UN 106 - Point Cook and Sanctuary Lakes bus network refresh

Melbourne has many local bus network that are just layers and layers of confusing routes and deviations. They exist due to the slow pace of bus reform. The silver lining though is I rarely run out of things to talk about on Fridays with revamped networks often proposed. 

I'm taking a different tack today. Today's topic is Point Cook in Melbourne's south-west. Unlike most established suburbs in the north, east and south it has had a lot of recent network reform. Point Cook's bus routes and timetables thus lack many of the legacy problems like indirectness, confusing deviations, wasteful overlaps, lack of Sunday service, non-standard public holiday timetables, etc that continue to dog unreformed bus networks in much of Melbourne today. 

That's not to say that Point Cook's bus network is perfect. It isn't. Continued suburban growth, high car traffic volumes and the paucity of routes in and out of the suburb has exacerbated issues. So much so that the community has on occasions banded together to run services the state apparatus has not seen fit to do. More on that later. 

The pre-Williams Landing Station network

Before Williams Landing Station opened the nearest stations to Point Cook were Aircraft and Hoppers Crossing. Both the area's two bus routes ran on roughly east-west indirect routes between them. Services were infrequent, delays were rife and huge new subdivisions to the south were being built with no nearby bus service. 

The first Williams Landing Station network

The two-route network had a major redesign in 2013 when Point Cook's new nearest station at Williams Landing opened.  413 and 416 were discarded. In their place were five new routes (493, 494, 495, 496, 497). Four (494, 495, 496, 497) were largely north-south routes. All five but the 496 fed into Williams Landing Station. Peak frequency on most increased to 22 minutes, chosen to meet Werribee line trains (typically every 11 minutes). A map from the Star Weekly article is below. 

This was almost exclusively a commuter network intended to get people to the new station. It did this very well, subject to delays caused by car traffic. Williams Landing has one of the highest proportion of commuters arriving by bus with the number being about that who drove to the station. This is an amazing result for Melbourne, a city that has traditionally been poor at planning efficient coordinated rail feeder bus services. 

The new network however wasn't so good for local trips. These are largely east-west involving destinations such as Hoppers Crossing (including Mercy Hospital and Suzanne Cory High School), Werribee and Werribee Plaza. The shops near Aircraft Station were also difficult to reach with buses removed and a treacherous roundabout preventing easy walking access. 

Williams Landing, where most buses went, was then a station without a town centre so it was a place where you'd get the train rather than being a useful destination in its own right. 493 (orange in the map above) provided some east-west travel but was distant from Point Cook South. It also had a dead-end terminus and forced people going to Suzanne Corey to 'go the long way around' with an inconvenient change. Also the design of the 496 cut Seabrook residents off from everywhere but Central Square Altona Meadows. It didn't even run to their nearest large shops at Point Cook Town Centre. 

Even though the new routes carried more people than the old ones ever did there were local calls to bring back the old network. Local MP Jill Hennessy (then in opposition) put out this release and the video below. 

There was enough momentum for change to amend the Point Cook bus network as part of wider Wyndham area network reform in 2015 (again linked to a rail upgrade - this time the Regional Rail Link via Tarneit). 

These changes kept the integrity of the commuter-friendly 2013 network while adding elements that improved local travel. The two key changes included (i) Extending 496 to cover Sanctuary Lakes (a low density golf course based development and (ii) replacing the 493 with the new 498. Map below. 

The 498 provided a simple east-west route that the 2013 network didn't do well. Benefits included: (i) restoring two routes to Seabrook, a direct new connection to the Point Cook Town Centre and a restored Hoppers Crossing link, (ii) more direct access to Suzanne Cory High School from more areas, and (iii) new coverage for the new and dense western Point Cook area. Even though it initially ran only every 40 minutes in the peak the 498 was well used to the point of being unable to pick up more passengers.   

Continuing issues

Point Cook was still growing. Train passengers were catered for with improved peak frequencies on routes like the abovementioned 498 and the popular 495 to Williams Landing. However there were many areas in the south that the 498 to Hoppers Crossing didn't help very much. 

Parents in the area were particularly concerned about continued poor access to Suzanne Cory while others would have wanted bus access to Hoppers Crossing. Not just to connect with the train but also to reach local jobs and shopping at places like Werribee Plaza. 

