Brisbane public transport: Commuter nightmare as major bus stops to close ‘for months’

Several stops at two of the CBD’s busiest bus stations are set to be closed for “months” to allow for construction on the next stage of the Brisbane Metro.

Several stops at two of the CBD’s busiest bus stations are set to be closed for “months” to allow for construction on the next stage of the Brisbane Metro, potentially impacting tens of thousands of passengers.

Bus stops at The King George Square and Queen Street stations are set to be temporarily closed from Monday, December 11 until a date of “mid-2024”, Brisbane City Council confirmed.

The Brisbane Metro project is set to deliver a 21-kilometre “turn-up-and-go” service running along two dedicated lines which connects 18 stations.

Construction works for the next stage of the Brisbane Metro will close several stops at the stations for months in a major impact to tens of thousands of daily passengers.

“(It) will include replacing and realigning the platform screen doors to accommodate the new metro vehicles,” a council statement read.

Commuters using Brisbane’s bus services will experience disruption while the work goes ahead. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled

“These works will continue until mid-2024 and will require temporary changes to services at King George Square and Queen Street bus stations.”

Council’s civic cabinet chair for transport Ryan Murphy said the King George Square and Queen Street bus stations would remain open while the upgrades were underway.

Cr Murphy said the work would be staged so the stations could remain open and the impacts be minimised as much as possible.

“While the stops where people get their bus may change, the stations will remain open and service frequency and reliability will be unaffected during these works,” Cr Murphy said.

“The works will involve replacing and realigning platform doors to allow our high-capacity Metros to provide turn-up-and-go services in the CBD.

“Two-thirds of all public transport commuters travel by bus, which is why these works are so important to help unclog the bottleneck in our bus network.”

TransLink said there would be alternative stops nearby the Queens St bus station, behind the Treasury Casino, opposite the Magistrates Court and at Roma St.

It comes on the back of warnings for passengers on rail networks over the festive season to “plan ahead daily” or face being hit with 30-40 minutes extra travel time.

Critical works for the $6.3bn Cross River Rail projects are also set to impact passengers over the December and January period, its project boss warned earlier this week.