News & Discussion: Other Transport Projects

[Pressman]

just imagine what you could do with that 3 minutes you save on travel time!!!

The possibilties are endless!

Then people can only complain about their bus being 2 minutes late instead of 5 minutes late!

[AtD]

Finally.

Altho I do wonder why we needed a flyover.

[Nathan]

Finally.

Altho I do wonder why we needed a flyover.

Because the AdelaideNow comment collective would have gone into a meltdown if was a still "artist's impression" instead.

[mutt]

one lane for cars, that's going to create gridlock
perhaps that is their goal

oh sorry, my comments are probably against the agenda of this site where everything this council and government does is simply wonderful

Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood said the move was not about penalising drivers but about making public transport a more attractive option.

why? so the private operators of the buses can make a larger profit? I wonder what Yarwood's cut will be

[crawf]

[build 'em smarter]

That flyover is a joke!! Not one red light to completely disrupt the traffic flow, almost as many buses as cars, when in reality it would be the inside car lane at a standstill, and a couple of buses moving on the outside lane.

Sure you might theoretically save 3 minutes (wow), but have they taken into account the bottleneck that would be caused on east terrace/hutt street and also at west terrace. That will flow on to blocking intersections at east terrace/hutt street and all the streets that run perpendicular as no one will be able to turn onto currie/grenfell. (this will also delay the buses! changing the roads wont fix it, changing the management might though) This could possibly be the worst decision ever made to try and improve transport. If they want to make public transport more attractive, wait for the construction works on grenfell to be complete, then remove the onstreet parking, because adelaide doesnt seem to have enough of that, and keep 2 lanes for traffic and 1 for public transport.

[mattblack]

Great idea, long overdue, glad to see Adelaide actually moving with the times. I never use P/T that use Grenfell St but this should be a first step. More bus lanes in the city and connecting them out to suburbs is a must. For those drivers stuck in gridlock, go a different way or better still catch a bus. Cant wait to see more action taken.

[Wayno]

i hope the changed traffic volume/behavior is going to be monitored. I'm guessing most people who today cut through the city using grenfell/currie will move to using nth terrace, wakefield/grote, flinders/franklin, etc. I wonder what volume will stop going through the city at all.

[build 'em smarter]

Great idea, long overdue, glad to see Adelaide actually moving with the times. I never use P/T that use Grenfell St but this should be a first step. More bus lanes in the city and connecting them out to suburbs is a must. For those drivers stuck in gridlock, go a different way or better still catch a bus. Cant wait to see more action taken.

So the idea to making public transport better, is to make traffic worse, so that public transport looks better. I dont catch public transport for good reason, the service is unreliable (and this is just as bad on the way to work from the suburbs, so has nothing to do with traffic in city, thats just bulls*#t) and after 5:45pm i cant get a bus from the city that gets remotely near where I live. Changing traffic through the city like this wont fix the problems with public transport, it will just ruin traffic for other vehicles aswell.

NOTE: I am referring exclusively about buses when refering to public transport issues. I have never had an issue with the trams, infact I think they are great, and I never have the need to catch a train due to my location.

[mattblack]

Great idea, long overdue, glad to see Adelaide actually moving with the times. I never use P/T that use Grenfell St but this should be a first step. More bus lanes in the city and connecting them out to suburbs is a must. For those drivers stuck in gridlock, go a different way or better still catch a bus. Cant wait to see more action taken.

So the idea to making public transport better, is to make traffic worse, so that public transport looks better. I dont catch public transport for good reason, the service is unreliable (and this is just as bad on the way to work from the suburbs, so has nothing to do with traffic in city, thats just bulls*#t) and after 5:45pm i cant get a bus from the city that gets remotely near where I live. Changing traffic through the city like this wont fix the problems with public transport, it will just ruin traffic for other vehicles aswell.

NOTE: I am referring exclusively about buses when refering to public transport issues. I have never had an issue with the trams, infact I think they are great, and I never have the need to catch a train due to my location.

Basically yes although it is a fine balance. The idea is not to screw vehicle movements but to free up P/T. If it ends up being quicker to catch P/T into the city than to drive that will change commuters attitutudes. One bus lane will not do this though, it will also need other policy initiatives like increasing parking rates from the cheap rates that we have at the moment, reducing the amount of on/off street parking from the 41,000 spaces that Adelaide has, putting in maximum car parking requirements in the Development Plan for new developments rather than minimum allocations, better and more frequent services as well as more bus and cycle lanes. These changes are should not happen overnight because that is going to freak people out.

