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Parking, bus and rail transport
Newcastle is lacking in parking, local shopping centres have free parking bringing the shoppers to the centres. Roads into Newcastle can not handle huge increases in traffic to Newcastle that developments will bring.
Comment 1 22 Oct 2008, 6:12 PM
Since Newcastle is lacking in parking, shoppers are going other places, so transporting of people into Newcastle has to be cheap and easy. The future way to get large number of people into Newcastle is by bus and train. Newcastle roads are not suitable for high volumes of traffic. A high volume of traffic occrred when the Pasha Bulka run aground, and the city was traffic bound and police were used to control traffic. The rail had the capacity to move large number of people in and out of the city. If the rail is terminated at Wickham, Newcastle will more…
Comment 2 23 Oct 2008, 7:15 PM
GPT proposes no viable alternative to rail.
Not one dollar is it investing in Newcastle transport , but like all shopping mall developer it wants to maximise it profits. Cut the rail and Newcastle faces daily gridlock ...like Sydney...like Brisbane ...like most modern cities.
Comment 3 25 Oct 2008, 11:21 AM
The newspaper The Herald Dated 25/10/08 reports that CPT proposes using a traffic lane in Hunter Street to be a bus lane. The Herald dated 18/10/08 reported that there would be possible 16,914 direct jobs and 47,923 jobs created. Lets guess and say that 3000 people would travel into Newcastle by Car ( Limited parking) lets guess and say 7,000 people would come by bus, with the rail terminated at Wickham lets say a bus can carry 40 people, that means that 175 buses would be needed to carry the 7000 people to work. If the workers travelled between 7.30am more…
Comment 3.1 27 Oct 2008, 12:50 PM
Your figures are sorely misinformed my friend! There are currently 31 buses stopping at the Museum/ Store on their way down to the East End during the week at peak hour 8-9am, leaving at intervals between 0mins and 5mins max. 40people x 31 buses = 1240 people. Not the 7000 you are suggesting. I suggest these CURRENT buses serviceing Hunter Street are not at optimum capacity and neither are the 7 trains (3-northern line + 4 Sydney line) operating during peak hour.
What i'm suggesting is that there is a grossly inefficient duplication of service happening parallel with, and along more…
Comment 3.1.1 27 Oct 2008, 6:22 PM
The quote in The Herald is that there is an anticipated work force in Newcastle of 16914 to work in Newcastle in the future. Planning has to be for projected figures. I am guessing well below the top figure of 16914 travel to Newcastle by Bus when the train line is gone. You can guess that the number of people travelling by bus down Hunter Street is 10,000 with the rail line gone. 10,000 divided by 40 people and you get 240 buses, and if they travel between 8.00am and 9.00am , you get 60minutes divided by 240 buses = 0.25 minutes intervals between buses, that have to travel down Hunter Street, and that is with out allowing people to get on and off the buses. These figures say that Newcastle needs another transport corridor, not a green corridor so, you might as well leave the rail in place, for those who come to Newcastle by rail from the outer suburbs.
Comment 3.1.1.1 29 Oct 2008, 1:18 PM
Exactly Vince!...You're GUESSING. 10,000 people during peak hour!! PLEASE!!! This is a grossly warped perspective as it does not take into account the other means of the city transport network (also including cars and walking) of getting into the city from different directions (ie. From merewether, Cooks Hill, Hamilton, even stockton) You are painting a riduculous scenario taking projected figures and wierdly suggesting Hunter Street is the ONLY way CBD workers get into the city. AND there is no account that there will be a large increase in the proportion of people actually living AND working in the city who more…
Comment 3.1.1.1.1 29 Oct 2008, 5:21 PM
We are talking about the future. Quoted from The Herald who quoted City rail currently there are 2770 "entries and exists" from Newcastle station, there are 1760 "entries and exist" form Civic station on a typical week day a total of 4530 "entires and exists" so there are 2265 people who travel past Wickham station in a train. At 40 people per bus you have to run 56 buses to replace the train going past Wickham, if I use your figures of 1630 people at peak hour going into Newcastle you would require 40 buses to replace the train. This more…
Comment 4 27 Oct 2008, 9:24 PM
It is reported in The Herald dated 27/10/08 That on a typical week day that apporoximate "entires and exists" at Newcastle 2770 and a Civic 1760, a total of 4530. If we allow some people leaving Newcastle district, and some coming into Newcastle, we could guess that of 4530, probably 2265 came into Newcastle during the day, if we guess that 75% were workers, students coming to Newcastle during peak times 7.30am to 9.00am is then 1698 people. Should the rail line be pulled up there would be at least 56 buses required to transport these people between 7.30am and more…
Comment 4.1 27 Oct 2008, 10:36 PM
My allowances are incorrect. There wil be approximately 56 bus movments at peak hour, but I would say there would be 41 running into Newcastle and 15 running out of Newcastle at peak hour in the morning. So the rail saves 41 buses being on the road going into Newcastle in todays world. Once again as Newcastle grows the number of buses required will probably double to 82 to service the rail coming into Newcastle. It must be remembered as each bus unloads its passengers they go to the lights to cross the road. The hold up from these lights changing so many times will cause traffic congestion especially since there are more vehicles using the road. The lights are used now but there are 41 fewer buses also. The people who leave the train move more as a mass than when broken up into bus loads, making buses passengers change the lights more often, there by hold up the traffic, more than at present
Comment 4.2 29 Oct 2008, 1:19 PM
Keep guessing Vince.
