that journey but given the frequency of the bus hasn’t increased, i doubt it. I have seen people turned away from the bus after 4pm when it is full (btw interchanges). But that can be the only bus going to particular subrubs after the interchange. It might be 5 mins for the next 300 series bus but you will still sit at the interchange for 30mins at peak hour waiting for the next bus to your suburb.

Try checking some of the school bus routes. They meander around the suburbs going past 7-8 schools and take longer than the regular buses to get anywhere useful.

silvernitrate said :

Yesterday, waiting at the city west stop going south at ~4:30, 4 300 series buses came at the same time (action saying that bus frequency is now 5 minutes). As a result, my normal bus which goes into the tuggeranong suburbs didn’t stop because there was no room to stop. I had to wait at tuggeranong for another bus which services the suburb and i noticed that a 300 series bus was leaving every 3 minutes whilst there were hardly any suburb servicing buses coming by. There were hardly any passengers embarking on each bus 2-3.

That’s the worst part of the 300 series. Used to work in Civic and lived in Gordon. Often had to fight my way onto the 318 to Gordon by stating that was where I needed to go – the majority, heading to Woden or Tuggeranong, could just as easily wait two minutes for another bus as opposed to me waiting half an hour or more for the next one to Gordon and risk being left behind again.

JC said :

beeshive said :

Perhaps they would if the government didn’t close it.

Unless I am very much mistaken where the government has closed schools they have provided school bus services to the areas effected, so doubt that’s the issue.

Maybe there are things you are mistaken about.

It can also be hard to get to high school or college without changing buses – they tend to be less than local.