Brisbane City Council not allowed to run buses from a stop in its own city

Wondering why you couldn’t find a park at the park n ride this morning? This is the tale of two park n rides just five minutes apart, and the bureaucratic decision that made one a sardine tin and the other a wasteland. | DRONE FOOTAGE

WONDERING why there were no free spaces at the park n ride this morning?

If you are living in Brisbane’s southeast, it could be that a stroke of a bureaucrat's pen has cut your station off from Brisbane’s bus network and shunted it into the Redlands.

The result is that while Carindale park n ride is a sardine tin for cars, Chandler park n ride is a wasteland.

It’s a contradiction that’s infuriated Brisbane deputy mayor and local councillor Adrian Schrinner for years.

Last Wednesday around 9am he sent his drone aloft to capture video proof of the practically empty Sleeman Centre park n ride.

“While many other park n rides are bursting at the seams, there’s tumbleweed at Chandler on most days,” he said.

The Sleeman Centre Park n Ride, shot on Wednesday, October 14, around 9am. Supplied: Adrian Schrinner

He said the problem is that despite being in Brisbane, TransLink has put the Sleeman Centre into the Redlands bus contract area, serviced by private contractor TransDev and not Brisbane City Council.

All six peak-hour services leaving Chandler are express to the CBD after Westfield Carindale.

That means if commuters want to go anywhere other than the city and they hop on at Chandler, they must hop off at Carindale.

It’s a five-minute drive but at least ten minutes on the bus and on top of that, most other services from the Sleeman Centre terminate at the Carindale interchange anyway.

Cr Schrinner said his residents would rather drive and park at Carindale than catch an extra bus.

“I think the gross under-utilisation of the park n ride is proof that there’s a problem with services,” Cr Schrinner said.

The Carindale Park n Ride, taken on a typical Wednesday working in October, 2017. Supplied: Adrian Schrinner

The deputy mayor wants TransLink to allow the council to share the Sleeman Centre bus stops with TransDev, so it can extend its peak-hour Carindale services to Chandler.

He said that new park n rides cost the State Government $70,000 per parking space.

“The State is spending over $44 million to build 650 car spaces at Springfield. At Chandler there are existing spaces not being used,” he said.

Public transport advocate Rail Back on Track spokesman Robert Dow said the underused park n ride was “a waste of space”.

“We’re not talking about huge distances here,” he said.

“It just seems to be some sort of bureaucratic boundary thing, they need to sit down and talk about it instead of slinging off about it in the media.

“What can be done to fix it?”

Deputy Mayor Adrian Schrinner wants to run Brisbane City Council buses from the Sleeman Centre. File picture: Peter Wallis

Cr Schrinner said council officers had “not had any luck” with previous requests to TransLink to share the bus stops.

A TransLink spokesman did not answer questions on whether TransLink would consider allowing Brisbane City Council and TransDev to share the Sleeman Centre bus stops.

He said the six express bus routes that run from the station “all have considerable capacity for additional passengers” and there was “no requirement for additional peak services”.

Cr Schrinner, who is also the councillor for Chandler Ward, said it was also an “equity issue” for his constituents.

“They’re in the Brisbane City Council area, part of the rates they pay go towards providing public transport services but they don’t benefit from the transport services,” he said.

“I’d like to see that change.”