50-cent fares to extend to Brisbane Metro mega-buses

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Those lines will connect Eight Mile Plains with Roma Street, and Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital with The University of Queensland.

“If we can’t get the go-ahead now, there is no way we can do that between November [under a new government] and December,” Murphy said.

“It would be too short a time to explain the complex bus changes. Try explaining to someone, ‘you know that bus you have been catching for 30 years? It’s all changing.’ ”

On Sunday, Mellish said the new deal “would not involve the state funding any cost over-runs on Metro”, but he “welcomed Brisbane City Council’s acceptance of the Gympie Road Northern Transitway project” to provide dedicated bus lanes.

“The LNP and the lord mayor’s councillor in the area have consistently opposed the Northern Transitway for a number of years, so it is great news that they have apparently had a change of heart.”

Mellish declined to comment specifically on Brisbane City Council receiving a share of ticket revenue, which currently goes to the state government.

“The Miles government already provides the majority of funding for public buses in Queensland. We will continue to fund public buses, including the new Metro services, via usual contract negotiations,” he said.

Brisbane City Council has proposed building a new electric bus depot on Brisbane’s northside for future Metro services there, and in a 2022 northside tunnel concept, proposed better use of bus lanes on Gympie Road.

It has also proposed extending Brisbane Metro to the airport and Capalaba, once enough electric buses can be obtained.

Schrinner said the moves marked the beginning of a mass transit system in Brisbane, rather than the status quo of bus services on already congested roads.

“We’re going for a mass transit solution, where buses have dedicated right of way, either by a busway or a transit way,” he said.

“That is the future of mass transit and public transport in Brisbane, and particularly the future for the northside, which desperately needs a mass transit solution.”