Courier Mail: The Great Transport TestA week of trying out different ways of getting to work in an effort to do the right thing leaves reporter Graham Readfearn frustrated. For one week, I decided to take five different forms of transport - bus, train, bicycle, car and scooter - to make the 10km journey from Geebung to the office at Bowen Hills.

Bus is my usual form of work transport. The stop is near my house and, bearing in mind the problems of pollution and global warming, it is among the more socially responsible options.

Unfortunately, though, it’s also a fairly crappy experience during peak hours.

They rarely run to schedule, airconditioning isn’t on every bus, seats (when you can get one) are narrow and the buses get stuck in traffic jams.

Brisbane is one of the most car-reliant cities in the world, with about 80 per cent of our travel coming from private vehicles.

But as much as motoring enthusiasts hate to admit it, cars take up more road space, cost more and create more greenhouse gases per person than any other viable transport option.

Motor vehicles actually account for 70 per cent of southeast Queensland air pollution and 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Some people have begun to investigate alternative ways to get to work. You’ll have seen some of them on scooters. Scoot 2 Commute, a new scooter store in Rochedale, let me borrow one for my transport experiment.

On my ride in, I chose not to weave in and out of lanes of cars and so still got stuck in traffic but I found the scooter a convenient option.

Which is more than I could say for my bicycle trip which was most unpleasant.

Bicycles emit no carbon dioxide, cost almost nothing to run and improve the health of the people who use them.

This was of little comfort to me as I sweated and puffed my way down the bottleneck of Gympie Rd after realising Brisbane’s cycle paths, while pleasant, don’t actually get you where you want to go.

Although Brisbane City Council has produced a series of excellent maps of the bike paths, the paths themselves looked disjointed and circuitous.

So it was with great reluctance that I chose to share the road with the cars, trucks, utes, scooters, motorbikes and buses. The cars and utes in particular appeared to be partaking in the “let’s see how close we can get to the little guy on the bike without knocking him off'’ game.

According to Queensland Government’s Integrated Regional Cycle Network Plan for southeast Queensland, bicycles are being promoted as a viable form of transport. Brisbane City Council’s own Draft Transport Plan makes several references to improving bicycle facilities.

However, neither appears to make any firm commitment to actually get on with the job as a top priority.

By far the most comfortable journey of the week was on the train. Although it was a 25-minute walk to the station, the train arrived on time, there were plenty of seats, it was airconditioned and I got a chance to read the newspaper.

I know this isn’t a universal experience, but it shows how favourable public transport can be when it works.

Even though patronage on buses and trains has risen by about 30 per cent over the past three years, Brisbane’s use of cars continues to rise.

My own drive to work was relatively stress-free and, like the majority of other road users, I had three spare seats in my car with no one in them.

Getting Brisbanites out of their cars is supposed to be a priority for Brisbane City Council and the Queensland Government.

To get people out of cars, motorists need to be seeing happy passengers on gleaming trains and buses moving by as they sit frustrated in traffic. But what I saw in my week-long transport test was a city spluttering under the carbon-heavy weight of motor vehicles.

BEST BY A LONG MILE

BUS
Travel time: 23 min
Door to door: 62 min
Walking distance: 1km
Cost: $3.20 ($2.56 on weekly ticket)
Carbon from 10km: 0.36kg
Verdict: Oh dear. Public transport really has to get better than this.

TRAIN
Travel time: 20 min
Door to door: 45 min
Walking distance: 1.6km
Cost: $3:20 ($2.56 on weekly ticket)
Carbon from 11km: 0.36kg
Verdict: On time and got a seat – read the paper and arrived feeling relaxed.

CAR
Travel time: 33 min
Door to door: 34 min
Walking distance: 60m
Cost: $1.25 (based on $1.20 a litre)
Carbon: 2.64kg a trip
Verdict: Expensive and bad for the planet, but convenient and comfortable.

SCOOTER
Travel time: 27 min
Door to door: 28 min
Walking distance: 10m
Cost: $0.18 a trip
Carbon: 0.81kg a trip
Verdict: Great fun, cheap and not bad for the environment.

BICYCLE
Travel time: 36 min
Door to door: 36 min
Walking distance: 10m
Cost: $0
Carbon: None
Verdict: Cheapest and greenest but didn’t feel safe and needed a shower.

Thanks to Scoot2commute at Rochedale for the loan of a 50cc scooter

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