Brisbane City Council says the introduction this year of Brisbane Metro and Brisbane’s New Bus Network has already cut congestion on Victoria Bridge by an impressive 30%.
More than 2.6 million passenger trips have been taken across the M1 and M2 since services launched.
The M1 runs between Eight Mile Plains and Roma Street and has recorded a 12.5% increase in weekday patronage compared to the bus routes 111 and 160 it replaced.
Since launching on 30 June, the new M1 route has had 334,124 passenger trips, while the M2 route has just hit six months of service, clocking 2,315,412 passenger trips since its launch on 28 January.
The M2 between UQ Lakes and Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and has recorded a 3.5% increase in weekday patronage compared to the bus route 66 it replaced.
Congestion on Victoria Bridge has also reduced by 30% since the launch of Brisbane’s New Bus Network on 30 June.
When the Adelaide Street tunnel opens this year more than 1,390 bus and Metro trips will be taken underground every day. The new Adelaide Street tunnel will provide a faster and more direct connection for buses travelling between the southern and northern suburbs, improving reliability.
“By linking local buses with turn-up-and-go metro services on dedicated busways, we are delivering more services to more places, more often,” said Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner.
“While we recognise this is a big shift, it’s the only way to grow our network and ease congestion for everyone and we’re already seeing the positive changes of this network.
“We’re focused on delivering a network that works better for more people, now and into the future and working on a plan to deliver more metro services to more places soon.”
Brisbane’s New Bus Network is the biggest boost to bus services in generations with 160,000 new trips each year and faster journeys for more than 45 million people. The Council says the new network and metro services have laid the foundations for future stages of turn-up-and-go services, with the South East Busway capacity increasing by 30.4 million passengers by 2031.
Plans are also underway for a business case into the expansion of Metro north to Carseldine, south to Springwood, east to Capalaba and the Brisbane Airport Metro.
