News & Discussion: O-Bahn

[Norman]

Let's hope it's not a single concrete deck like the last proposal!

[Mpol03]

Having seen them board up the park lands around the city entrance, I can see why they have not yet done muc regarding the landscaping.

[ChillyPhilly]

For anyone interested, this event is open to all. It is FREE.



Technical Forum – O-Bahn City Access Project

Wednesday, 14 March. 5:30-7:00 pm, DPTI, 77 Grenfell Street.

You are invited to join us for a technical forum where Dariusz Fanok, Senior Project Manager from the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) will provide an update of the recently completed O-Bahn City Access Project, including discussing the challenges faced and key design features of the project.

Register here: https://www.aitpm.com.au/events/technic ... s-project/

[Bob]

One of the options being considered is the possibility of running Bus Lanes in the Centre of Grenfell & Currie Streets with Super Stops east of Frome St, near Gawler Pl, immediately west of KW St and potentially one immediately west of Light Square. Each Super Stop would have platforms on each side, the rebuild of the roadway would include wider footpaths and increased street tree numbers along with street furniture, indented parking bays for Taxi Ranks & Loading Zones to fit within the scope of the Greening Adelaide City Masterplan.

Potential obstacles include the political sell that street parking will be reduced, right hand turns banned, and the cost of the redevelopment, which the ACC is not prepared to undertake alone, it already paid for Rundle Mall and the half-baked (far from finished) Victoria Square. With no Federal or State funds allocated the ACC will leave Grenfell – Currie Street untouched until Government funds in the future are allocated. In reality this translates to ‘expect nothing in the near future with this corridor outside a standard re asphalting of the surface which will be required in the next 2-3 years for safety reasons’.
The ongoing debate and differences of opinion between the State Government and the ACC is strangling what potentially could be a win-win solution, especially considering the unofficial expected passenger numbers using the OBahn will pass 10M annually within 3 years from the City Access Project completion. Chances are this number is conservative, once patrons discover peak travel time savings will exceed the ‘average 3.5 minutes per trip saving as part of the projects initial appeal’, in all likelihood peak hour savings away from the CBD between 1700 & 1800 will be 5- 8 minutes savings off current times. For comparison the Adelaide Railway Station today handles about 8-9M passengers annually.

Ignoring the obvious increased traffic congestion points about to unfold from the end of this year will not take the issue away, that issue being Governments at all levels will need to cooperate and agree upon the final plan and funding for the main east –west bus corridor through the city.

This will be further exasperated if Bus services from Norwood, Kensington & Burnside districts all use the same city corridor once the old RAH closes.

Taking the task head on now instead of the backroom chatter currently taking place, is the only way to sensibly tackle what is going to be a big project in the middle of the CBD sooner or later. He said, she said, is not a professional way to agree, plan and fund this critical transport corridor.

Since I wrote the above mid last year, it is time to take a snapshot of how the City Access project has changed travel times & patronage.

Adelaide Metro have acknowledged recently that the time savings are greater than originally anticipated and as such have released new timetables allowing for consistent quicker times, for example off peak is 11 minutes and peak is 12 minutes scheduled from Klemzig to Grenfell St (stop closest to KW St cnr). To put into perspective, the average 3.5 minutes savings originally put forward and mocked heavily in The Advertiser, has in reality become over 10 minutes in savings during peak and 4 minutes in non-peak. Some additional scheduled services have been snuck into the new timetables and by all reports patronage has increased on the route BUT neither The Advertise or the Libs have released the figures unfortunately - it would be positive story for PT infrastructure spending. And time savings alone is only part of the story how this project has improved the situation.

This brings us back to the cooperation required between the Adelaide City Council & the new State Govt to plan, design and upgrade Grenfell /Currie Street properly for the long term, a plan than can cope with an increasing volume of buses and passengers. Despite what some commentators said over the last year or two that the O'Bahn is at capacity, that is simply not true, there is still significant potential to provide a lot more services on the route and add more buses into the CBD corridor.

The political task now has to start from scratch again...a long term attractive plan for the CBD PT corridor needs to be agreed and implemented preferably within 5 years

[Bob]

The long term plan for the PT corridor has to take into consideration any future transport links and potential stops, for example if a new City tram loop will use East Tce or Frome St, if a new City underground train loop will have a station at Hindmarsh Sq or will there be a western component of a City tram loop or not, if so where will it cross Currie Street. These key points potentially become interchanges with buses along Grenfell-Currie but at the same time there can’t be too many stops otherwise that in itself will create more delays.

Labor moved PT infrastructure forward in the last few years but one of their shortcomings was not announcing the full picture and the perception became everything was piece meal with trams that go nowhere & don’t turn right and a ‘bus trench’ being a waste of money etc. With Grenfell-Currie the planners really need to plan with a totalistic viewpoint to join the dots for the long term and then announce it to the masses.

