RE: Stubborn motorists! - was:Re: FW: snippets, Wed.14.6.17
  Noel Forster

Tony’s love affair with cities has moved from Prague to Perth!!

This morning, my wife was heading off into the city and as is her want, catches the bus to the station. There is an app on I Phones (and I presume other types of smart phones) called Next There.

From this app my wife found she had 5 buses from 3 different routes heading her way within a 20-minute time frame to take her to the station within plenty of time for her train.

I usually park at the shopping centre (4-hour time limit) if I am going into the city but will catch the bus if I am going imbibe in alcohol.

We are very lucky in Perth (many of the buses in our area are newish and of course we only have B sets on our line). All we need is a tram service but our fearless leader promised the voters the world before the state election and all we are ending up with is an atlas.

After a few more sleeps, I will be able to report on the debacle that is the Toronto tram system with their order of new Bombardier trams running years behind schedule. Also, on the way home from Vancouver, I will see Hong Kong trams for the first time as we are having a few days there.

Noel in the best city in Australia for public transport.

From:TramsDownUnder@... [mailto:TramsDownUnder@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2017 6:21 AM
To:TramsDownUnder@...
Subject: Re: [TramsDownUnder] Stubborn motorists! - was:Re: FW: snippets, Wed.14.6.17

Advice received from Perth, Daniel, is that the rule of thumb across the city is that there's about a 50/50 split between bus and other methods (mostly car) of accessing stations, so that 40% bus figure I saw is probably pretty true. Unfortunately they're not yet using Smartrider data to get detailed station information as they are in some other states.

However, there would be a variation between the legacy and the new lines. On the legacy lines (Fremantle, Midland, Armadale), as in all Australian cities there is a lot of older low-density housing around the stations and there would be a lot of walk-up. In addition the station carparks tend to be quite small, just that typical strip carpark between the railway and the adjacent parallel road. Buses feed those from further away.

On the new lines (Mandurah-Joondalup) the walk-up environment is more hostile, exposed and longer-distance and there are big bus interchanges and carp arks at the stations (bicycle use is also quite strong). There might be a couple of hundred low-density houses at most within comfortable walk-up around the stations. So far there is little medium to high density residential TOD around stations as there is developing in Sydney and Melbourne. The main TOD in Perth so far is retail/commercial.

The trick that Perth has pulled with the buses is to make them very intense and quite quick. Having feeders to stations at 5 to 10 minute intervals in peak and 15 minutes off-peak, with no additional fare penalty and very convenient undercover transfer at stations, makes them very attractive to use. It has to be understood that in Perth the buses and trains are an organic, integrated whole, based on modal transfer, European-style. The achievements of the railways are well known but those of the bus system fly under the publicity radar, but they're both integral and don't fully work without each other. And that's without even considering the CAT buses which are a legend in their own right!

Roderick battles on I'm sure, but his proposition is based on the incorrect premise that Sydney's double deck trains can carry 1,800 passengers. For an express sporting event where nobody is getting on and off and there's time to load and unload them at each end, yes. For practical, regular daily, high turnover use they have no more capacity than any of the single decker equivalent consists around Australia, about 1,200 passengers. They have more seats, yes, perhaps necessary in Sydney because the trains are so flaming slow (though that still doesn't save people from standing 1 1/2 hours to Wollongong), but I'd rate your 3 door-per-car Melbourne stock as a far more effective commuter train. When Sydney's 3 door-per-car metro trains are eventually built up to a full consist, they will be the largest-capacity commuter trains in Australia.

I do believe there's a role for double deckers in Melbourne, on those interurban trains that are getting so much demand.