Australian Futures: More Low-Cost Public Transport Embedded in Sustainable Urban and Regional Planning

The AIM Network

7 months ago

By Denis Bright

From the state with the highest fares for non-concessional public transport, Premier Steven Miles has taken the plunge to offer fifty cent fares without compromising already existing free transport for seniors on Brisbane buses. Brisbane’s Translink-based public transport services were carrying a lot of empty seats in off-peak periods over a vast network from Gympie to the NSW Border and west to the township of Helidon below the range to Toowoomba.

According to Translink data, public transport usage in Brisbane was still 16 per cent down on pre-COVID levels of usage (Brisbane Times 2023).

Transport Minister Bart Mellish (4 August 2024) invited residents across SEQ to come onboard on the eve of the fare reductions. Queenslanders accepted the invitation. Seven million extra passenger journeys were made in the first week of the low-cost fares. Australian Bus Coaches (14 August 2024) noted that bus patronage across the Translink network on the weekend of 10-11 August was the best result since Translink operations commenced in 2012.

Previous conservative Queensland Governments welcomed the transformation of grazing land into garden suburbs without adequate planning controls. To justify cost saving measures in public transport, US traffic consultants like Ford Bacon and Davis as well as Wilbur Smith Associates promoted the value of a motorized cities and suburbs. Rail track closures to Southport and Coolangatta-Tweed Heads have only partly been reinstated sixty years later at great costs in land acquisitions and infrastructure (Image: Promo from property developer L. J. Hooker from the late 1950s).

Traffic flows in the new suburbia increased exponentially with newer corporate retail hubs displacing the leadership of high street suburban shopping centres. The main suburban shopping malls have been identified from media monitoring.

Key Retail Hubs

Suburban Metro Sites in Brisbane

* Indooroopilly Plaza– Owned by Scentre Group along with Garden City and Brookside

* Carindale and Chermside Centre-Vicinity Centres

* Aspley Hypermarket-Retail First

* Browns Plains–Co-owned by Vicinity Centres and EG Funds Management

* Toowong Village-Dexus Group and Associated Companies

* Riverlink Ipswich-Vicinity Centres and Stockland

* Redbank Plaza: YFG Shopping Centres-private company

* Logan Hyperdome: –QIC Public Ownership

Near Coastal Locations

* Harbour Town–Stockland and Pacific Fair-Australian Core Retail Trust

* Noosa Civic–Olympian Stockwell and Sunshine Plaza-Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield

Transport orientated development projects (TODs) are now public policy priorities across Australia. The NSW Government seeks to attract property investors to localities within four hundred metres of major transport hubs where investment in affordable housing is pragmatically fostered through multi-functional projects. TOD projects are being incorporated into the Cross River Rail Project in Brisbane. The Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) has extended this priority to its property investments at Eastlink in Melbourne and Castle Towers in NW Sydney.

At Castle Towers, Australia’s biggest public transport project the North–West Metro is now open. The Metro North-West line from Tallawong to Chatswood offers trains at four-minute intervals.

These are not visionary projects but the new mainstream of urban consolidation. Financing government commitments to new TOD projects is always challenging in a slowing Australian economy with reduced GST allocations to the states and pressures on increased federal grants. These federal funding sources represent 42 percent of the revenue base of the Q Government. The QIC will benefit from the sale of its investment in the car parking station and traffic management at Ohio State University (USA). The reputed sale price brought a net return of over $1 Aus billion in capital gains (IPE Real Assets 11 June 2024).

Much of the heavy lifting in investment for TOD ventures can be taken up through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the progressive NSW model with the state covering the costs of some embedded infrastructure, community development and environmental initiatives within the targeted development zones.

However, there are immense financial costs of extending Translink services to the lower population densities in outer metro and nearby regional areas like the fringes of the Wide Bay Region. Peripheral areas of Wide Bay are within the Brisbane-focussed Translink catchment. Extending affordable transport into regional areas beyond current Translink boundaries must logically incorporate Maryborough and Hervey Bay as well as Toowoomba into the affordable transport network.

Locations for Future Brisbane Based Translink Services

The combined Translink train and bus from Brisbane to Rainbow Beach operates one service on weekdays in each direction.

Tours of K’Gari Island also operate from Hervey Bay and Noosa.

Noosa is well served by Translink services to Brisbane with connecting buses from Nambour station.

Local authority planning laws compatible with the SEQ Plan 2023 are a real defence against any return to the urban sprawl which continues to trash more neoliberal societies.

Cheaper public transport fares are just the first step forward. Extending these affordable fare options to the remnants of regional train and bus services might require strident environmental commitments and application of innovative technology options for hydrogen powered trains or other more conventional turbo-powered trains on regional routes on trial by Alstom for application in Europe. After the shock YouGov poll result on 18 July 2024 in Queensland, more populist initiatives in affordable transport by train and connecting buses might help to turn the tide by promoting regional tourism. Overseas developments in overseas regional train technology could be considered to replace rail passenger technology which was innovative seventy years ago in Inland Queensland.

Where connecting regional bus services to the remnants of rail services do not currently operate, extensions to rail journeys could be negotiated with commercial coach-lines such as Greyhound and Premier Coaches. The Queensland Rail Booking service needs to be commercialized to collect commissions for online bookings of accommodation and tours with a security card for a one stop check of applications to travel.

Government intervention is crucial to prevent a return to urban sprawl which is very prominent in more neoliberal economies. In the US, commercial property developers maintain the influence of motorized shopping malls like Potomac Mills beside Interstate 95, 45 kilometres south of Washington DC on former farmland and forest glades.

Corporate ownership of major shopping complexes makes a return to this style of retail development a possibility. The value of sustainable planning structures is always severely tested during periods of future market corrections.

Readers might check out the drone footage of this style of corporate development from the video of the Potomac Mall.

The tensions between highway orientated development of retailing and housing development over urban consolidation are ongoing planning challenges particularly when pressures for public sector cost-cutting increase during market corrections in the wider economy.

Out of curiosity, I checked on the public bus connections to Potomac Mills and other locations in the lower housing densities of near metropolitan zones (PR Transportation Commission-PRTC). Published US fares need to be raised by 50 per cent for conversion to Australian dollars. Single journeys can cost $Aus 17.60 regardless of distance on commutes from outer metro locations to Washington along that Interstate 95. Use of public transport is actively discouraged by free tolls on Interstate 95 for private vehicles carrying three or more passengers.

Translink is a step ahead of PRTC in trailing on demand loop services for lightly travelled routes. These services might provide an opportunity to extend minibus and van connections to outer metro and regional areas.

Premier Miles’ commitments to more affordable public transport and the new initiatives in the SEQ Plan 2023 are steps in the right direction to restore public transport to its rightful place in an environmentally aware society.

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Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.