The ACC rightly so will insist on the aesthetics being right, footpath width, seating, lighting, greenery etc but getting the right number of stops and the configuration & position of those stops plus the alignment of where the bus lanes (dedicated PT corridor) is crucial.

The bus stop changes completed & implemented in Grenfell-Currie recently has helped, but that is still not the long term solution. There are only going to be more buses year on year going forward.

[adelaide transport]

I have done an analysis of the new timetables for all O-Bahn services and compared it with the previous timetables and there are no additional services.
With regard to future additional bus services for Adelaide Metro current plans will only allow for replacement of 400 existing buses as their 25 years are up. No plans yet for any additional buses to allow for route expansion or service increases.
Last year tenders were called for 400 new buses over 10 years as per above.
As yet the Government has made no announcement as to who the succesful tenderer is,or what manufacturers have won contracts!

[Bob]

https://www.adelaidemetro.com.au/Announ ... April-2018

Additionally there is pressure to provide more direct routes from suburbs via the O'Bahn rather than terminating at o'Bahn interchanges for transfers. Just as the political pressure to increase park and ride finally got through. We can't sit back with O'Bahn passenger numbers continually increasing and say we will not continue to add any more buses due to some back room budgeting constraint, we are kidding ourselves with a head in the sand approach if we continue with that line.

This year a typical mid morning o'bahn weekday service to the City has standing room only, there will have to be further increases in services, regardless of some previous back room budgeting plan not catering for it.

Continued piece meal, playing catch up and poor planning will not cut the mustard.

In regards to Grenfell-Currie not planning for a long term PT corridor of proper design to see through 50 years would be foolhardy.

People will vote with their feet, ask the previous Labor Govt.

[Bob]

Hey 'adelaide transport' - Why don’t you arrange for a media statement in conjunction with the new Transport Minister to be released? I have run up a draft for you.

‘The passenger numbers using the O'Bahn services have increased x% YoY from 2017 to 2018, this has been mainly due to the success of the City Access project in providing a reduction in travel times greater than originally forecasted and more reliability in scheduling. The popularity of the most used PT corridor in Adelaide is becoming increasing popular with these changes.

The planned increase in park r ride at Klemzig & TTP will go ahead this year and our election promise to build a significant park r ride facility at Paradise is planned to proceed, coupled with our election promise to investigate the potential expansion of the O’Bahn to Golden Grove.

However due to budget constraints there is NO plan to provide more buses or any additional services on this corridor for the foreseeable future. ‘

Then sit back on watch the Comments section on The Advertise have an internal hemorrhage & 5AA Talkback’s switchboard light up. Two key Liberal seats abutt Klemzig & Paradise interchanges, both Steven & Vince have been asked numerous times by voters in their electorates about implementing more direct services from suburbs vai interchanges rather than transferring at interchanges, are they going to say we have got no more buses in the budget? Additionally the number of buses being unable to pickup passengers going to the City at Klemzig in high demand times due to being full already is increasing, those people vote and probably up to half of them live in Steven Marshall's electorate as Klemzig interchange catchment area also covers Payneham and surrounds, not just the Enfield side.

[Bob]

Commuters left behind as O-Bahn buses hit capacity

https://indaily.com.au/news/local/2018/ ... -capacity/

More buses and more services required...

[Goodsy]

Commuters left behind as O-Bahn buses hit capacity

https://indaily.com.au/news/local/2018/ ... -capacity/

More buses and more services required...

Transport Minister Stephan Knoll declined to comment on whether O-Bahn routes were under-serviced but argued that Adelaide Metro performed well overall, given that an average of 9400 bus services operate across Adelaide daily.

“That means of the 2.4 million bus services each year on weekdays, only 0.2 per cent of those are reported as full in that they can’t take on more passengers,” Knoll said in a statement to InDaily.

“That means 99.8 per cent of bus services aren’t reported as full and are able to take on more passengers.”

Our transport minister Ladies and Gentlemen

[claybro]

Well it is a fair enough reply if that .2% also is applicable for the Obahn. If full services are a regular problem on certain routes at certain times, then by all means allocate more buses. In the case of Obahn though they can't just pull a standard bus from another route. .2% on the surface of it would not warrant purchasing of extra vehicles. There would need to be a more detailed investigation than anecdotal evidence.

[SRW]

On routes that include the O-Bahn, Adelaide Metro received a report that a bus was full and unable to pick up additional waiting commuters an average of 48 times each weekday between 1 April 2017 and 31 March this year.

That seems significant, although admittedly I'm not aware how many routes this includes.

[[Shuz]]

Time to convert oBahn to rail.

[adelaide transport]

That is totally wrong. One of the key benefits of the O-Bahn is the ability to continue off-track at both Paradise and Tea Tree Plaza Interchanges.

[Ho Really]

That is totally wrong. One of the key benefits of the O-Bahn is the ability to continue off-track at both Paradise and Tea Tree Plaza Interchanges.

Is Shuz onto something here... No it's not totally wrong. You can do that with feeder buses.

Cheers