Northern Beaches BRT study released

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has recently been studied for the Northern Beaches.  Long story short, it finds that none of the studied concepts is cost effective.  Why might this be? 

1. 24 hour bus lanes are a bit wasted if off peak services are to be kept mediocre.  I mean, for crying out loud, 20 minute weekend frequency on the L90 (to Palm Beach) dropping back to half hourly evenings and early mornings, with the L88 (to Avalon) not operating is mediocre at best.  In general, 15 minute frequency is what is needed to boost patronage as a 14 minute wait is far more acceptable than a 19 minute one.  Similarly, the L80 (to Collaroy Plateau) reverts to a half hourly 180 on Saturday and the L85 (to Mona Vale via North Narrabeen) is also half hourly.  Those heading beyond Burnt Creek Deviation are best off to avoid the all stopping services as they are about 8 minutes slower from Wynyard to Condamine and King Sts, so effectively there are only 5 buses an hour on this corridor Saturday daytimes with 20 minute service gaps, speaking generally.
2. A 6 lane Spit Bridge is hard to justify as there are already 3 lanes for the peak direction.  This does prevent the limitation of needing to reduce to a single lane counter peak, but it is easy to see that not being justified.  The Roseville Bridge is a reasonable alternative for counter peak travel for half of the Northern Beaches.
3. Option One seems to include the removal of the tidal flow arrangements on the Spit Bridge, with a single lane for cars in both directions.  This is not made clear however.
4. The suggestion of removing the L60 (Chatswood-Mona Vale via Dee Why) is bizarre.

What are alternative proposals? 

1. Have a counter peak bus lane along Spit Rd, preferably extending all the way back to the Warringah Freeway.  This likely would need to be combined with pushing trucks into lane 3 from the start of the Truck and Bus Speed Limit shortly before Medusa St.  There are no right turns until the end of the current speed limit, even if there is one immediately after its end.  This bus lane is important as it allows buses to queue jump the counter peak traffic letting them both serve the counter peak demand better and return for another peak run without requiring more buses to provide the same service.
2. Upgrading the peak direction Transit Lane to a Bus Lane between the Spit Bridge and the Warringah Freeway.
3. Actually establishing some sort of PM peak priority north of Ourimbah Rd.
4. Increase off peak services.  BUZ in Brisbane and Smartbus in Melbourne have both seen high take up of their services.  Metrobus in Sydney has been less successful, even if there are good services in there.  Services stopping at 9pm is no doubt a factor in the lack of success of Metrobus.  This would do much to reduce traffic congestion on the beaches and also help justify 24hr bus lane proposals.
5. More limited stop services outside of peak hour.  It is unclear why the L80 should downgrade to a 180 on weekends, for example.
6. Free transfers.  This will improve the service for all in that people can use a feeder and trunk model to get faster journeys.  Some will prefer a slower single seat, of course.

More generally, it is not entirely clear why median stations would be preferred over kerbside stations, nor is it clear why North Sydney termination with interchange to what are already reasonably full trains would even be proposed.

None of the options in the report break down the costs into their components, largely leaving the reader guessing.

De-bottlenecking York St

Yesterday I blogged that the NWRL cannot be relied on to fix this problem.  So what other fixes are possible?

1. The southbound M40 would benefit from using the Cahill Expressway to Elizabeth St.  This will avoid the Park St interchange, but who cares?
2. The Pacific Highway is over serviced and IMO the best solution is chopping off the northern part of the M20
3. STA routes E86-9 have been removed from York St to use Grosvenor and George Sts in the AM peak.  This treatment should be spread to all AM peak only Hillsbus routes - 613, 614, 616, 617.
4. A double decker bus meeting all ADRs (Australian Design Rules) has come on to the market.  Yet this has not been ordered by any NSW operator to the knowledge of the author.
5. Carrington St is not used as a drop off for Wynyard terminating buses.  This is presumably due to the difficulty of accessing Clarence St via Margaret St.  The fix for this problem would be to reverse an eastbound lane of Margaret St between Clarence and York Sts.  This would allow these buses to return to their depots more quickly or perhaps in time to make another peak run.

Put simply, there are a number of relatively simple fixes, just not actioned.

Harbour Bridge bus congestion - will the NWRL fix it?

Recently, 358 buses were timetabled to arrive at Wynyard from the Harbour Bridge in the hour from 8am to 8:59am on a work day.  79 (or 22%) of these buses are M2 services.  So one might expect a significant reduction in congestion once you consider queueing theory's prediction that a small change in supply or demand can have a dramatic effect on waiting times.  This prediction has a number of problems:

1. The remaining services can be expected to continue to grow.  Growth of 2.5% p.a. over 10 years would put us basically back where we started
2. Cityrail's network could not handle this many additional passengers travelling over the Harbour Bridge without a lot of pain.  Transport for NSW's preferred plan is to run the trains for the upper Northern Line into Sydney Terminal, however two trains per hour via Gordon must also be trimmed.  These changes seem extremely unlikely to survive political interference, and the alternate plan of terminating every second NWRL train north of Sydney Harbour seems likely to proceed
3. If only half of the promised 8 per hour trains actually reach Wynyard, it is likely that the short workings will not add much value.  Their value would be increased by the previously proposed quad between St Leonards and Chatswood.  This would allow people bound for stations up to St Leonards to use the short workings, and running the full distance trains express between Epping and St Leonards would also channel people who can use the short workings on to them.
4. Integrated fares have not been achieved in Sydney, and even if they were it is unclear that people from the Hills District would be willing to use a feeder bus to reach the station.  If they will not, then that means very expensive parking must be provided, a reduction in the market penetration of public transport or the buses along the M2 to the city and North Sydney would need to be retained in a reasonably large number.
5. An additional 25 or so buses reach North Sydney from the M2 between 8am and 8:59am on a working day.  It is estimated that between the Wynyard direct and North Sydney/Milsons Point buses that 4 trains per hour reaching North Sydney and Wynyard would be insufficient to meet demand.

So it can be seen that the North West Rail Link can not be relied on to fix bus congestion on the Harbour Bridge.  A subsequent post will go in to solutions to fix these problems.