The Belated Ballarat Bus Interchange

I'm back in Australia and have been quite busy getting my life organised again, hence the lack of posts (searching for rental properties is The Worst). Some more Travel Diaries and some more substantial local stuff should be coming soon, but just a quick post today on some news that broke last weekend.

Diagram of the precinct redevelopment (via VicTrack)

The Courier is reporting that work is about to begin on the new bus interchange at Ballarat Station. The interchange is part of the Ballarat Station Precinct Redevelopment Project, and to my mind is the most important part - it's all well and good to want to redevelop the land around a station to create transit-oriented development, but first and foremost it is a public transport hub so the transport aspect has to be the highest priority. 

Unfortunately the reality of this project is that it's been the lowest priority. The new multi-storey carpark was built first; the redevelopment of the old goods shed and the construction of a new block of serviced apartments have been going for months, but the bus interchange hasn't started yet. It's also only been allocated $5 million, while the government's contribution to the other aspects was $25 million (which does not include the incredibly high value of the land itself). A pretty good deal for the private developers, in my view.

The redevelopment of the goods shed is well underway

Still - it's really good to see that the project is finally getting started. For one thing, the current arrangement with buses dropping people off on Lydiard Street north of the railway line, and picking people up south of the railway line, is messy at best. The residents of Lydiard Street were incredibly angry when this was first announced, due to the increased noise and diesel pollution outside their houses - and although some measures were put in place to address this (such as introducing layover bays on Ararat Street) it's still not great for them. 

The other reason is that the State government has repeatedly said that it won't conduct a review of Ballarat's bus network until the interchange is built and buses are using it. My point has always been that these reviews take time (between planning, consultation, hiring new drivers and retraining the old ones), so they should start the review ASAP and have it ready to go on the day the interchange opens. But nonetheless, once the interchange is built, they won't be able to delay it any longer.

The PTUA's proposal for Ballarat's bus network

It is very galling, however, that the latest Courier article quotes a State government spokesperson as saying the works are "on schedule". The bus interchange was originally supposed to have been completed by the end of 2018, and as late as June 2018 it was still being claimed that construction was "imminent". Far from being on schedule, it is at least a year overdue, and given that the latest article says it will be finished "in 2020", it wouldn't surprise me if that means "late 2020" which would be two years overdue. 

Anyway. We take small victories where we can find them, and it's good to see the interchange finally getting started.