The O-Bahn

[dbl96]

Nope. However, I suggest that buses feeding a hub with trams would be quicker. Which is the reason that other major cities round the world have not taken up the O-bahn. If the buses feeding the hub can return to their terminus more quickly because they do not have to travel all the way into town that means more frequent buses, or less buses for the same frequency. The hub to the city can then be done with flexitys - even coupled *gasp*.

How can a transfer to trams be quicker when the Flexitys only have a top speed of 80km/h and you're including an extra transfer and the resulting longer dwell times?

A tram wouldn't work on the O-bahn corridor. Take a look at the built environment around it. Almost the entire length of the track has nothing around it at all, so any rail vehicle would require time consuming and unpopular transfers. A busway is the only logical solution unless the surrounding population density is increased dramatically.

Surely there's better PT initiatives for us to obsess over and for the government to spend money on than replacing an already successful piece of infrastructure with another with dubious benefit?

if the obahn is to be replaced with anything it would need to be heavy rail. what would be the point of putting slow trams down an already fast corridor. youve got a dedicated corridor, so why use trams? put a metro style heavy rail line with feeder interchages by busses.

My vision for the corridor if the obahn was to be removed would be to have a rail line beginning in a tunnell at adelaide r.s.. it would travel east to a station in City East, before curving north with a station at the zoo and or melbourne street. Station under walkerville before exiting tunnel and rejoining existing corridor just south of new klemzig station. stations then at locheil park, paradise, holden hill, modbury, ridgehaven and Golden grove. klemzig, paradise, modbury and gg would be interchanges/TODs.

[monotonehell]

All I see with dbl96's suggestion is problems.

Problem 1. Say bye bye to Linear Park and the Torrens. There's not enough room for heavy rail there (that's why the OBahn is guided)
Problem 2. Your stations are too close together for heavy rail, it would never get up to speed.
Problem 3. Heavy rail's profile would see a reduction in frequency for the same capacity as OBahn.
Problem 4. Massive car parks would be required at each station, as well as massive bus transfer stations. The reduced frequency of rail would mean all the buses feeding the trains would turn up at the same time. You'd have pulses of congestion at each station.
Problem 5. Gradient is too steep in some parts for rail. Would require a reroute of the sections near Holden Hill.
Problem 6. Rail noise in suburbs.
Problem 7. Heavy Rail too costly off peak. Would mean a reduction in night services.

[[Shuz]]

All I see with monotonehell's response;

NIMBY.

[Aidan]

All I see with dbl96's suggestion is problems.

Interesting... all I see with it is a huge waste of money!

Problem 1. Say bye bye to Linear Park and the Torrens. There's not enough room for heavy rail there (that's why the OBahn is guided)

Heavy rail is also guided! 'Tis a bit wider than the O-bahn track, but not enough to be a serious threat. And while narrow track is an advantage of the O-bahn system, that's not the reason why Adelaide chose it.

Problem 2. Your stations are too close together for heavy rail, it would never get up to speed.
Problem 3. Heavy rail's profile would see a reduction in frequency for the same capacity as OBahn.
Problem 4. Massive car parks would be required at each station, as well as massive bus transfer stations. The reduced frequency of rail would mean all the buses feeding the trains would turn up at the same time. You'd have pulses of congestion at each station.
Problem 5. Gradient is too steep in some parts for rail. Would require a reroute of the sections near Holden Hill.
Problem 6. Rail noise in suburbs.
Problem 7. Heavy Rail too costly off peak. Would mean a reduction in night services.

You're right about the stations' effect on speed, but I disagree about the congestion. At busy times it would still be possible to run train services frequent enough for that not to be a problem. And at other times if the buses did all turn up at once it still wouldn't be sufficient to cause congestion.

A reduction in the frequency to capacity ratio would be of benefit in the peaks. At other times it would be a cost, but it wouldn't necessarily translate to a reduction in night service.

As for rail noise in suburbs, that's usually only a problem with the freight trains. For passenger trains I doubt it's much worse than the bus noise.

And electrified rail is better at hill climbing than many people think. The O-bahn route doesn't look too steep for rail, though I admit I don't know the actual gradient.

I think the biggest disadvantage, other than the cost of conversion, would be the reduction in the area directly served.

