Brisbane bus riders brace for delays with changes heralding the city’s metro

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Brisbane commuters have been warned to brace for delays and confusion on Monday. There are huge changes to 150 bus routes and timetables as the city's metro network gets bigger.

Transcript

00:00Well there have been some little hiccups for commuters this morning with some reports of

00:06go-kart systems not working on some buses. That's Brisbane's version of Tap and Go as well as having

00:13some significant changes and buses sort of travelling a bit too close together that's

00:18caused some backup delays. But all in all it's to be expected on the first day of some of the

00:23biggest changes to Brisbane's bus network in nearly two decades. Now there's about 155

00:29changes to services and that's to make way for the new metro system. There's six new routes that

00:35have also been added and this metro has not only been long awaited but it's been nearly 10 years

00:42in the making. It's faced a number of delays and really despite its name the metro is not an

00:47underground network in fact it's a bus and it's a system that really boasts being able to get people

00:53in and out of the city in under five minutes especially during peak hour traffic as well as

00:59weekends. Now this is a system that's modelling off a two transfer transit. Now that effectively means

01:06that anyone that's travelling into the city will now need to catch two buses. They will have to get

01:12off at a busways like this one here at the cultural centre and then connect through into the city. The

01:17concern here is that disability advocates as well as parents with children that attend school and rely on

01:24the bus to take into the school will now have to stop and transfer. This is something that council has

01:31said effectively is needed to start to expand the network. It's a big change for many customers

01:38but we can't grow the bus network unless we make this change and buses are really important in

01:42Brisbane because they do two-thirds of all public transport in our city. We're not like Sydney and

01:47Melbourne we're a bus city and so this is one of the ways that we're going to decongest the city's core

01:53and improve the reliability and travel times of our bus network. Now while there's been limited

01:58disruptions this morning many commuters have said that it's been largely smooth sailing. Metro was

02:03actually on time today so that was pretty great. The vibes from all the people riding it from the

02:08politicians from the public everyone seems excited for the future of the city everyone seems engaged and

02:14it was quite a genuinely lovely experience. All in all while there's been sort of limited commuter chaos

02:20this morning lots of travellers have been using TransLink officers that are at their local busways

02:27to help and assist them when it comes to navigating these new routes but effectively the authorities are

02:33urging for people to make sure they keep across the TransLink app for any of the updates and to know where they're going.

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