Gold Coast councillor Donna Gates warned better bus services must be in place to handle population boom in north of city
The northern Gold Coast is headed for an astonishing “population explosion” despite being stuck with “lousy” public transport. READ THE FULL STORY
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A GOLD Coast council committee wants to spend $500,000 on a plan to revamp and bolster a “lousy” bus service in the city’s fast-growing north.
Councillors at a transport committee meeting yesterday believe the money would provide new routes, more frequent services and a restructure of the existing service.
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The northern suburbs are expected to be a magnet for another 350,000 residents projected to flood the city by 2041.
Deputy Mayor Donna Gates said she was told at meeting with Treasury officials this week that the region would “explode” without increased public transport.
“As soon as people can move to the Gold Coast this is the place they are going to come,” Cr Gates told the committee meeting yesterday. “The growth is obviously going to continue in the north of the city.
“I just want to urge that our officers get involved in that conversation for funding. The State is just not doing the job in pushing the point.”
Cr Gates said she had fought for rapid bus services when contributing to former Treasurer Jackie Trad’s committee during talks for the SEQ regional plan.
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“And the argument is always they have had a look at the numbers and the numbers aren’t there. Well, the numbers aren’t there because the service is lousy. And it doesn’t enable them to get their kids to school and themselves to work. They just can’t use the existing service.
“You look there — Coomera Waters to Coomera station, operates from 8.30am. What good is that to anybody who might want to get public transport?”
A council report concluded that the existing northern bus service was a “basic level of service”.
“These routes are circuitous, operate at low frequencies and provide long journey times,” the report said.
“The service offerings do not present an attractive travel alternative for people with access to private transport for their journeys to and from work or education facilities.”
The services are used mainly by a “captive audience” of youths and older people.
An officer told the meeting: “Really, we are dealing with hourly services and in some instances two-hourly services. With the span of service — it isn’t fantastic. It really is a baseline service of public transport. It hasn’t been commensurate with the land use growth and the latest demand for public transport services in the area.”
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Councillor William Owen-Jones said the three services connecting to Coomera railway station and Helensvale run on an hourly basis. He asked if the proposed funding for a study would look at how to increase the number of services and routes.
Officers said service frequency and coverage along with reliability would be considered in the study, and compared times to use of private vehicles.
Some growth investment in the existing services along with re-routing in the northern part of the city and new services were “in scope” with the planning.
“We have had the inception meeting (with Queensland Transport officers) on this project a few weeks ago. Again a whole lot of positive sentiment around the scope of what we are discussing now,” the officer said.
Transport committee chair Pauline Young backed Cr Gates on the need for services for new community facilities being built at Coomera and Pimpama.
“The kids need to actually get there. It will help with traffic in that area as well,” she said.
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