Greens roll out ambitious bus policy in bid for City Hall

The Greens’ bid for City Hall has stepped up a gear, with mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan to announce an election commitment for 15 new high-frequency bus routes on Monday.

Should the Greens be successful in March’s local government election, a further 10 bus routes would be upgraded and 13 new bus and transit lanes would be installed on key bus corridors.

Greens lord mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan will unveil his party’s bus policy on Monday.Credit: Felicity Caldwell

In what he described as Brisbane’s biggest expansion of bus services in decades, Sriranganathan said it was a solution to the city’s hub-and-spoke public transport model, which required many passengers to travel into the inner-city area before doubling back to a suburban destination.

The plan has been costed at $169 million a year – $142 million for the 15 new services and $27 million for the 10 upgraded routes.

“Thousands of residents have told us they’d like to catch a bus, but that the frequency, operating hours and coverage of Brisbane’s current services just isn’t good enough,” Sriranganathan said. “Why should Brisbane’s public transport system be so much worse than other developed cities?”

“This would be the biggest, most significant, expansion of public transport in most people’s lifetimes, filling major gaps in the network and giving more people the freedom to leave their car at home.”

Along with the 15 new high-frequency routes, existing routes 175, 192, 220, 235, 380 and 470 would be upgraded to high frequency, aligning them with Bus Upgrade Zone routes.

The 100, 196 and 444 BUZ routes would be extended, while route 390 would be extended and upgraded to high frequency.

Bus priority transport corridors would also be introduced on Kelvin Grove/Enoggera and Lutwyche/Gympie roads on the northside; Old Cleveland Road, Ipswich Road/Main Street, Logan Road, Mains Road, Stanley and Vulture streets, Montague Road and Lytton/Wynnum roads on the southside; and the Centenary Motorway, a new inner-west transitway via Sir Fred Schonell Drive and the UQ campus, Coronation Drive and Moggill Road on the westside.

Generally, bus priority would take the form of T2 lanes on four-lane roads, with dedicated bus lanes on six-lane roads, with some adjustments based on local conditions.

Sriranganathan said proposals such as the Gympie Road bypass tunnel, which has the support of both the Labor state government and the LNP administration in City Hall, would do little to alleviate traffic on Brisbane roads.

“Right now, the major parties’ main response to traffic congestion is to waste billions building more car tunnels and widening intersections, but all the evidence tells us that improving public transport should be the priority, and that building more roads creates more traffic,” he said.

“Wasting $9 billion on a tunnel under Gympie Road is a ludicrous idea when we could revolutionise public transport coverage and access for a fraction of that price.”

While the Greens vote has surged in Brisbane, the party remains an underdog in the March election, with the lord mayoral race a three-way contest between Sriranganathan, incumbent Adrian Schrinner (LNP) and Labor’s Tracey Price.

The Greens’ election commitment was given to this masthead on an embargoed basis, meaning comment from third parties could not be sought.

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