Just before the 2018 election the government announced a 'Pick My Project' scheme where people could nominate and vote on community-enhancing initiatives. One of the winners was Wynbus. This was a Point Cook community-led initiative to run mini-bus services in areas that the existing network was lacking. 

Two of its first three routes connected the area of Point Cook around Sneydes Rd to Hoppers Lane (though not Hoppers Crossing Station). Read my write-up on Wynbus here. Wynbus has since moved to other projects. But the demonstration indicated that others saw the gap in east-west travel from southern Point Cook. Especially when a road that could have supported a direct route existed. The high productivity of fixed routes in areas like Point Cook indicate that improving these rather than flexible routes is the path to patronage success, particularly on main roads. 

A refreshed network

What might an upgraded Point Cook and Sanctuary Lakes bus network look like? Here is one that continues the evolution of it from being largely a commuter-oriented train feeder network to a more comprehensive and more broadly useful grid. It involves changes to one existing route (496) and the creation of one new route; no route changes for others like 494, 495 and 497 are proposed.

Idea 1: Sneydes Rd bus. The big change is a second east-west link to serve central and southern Point Cook. This is achieved by creating a new Laverton - Hoppers Crossing route via Sneydes Rd. I've labelled it as the 499. It would run as per the existing 496 alignment from Laverton to Sanctuary Lakes Shopping Centre then westward via Sneydes Rd to Hoppers Crossing. It could even potentially continue to Werribee Plaza. 

This alignment has multiple purposes including better connections to destinations in the Hoppers Crossing / Werribee area and as an alternative train feeder to Williams Landing. Access to Sanctuary Lakes Shopping Centre is improved and there is some extended coverage in the south-west Point Cook area. A discussion on an earlier version of this idea is here. 

The 499 is close to the same length as the existing 498, serves the same termini (Hoppers Crossing and Laverton) and would have the same service level. This gives scope to stagger its times to provide an even 20 minute off-peak and weekend frequency along the 498/499 common sections. These include the Hoppers Lane, Seabrook and Altona Meadows portions.  

Idea 2: Sanctuary Lakes direct bus to Williams Landing. :Having the 499 follow the 498 through Altona Meadows means there is no need for the 496 to Sanctuary Lakes to do that as well. Hence it can be shortened to serve Williams Landing rather than Laverton Station. Using Williams Landing station provides a quicker trip to the train at a nicer interchange station. This should make it more car-competitive for commuters. That's important as Sanctuary Lakes people do own a lot of cars. The 496 could retain its current hourly off-peak frequency. But if if was boosted to every 40 minutes an opportunity exists to offset its timetable with the 497 to provide an even 20 minute frequency between Williams Landing and Sanctuary Lakes Shopping Centre.  

Idea 3: Service upgrade for 494/495. Point Cook's two most productive bus routes are the 494 and 495. Not only that but they are also very productive on a Melbourne scale. Currently they run every 40 minutes each off-peak. Extending operating hours and boosting both to every 20 minutes would provide a much more attractive service, especially if it is combined with 10 minute off-peak train frequencies at Williams Landing. In conjunction with the coordination mentioned in Ideas 1 and 2 large parts of Point Cook would get off-peak buses every 20 minutes as opposed to the current 40 minute gaps. 

One objection to the above might be that the new 499 doesn't add a lot of extra bus coverage. Instead its main effect is to provide an alternative that may be more convenient for some trips (especially local). However it should be noted that Point Cook's north-south road grid (especially between 494 and 495) means that some midblock pockets are more than 400 metres from a bus. And the existing network performs well on patronage grounds with good responsiveness when services are increased.

The area also has significant traffic issues due to high car usage and a limited number of roads going in. Hence  better buses, including improved access to local destinations, should be considered a tool to tackle this. Lastly, even after you add the 499, the network is relatively simple with overlaps mainly in areas where they could usefully provide a more frequent service. 

Conclusion

Described has been an upgraded Point Cook / Sanctuary Lakes bus network. It adds one new route and amends one other for greatly improved local connectivity. Comments on it are appreciated and can be left below. 

Index to all Building Melbourne's Useful Network items here