Clarkson service changes

On Sunday 18th December (tomorrow) there will be some changes occuring to the bus services north of Clarkson train station. A new route will be created as a short run of the long and underserved 490 to Two Rocks, and the latter will be bolstered in frequency. There will be some other minor changes and an extension to a new development at Alkimos. These will increase the utility of the bus network in that area.

Route 480 will be introduced, which will follow the 490 until its terminus on Marmion Av before Santorini Prom (the limit of suburban development in Butler for the moment). Services will operate 20 minutes in  peak hour, hourly during off-peak on weekdays and every 2 hours on Sundays (no Saturday service). 490 to Two Rocks via Yanchep will have many extra services, with buses every 20 min during peak hour, hourly during weekday off-peak and Saturdays and every 2 hours on Sundays. These two services will be co-ordinated to provide buses every 10 min during the peak, 30 min on weekday off-peak and hourly on weekends on  the common section between Clarkson station and Butler. This frequency is (slightly) better than what is normally provided and better public transport on Marmion Av will spur growth in PT usage.
 Route 482 will have some minor timing changes. There will be extra trips to Clarkson at 5:15am and 9:05am.
Route 483 will also have some changes. The first bus at 5:17am which deviated to Clarkson Community High School to serve 484 passengers will no longer do this and will now depart at 5:22am , and an early 484 will be provided. An additional 483 from Clarkson will depart at 6:01 pm.
Route 484 will also get some changes. It will be extended north into the Trinity Estate in Alkimos, and the service explained previosly will depart Alkimos at 5:14am, and there will also be a new 9:35am bus from Alkimos.
These small changes will in general increase the quality and ridership of public transport in the area, and reduce the pressure on the very popular Park n'Ride at Clarkson

Not a personal trainer

Well it's Sunday and we still haven't moved over to the new site... because it's already used, by a Scottish personal trainer. I'd forgotten to actually check the address I wanted. So I think we'll be moving to ptforperth.blogspot.com on Wednesday 14th December, and yes, at this time the address is available.

Mandurah, Silver Sands, San Remo and Madora Bay bus changes

Many changes will be occuring to Transperth’s bus network on Sunday 18^th of Deember. Some of these changes will be to the Mandurah area. In short the deviation to the Mandurah foreshore and Mandurah Centro shopping centre made by the current 588 and 589 will be removed, with a more direct path for buses from that area, and two circular routes (one in each direction) will serve the shopping centre and foreshore area.

The current 588 (serving Silver Sands) and 589 (serving Madora Bay and Silver Sands) will be replaced by the 583 and 584. They will travel straight from Mandurah Tce along Peel St and Alnutt St to Mandurah train station, making travel to the station quicker (by about 5 minutes).

Passengers from Silver Sands or Madora Bay to the foreshore or shopping centre will lose out on a direct trip, but this will be mitigated by an easy transfer at Mandurah station to the two new Mandurah Shuttle loops, both serving the Mandurah foreshore and Mandurah Centro. These will take on the 588 and 589 route numbers, the former for the clockwise direction and the latter for the anti-clockwise direction. These routes will also be operated wholly on low-floor accessible buses, improving the experience for both disabled and able-bodied passengers.

There will be no changes to the other bus routes from Mandurah station (558, 586, 587, 591, 592, 594, 597 and 598), but the proposed changes are on the whole an improvement to Mandurah’s bus services. Timetables for the 583 and 584 are available online now. The 588 and 589, according the Transperth’s article, will be placed on the Southern 135 timetable, but this contains unrelated routes, and no updated version is available, so this is hopefully a typo. Physical timetables will be available from the Tuesday 13^th December.

P.S. If you have sharp eyesight you may have also noticed that the 590 is on the map of the changes, although it is to be replaced by the 588 and 589. Transperth really hasn't double checked this time.

New Name!

I've changed the name of this blog to Public Transport for Perth, which is more appropriate given Perth is the subject of just about all my posts by now.

The blog will continue to be found on www.transportgeekinhighschool.blogspot.com for another week (until about the 10th of December) From then, the blog can be accessed on www.perthpt.blogspot.com, a nice small  address