St Andrews and Panton Hill: Transport Needs Assessment - Public ...

2.8 Road NetworkThe main roads in the assessment area include:Kangaroo Ground-St Andrews Road - runs through the centre of the assessment area;Heidelberg-Kinglake Road - located at the northern end of the assessment area; andChurch Road - connects Cottles Bridge and Panton Hill.The major roads in the network are rural in nature and have limited curb or channel infrastructurewith mostly gravel or dirt verges. These roads typically have one lane for traffic in each direction.The topography of the main roads in the area is suitable for a bus and the speed limit variesbetween 50 kilometres and 100 kilometres per hour. These factors indicate that these main roadsare suitable for bus travel, as evidenced by their use by the Saturday community bus.Many of the other roads in the assessment area are not suitable for bus services because theyare too narrow, too steep or unsealed.The Disability Discrimination Act (1992) (DDA) requires that new bus stops are built inaccordance with Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport (DSAPT) guidelines. Thetopography in Nillumbik would make this difficult to achieve in most of the assessment area.Other limitations include a lack of pedestrian paths or road crossing points. To ensure access forall passengers at a bus stop, established footpath infrastructure is needed. This does notcurrently exist in many parts of the assessment area.2.9 Transport ServicesPublic Transport ServicesThe assessment area currently has no PTV contracted public transport services. The nearestpublic transport service is the metropolitan train network at Hurstbridge Railway Station. It is thelast station on the Hurstbridge Line, which operates to the Melbourne Central Business District.Nillumbik Shire Council BusIn October 2010 a free community bus commissioned by Council commenced, providing transportto the assessment area on Saturdays. The service operates on a trial basis, provided by avolunteer workforce, and is periodically reviewed by Council.The service currently provides 13 circular trips from Hurstbridge Railway Station, stopping atPanton Hill, Smiths Gully, St Andrews and Cottles Bridge. The service takes 30 minutes for around trip, with the first service departing Hurstbridge at 9:25am, and the last departing at5:20pm. The service runs approximately every 40 minutes.Data provided from the St Andrews-Hurstbridge Bus Steering Committee indicates that patronageon the service varies greatly from week to week. Between October and December 2011, 13 roundtrips were completed per Saturday, carrying an average of 52 passengers per day, or fourpassengers per trip.One measure of how successful bus services are used by PTV is Boardings per VehicleKilometre (BVK). Each round trip on this community bus service is just less than 19 kilometres,which equates to a current BVK for this service of 0.2. This is significantly below the metropolitanweekday average of 1.1.Page 16