What Kingborough’s new park and ride means for chronic traffic congestion
After months of delays and setbacks, a new park and ride bus service is now taking passengers. See what the highly anticipated development means for commuters.
Tasmania
Don't miss out on the headlines from Tasmania. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Kingborough’s newest park and ride bus service is now taking passengers after months of delays and setbacks.
The Huntingfield park and ride is part of the ambitious Hobart City Deal, which has been ridiculed by Labor for its slow progress.
The Huntingfield and Firthside stops will provide regular bus services for Kingborough commuters and ease the chronic congestion on the Southern Outlet and in Hobart’s CBD.
It boasts 174 carparking spaces, a kiss-and-ride drop-off zone, a toilet block, and a sizeable lockup cage for bicycles and other personal vehicles.
Kingborough mayor Paula Wriedt, a regular bus commuter, said this was an exciting addition to the region’s scant public transport options.
Ms Wriedt said residents had been crying out for park and ride services, and she would like to see more open up in locations such as Margate and the Kingborough Sports Centre.
“There are an extra 72 Express bus services every week in Kingborough now, and that suite of options means that it’s going to be much easier for people to get to the city,” she said.
“It will hopefully reduce some of those very frustrating bottlenecks that we know have been an issue increasingly over the last 20 years as the Kingborough population has grown.”
Metro CEO Katie Cooper she was “very confident” they would be able to provide a reliable bus service to the area, despite previous problems with driver and bus shortages.
Ms Cooper said last year had been a challenging one, but that they had still managed to deliver 99 per cent of trips.
“Certainly Metro had some challenges a number of months ago, but if you look over the most recent period you’ll see we’ve actually had very good performance,” Ms Cooper said.
“Our staff work very hard, both our driver and back-of-house staff, to make sure the services operate as well as they can and as efficiently as they can for our customers.”
Mr Ferguson said it was believed that the artefacts may have been contained in soil relocated from another infrastructure project 15 years ago.
He said this new park and ride facility was a $6.5 million state government funding project to improve public transport and reduce congestion in and out of Kingborough.
“The new services and modern facilities will work with the other Southern Projects initiatives to keep Hobart moving by providing more transport options,” he said.
“The Southern Projects is an end-to-end solution that will make bus travel more attractive, providing choice and an easier ride all the way from the southern suburbs to Molle Street in Hobart.”
kenji.sato@news.com.au
O’Byrne doubles down on stadium support in wake of Gruen report
David O’Byrne has doubled down on his support for the proposed multi-purpose stadium for Macquarie Point, and cast doubt on the principles underpinning the recently published Gruen report.
Free again: murderer Jamie John Curtis paroled for third time
One of Tasmania’s most violent criminals, who murdered a man after repeatedly raping his fiancée in front of him, is set to walk free from prison. When he could be set free.