People were concerned about the impact on vehicles of the tram on King William and things like scatter crossings for pedestrians both have been of little consequence. People will change their behaviour accordingly which is what it is all about.

[build 'em smarter]

Basically yes although it is a fine balance. The idea is not to screw vehicle movements but to free up P/T. If it ends up being quicker to catch P/T into the city than to drive that will change commuters attitutudes.

I see your point, and the overall goal is ideal, however I feel that the best way to attract people to public transport is to actually make it better then other modes of transport, not bring the other transport down to the poor level of the buses. There really needs to be a massive overhaul of all elements of the buses which does include the road network, but also the operators, and how it intergrates with the rest of the transport network. This just appears to be an ad hoc measure to 1 street, with no concern given to anything else apart from the questionable 3 minutes savings of a trip.

If there was public transport that was available to me i would use it, however i feel at this rate, i may just be using a hoverboard to get work before a decent bus service is operational.

That aside, Kudos to the government on spending the money from the bus operator fines on that actual service though, now for some of the money raised from "safety" cameras to go back into improving road safety!!

[claybro]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but i recently read about the possible demise of "The Overland" train between Adelaide and Melbourne. Reasons given are the declining passenger numbers (the operator reduced the service from daily to 3 times/week), slow journey times, old trains etc etc. I have recently returned from Western Australia, and saw there, the train from Perth to Kalgorlie now takes 6.5 hours for the 650km journey and travels at 160km/h. So the government of WA can manage a fast regular train from Perth, pop. 1.7MIL to Kalgorlie pop. 36000, distance 650km with no major centres between, but the combined governments of SA and VIC, cannot manage a decent high speed train from Adelaide pop 1.2MIL to Melbourne pop. 3.9MIL over a distance of 750km with several large centres between.
Bearing in mind that the WA train has been in existance for over 30 years now, when Perth was much smaller than now and the boom was yet to really kick in.

[SRW]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but i recently read about the possible demise of "The Overland" train between Adelaide and Melbourne. Reasons given are the declining passenger numbers (the operator reduced the service from daily to 3 times/week), slow journey times, old trains etc etc. I have recently returned from Western Australia, and saw there, the train from Perth to Kalgorlie now takes 6.5 hours for the 650km journey and travels at 160km/h. So the government of WA can manage a fast regular train from Perth, pop. 1.7MIL to Kalgorlie pop. 36000, distance 650km with no major centres between, but the combined governments of SA and VIC, cannot manage a decent high speed train from Adelaide pop 1.2MIL to Melbourne pop. 3.9MIL over a distance of 750km with several large centres between.
Bearing in mind that the WA train has been in existance for over 30 years now, when Perth was much smaller than now and the boom was yet to really kick in.

Not sure that it's really a problem for the SA or Vic governments? I'm pretty sure that the track is owned by the federal government and in any event the service is run by private operators. But I'd agree the service is pitiful.

[Pressman]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but i recently read about the possible demise of "The Overland" train between Adelaide and Melbourne. Reasons given are the declining passenger numbers (the operator reduced the service from daily to 3 times/week), slow journey times, old trains etc etc. I have recently returned from Western Australia, and saw there, the train from Perth to Kalgorlie now takes 6.5 hours for the 650km journey and travels at 160km/h. So the government of WA can manage a fast regular train from Perth, pop. 1.7MIL to Kalgorlie pop. 36000, distance 650km with no major centres between, but the combined governments of SA and VIC, cannot manage a decent high speed train from Adelaide pop 1.2MIL to Melbourne pop. 3.9MIL over a distance of 750km with several large centres between.
Bearing in mind that the WA train has been in existance for over 30 years now, when Perth was much smaller than now and the boom was yet to really kick in.

Not sure that it's really a problem for the SA or Vic governments? I'm pretty sure that the track is owned by the federal government and in any event the service is run by private operators. But I'd agree the service is pitiful.

The Overland is heavily subsidised by both the SA and Vic Governments, if those subsidies are removed (as rumoured) GSR will not run the service.

[metro]

the service is pitiful.

all interstate rail services in this country are like that. The xpt between Sydney and Melbourne is really quite bad considering it's the main passenger train between the nation's 2 biggest cities and the air route is the 5th busiest in the world. The XPT's days are probably numbered too, the trains are looking almost due for retirement, and there is no sign of a replacement.