Ballarat bus network: Council demands review as population booms

The City of Ballarat noted feedback from residents young and old continued to show the bus network is not fit for purpose.

Ballarat's bus network is currently set up to connect passengers from across the city to the train station, in a hub-and-spoke arrangement - every bus ends up at either Ballarat or Wendouree station.

This means people trying to get from one side of town to the other - from Ballarat East to Wendouree, or Sebastopol to the Delacombe Town Centre, for example - need to change buses and potentially go through the Little Bridge Street and Curtis Street loops twice

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Given Ballarat's population has grown by almost 12 per cent in five years, and several new suburbs have been added to the city's west, council says the time is now for a full review.

The last time the routes were reviewed was in 2017, and the state government signed new 10-year contracts with operator CDC earlier this month.

The call comes only a day after environmental experts highlighted the car dependence of regional cities as one of the key factors preventing active steps towards halting environmental degradation.

"With petrol prices hitting record highs, using the bus should be a cheap and easy option to get to work, job interviews, university study or medical appointments," City of Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said in a statement.

"But for most Ballarat residents lengthy indirect routes to key Ballarat destinations, slow travel times and lack of frequency of services mean despite its relative low cost, catching a bus is an unviable alternative to using a car.

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"Feedback we've received from some of our most vulnerable residents, like our seniors and those with limited mobility suggest they won't use a bus because it takes too long, and they need to use multiple services."

According to council, its Ageing Well Team had conversations with older residents about the current network - one 73-year-old from Wendouree said they had to take three buses to get from their home to the CBD.

"The first takes me to the train station, second to Little Bridge St bus interchange and then the third gets me to where I want to go," they said in a council media release.

"I can be on the buses for two hours each way just to do some shopping and have a coffee which only takes one hour.

"I no longer drive and miss the ease of getting places in a reasonable time. I now spend more time at home on my own as going places takes so long on public transport I think twice before going out".

Similarly, council's Youth Strategy consultation showed public transport did not meet the needs of young people - specifically, "it should not take hours for someone to travel from Sebastopol to Wendouree' via public bus, and public transport "needs to be focused on getting people around Ballarat rather than a focus on work or travel to Melbourne".

Council has called for a review and streamline of the current timetable, which was updated in December last year when the Ballarat station's new local bus interchange opened, to make bus trips more competitive; introducing more direct cross-city bus routes, not always oriented to the station; and staggering services to stop multiple buses arriving at the same destination at the same time.

Statistics from 2019 showed about 5000 average passengers per day outside of January and December.

The Public Transport Users Assocation's Ballarat convenor, Ben Lever, said a review is "a long overdue promise the state government must keep".

He gave an example of how smaller "tweaks" to the network can make it less efficient.

"Route 15 was re-routed at the start of July, because buses can no longer make a right turn from Stawell Street onto Victoria Street," he explained.

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"Instead the route will use Charlesworth Street, robbing several blocks along the old route of access to the bus network - including a new mixed-use development that is currently being built on that very corner.

"In the context of safety concerns at the corner, this tweak makes sense, but looking at the bigger picture, the bus should never have had to make a right turn there - it only did so because the route zigzags back and forth through Ballarat East, rather than taking a fast and direct route along Victoria Street.

"This is yet another reason we need a comprehensive reform of the network, rather than just making ad hoc tweaks."

Cr Moloney said council had been repeatedly raising the need for a review, adding council's Integrated Transport Action Plan, adopted in 2020, showed it could be done with no additional buses or services.

"We want to work with the Government and the Department of Transport to help make services more responsive to the needs of users and potential users," he said.

"With bus contracts for regional Victoria including Ballarat having been renewed recently, now is the perfect time to take a look at what's working, what isn't and how we can improve it."

The Department of Transport was emailed the following questions for comment after council issued its media release on Wednesday:

"We continually monitor our regional bus and rail networks to ensure we're delivering the best possible service for passengers," a department spokesperson said in a statement in response.

"We added 125 extra train services to the line every week last year as part of the Ballarat line upgrade and the new and improved Ballarat bus interchange opened making it safer and easier for passengers to connect between bus and train services.

"We continue to work closely with the community, key stakeholders and operators in the City of Ballarat on all projects in the area."

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