[metro]

All I see with monotonehell's response;

NIMBY.

i know right

the original plan was to build a rail line, it really should have been too. It's very useless to have a fast busway line that stops short of the city and requires fighting through heavy peak hour traffic. it should be changed over to rail or light-rail and extended to the city.

[monotonehell]

Heheh /troll.

Not useless at all Metro. In fact the OBahn does a lot better than people like to think. Look at the pax stats. It outperforms all our rail corridors.

The whole "fighting through peak hour traffic" isn't the big problem people thought it was. I catch the OBahn into Adelaide every morning and the tram out, The tram takes longer to get the 1.7km to Wayville out of Adelaide from Pirie than the OBahn takes to get the 3km in from Hackney to KWS (OBahn stops twice, tram stops five times though).

As to grade, LPG fired buses struggle up that hill to Holden Hill, that's why they're back running diesel again. Rubber on concrete offers more friction than metal on metal (the trams couldn't even manage the KWS/North Tce corner without sand when it rained).

Not to mention that a train service can not provide the door to door service with out the help of feeder buses, which would add an average 5 minutes to each trip. The advantage of speed of the OBahn only just tips the balance between a lot of people's choice between driving in or catching the bus.

Light rail would not do as well in the unique situation of the NE corridor (read horrid suburban Sprawl) and heavy rail is totally the wrong mode for that corridor. Heavy rail is for shuttling large quantities of passengers from centre to centre, it is point to point not for continuous service. That's why most of Adelaide's heavy rail lines are so poor -- too many stops.

In Adelaide we often use the wrong mode in the wrong places. Heavy rail, light rail and OBahn all have their place in a transport system. If all we had was linear TODs then we wouldn't need OBahn -- rail would be fine. But we do have nasty urban sprawl and to service it we need OBahn.


To paraphrase George Orwell and get back into troll mode:
"Rubber wheels good - metal wheels bad."

[The Scooter Guy]

Cambridgeshire's new busway has ballest, not just to give a smoother ride, but it's heavy enough to stop weeds from growing underneath the track.

[monotonehell]

Cambridgeshire's new busway has ballest, not just to give a smoother ride, but it's heavy enough to stop weeds from growing underneath the track.

Shhh don't mention the Cambridge Busway.... OMG talk about a construction industry disaster......

[Aidan]

Cambridgeshire's new busway has ballest, not just to give a smoother ride, but it's heavy enough to stop weeds from growing underneath the track.

Shhh don't mention the Cambridge Busway.... OMG talk about a construction industry disaster......

From a transport planning POV it's a huge mistake, but I wasn't aware there were construction problems beyond a few delays. Do you have any more info?

[monotonehell]

From a transport planning POV it's a huge mistake, but I wasn't aware there were construction problems beyond a few delays. Do you have any more info?

Over two years past the opening date, structures not designed to deal with expected floods, etc. Wikipedia have a good summary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridges ... ded_Busway

[fabricator]

From a transport planning POV it's a huge mistake, but I wasn't aware there were construction problems beyond a few delays. Do you have any more info?

Over two years past the opening date, structures not designed to deal with expected floods, etc. Wikipedia have a good summary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridges ... ded_Busway

I'm loving the crossed out cost estimates, £116.27m to £180.7m

Shortly afterwards Stagecoach altered the slogan displayed on their fleet of buses for the busway, changing it from reading "I'll be on the busway soon, will you?" to a new slogan of "Will I be on the busway soon?"

trolled by the bus company, ouch.

[jase111]

The money reprofiled from the extension of the o-bahn to the Queensland. Floods it has been a couple of years now and with the fed budget next month does anyone think there will be money for this project ?

[[Shuz]]

The money reprofiled from the extension of the o-bahn to the Queensland. Floods it has been a couple of years now and with the fed budget next month does anyone think there will be money for this project ?

You're kidding, right? Have you even been reading the papers or watching the news lately?

The Federal Government are hell-bent on achieving a budget surplus and so will slash and burn through every program, nook and cranny they can to meet this goal.

Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the task. Last year the Government posted a Budget deficit of some $20bn thereabouts. They want to achieve a surplus of $1.5bn for the 2012/13 FY. That's $21.5bn of savings they have to find, somewhere, somehow.

Food for thought; the defence budget is $21.2bn.

[crawf]

The money reprofiled from the extension of the o-bahn to the Queensland. Floods it has been a couple of years now and with the fed budget next month does anyone think there will be money for this project ?

It was only last year...