Comment 4.2.1 29 Oct 2008, 5:27 PM
I guessed that there would be 1400 people travelling past Wickham at peak hour by bus if the rail was removed. Your comment was that West End termius to, East End would have an increase by 1630, so I under guessed the figure. Your figure makes the situation worse
Comment 5 29 Oct 2008, 6:27 PM
Imagine at 5.00pm in newcastle 1000 people finishing work and congregating at a bus stop to catch a bus the Wickham plus another 1000 catching buses out to the suburbs, and when these buses get to Wickham imagine that 1000 people crossing the roads in groups of 40. Should the bus cross the road to the Wickham terminus, traffic lights would stop the trafic for every bus. 1000 people is a lot less than the project number to travel out of Newcastle. The thought put out is the workers are to come from people living in inner Newcastle, I suggect you look at Sydney. Milions are living in Sydney but thousands still come into the city to work. Sydney needs a good transport system and you can see how much money the government is putting into moving people around Sydney. Newcastle will grow and people will travel into the city to work, so let us not live in fairy land but plan about how things work in the world.
Comment 6 31 Oct 2008, 2:51 PM
I thought it might be a good idea to build a one story high pedestrian walk way around Newcastle connecting the walk way to the fore shore in a few places. This means pedestrian do not have to wait at traffic lights for buses cars and trains. this is called conectivity. There are plenty of light wieght matrials that can be used to build such a walk way. From Associate Professor Albrecht's article in The Herald the other day, Associate Professor Albrecht said Newcastle has to allow for flooding because of melting ice from Global warming. With a raised walk way you can walk over the water as it comes into the city.
Comment 7 31 Oct 2008, 6:30 PM
For open space connectivity between the fore shore and the CBD build an opened area over the top of the rail bewteen Bolton Street and Perkins Street, Over the rail and Wharf Road. Plies may be able to be fitted between the existing rails, and it is kind of building a decking with long piles for support. Run Escalators near Newcastle station and across the road ( Scott street). Run escalators at the fore shore. Build walking foot bridges into the CBD over Scott street and Hunter Street, with escalators going to the foot bridges. A good architect should be able to make this blend in with the heritage looks of the area. The open area over the rail lends it self to pot plants and the like, pergolas, with vines. The beauty of this is that part can be built, then added to as money comes avaiable. Not a bad way to spend $165 million to keep the rail
Comment 8 1 Nov 2008, 10:26 AM
An article in The Herald dated 1/11/08, in Your letters use averages to put forward a case to remove the rail. The argument goes some thing like this. There are 89 trains going into Newcastle with an average of 27 passengers per train, making the number of passengers going into Newcastle 2445. Now over 24 hours the train would come into Newcastle at the rate of near 4 per hour. On average then between 8.00am and 8.59am thetre are 108 pasengers. There are lots more passengers than that at peak hour. This is why averages are not the figure to more…
Comment 8.1 1 Nov 2008, 11:24 AM
I wonder if that figure includes the non-passenger runs going between Broadmeadow Yards & Newcastle.
Vince, it might be better to seperate your sources, quotes, etc by a paragraph break. That way we can see your opinion better.