Noosa Council launches free bus trial to tackle Hastings St traffic

A minority of Sunshine Coast councillors want the region to follow Noosa’s lead and make bus travel free in a bid to increase public transport usage and ease congestion.

What works for Noosa may not work for the Sunshine Coast according to several councillors opposed to testing free bus travel.

A minority of Sunshine Coast councillors want free buses considered after Noosa Council’s “Queensland first” decision to trial the initiative every weekend for 18 months, at a cost of $280,000.

Joe Natoli, Christian Dickson and David Law are keen for the Sunshine Coast to explore it in a bid to tackle the region’s low rate of public transport usage.

But other councillors were reluctant to support spending ratepayer funds on bus travel, and instead called for an overhaul to the service to make it more efficient and user friendly.

Noosa Council Mayor Clare Stewart said the move would be funded through the Sustainable Transport Levy.

“This aligns with so much about what is special about Noosa, we’re different by nature,” she said.

“It addresses parking, transport, reducing our carbon emissions and getting the young and the elderly out into the community.”

Likely scene: A traffic jam on Hastings street in Noosa as crowds pack in to the popular tourist town. Picture: Lachie Millard

Sunshine Coast Council transport portfolio councillor Rick Baberowski said the Sunshine Coast trialled free buses during Christmas and New Year in 2014 but found it did little to change behaviours.

“The trial did not translate into a sustained change of travel behaviour and so was not continued,” he said.

He said the Sunshine Coast’s transport levy was focused on helping facilitate projects, partnerships and service initiatives to achieve major and sustainable long-term benefits across all transport modes.

Mr Dickson said he “wholeheartedly” supported trialling free bus travel as a way to increase public transport usage.

“I congratulate Noosa Council,” he said.

“Let’s give it a go … let’s at least try it and get the data and we’ll know what works and what doesn’t.”

He said council investment in bus travel should “go hand-in-hand” with service upgrades.

Mr Natoli said a free bus trial could provide benefits for the whole region.

“If we’re really serious about trying to do something immediately we need to do something about buses,” Mr Natoli said.

Noosa Mayor Clare Stewart believes the free bus travel will benefit residents from the hinterland to Noosa Heads. Picture: Mark Cranitch

“I want to congratulate Noosa – they see they need to do something and they’re not sitting on their hands saying ‘well it’s the domain of the State Government’.

“It’s indicative of a council that knows unless they put their hand in their pockets they’re not going to see any change.”

Mr Law said dramatic improvements were needed to the region’s bus services.

He was also supportive of transitioning to zero emission fleets.

The trial at Noosa equates to about 150 days where residents, visitors and tourists can travel for free on buses in what is a Queensland and potentially an Australian first.

The existing TransLink services to be offered free are:

626 – Tewantin to Sunrise Beach via Noosa Heads

627 – Tewantin to Sunshine Beach via Noosa Heads

628 – Parklands to Noosa Junction via Noosa Civic

629 – Tewantin to Noosa Junction via Noosa Civic

632 – Noosa to Cooran via Cooroy and Pomona

Sunshine Coast Council councillor Winston Johnston said he would need more information on the potential benefits and how much it would cost the council.

Meanwhile Ted Hungerford, Maria Suarez, Terry Landsberg and Peter Cox believed bus services needed to run more regularly for people to use them.

“You can put free buses on but if the services aren’t there and it’s not frequent or convenient enough, why would people use it?” Ms Suarez said.

“The cost is pretty minimal to use a bus already.”

Ms Stewart said she hoped other councils would be inspired by the initiative.

“I’m really proud of our staff who have worked so hard on this, and our councillors are fully supportive of it,” she said.