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Eastern Busway Urban Design, Landscape and Visual Assessment

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Landscape Architect: EDAW

Location: Eastern Corridor, Brisbane, Queensland

OVERVIEW

BUDGET Urban Design, Landscape and Visual Assessment for Concept Design and Impact Management Plan $475,000.00

The Eastern Busway forms part of the Queensland State Government’s program to deliver a world-class busway network and upgraded railway system in Brisbane. The proposed Busway is a two-lane, two way dedicated roadway approximately 17.7 kilometres in length between Buranda and Capalaba, in Brisbane’s south eastern suburbs.

The project is identified as a key transport initiative in the Integrated Regional Transport Plan and the South East Queensland Infrastructure Plan, with Program 2007-2026 committing the State Government to the planning and staged delivery of the Eastern Busway.

EDAW’s design team (of landscape architects, urban planners and urban designers) worked with the Connell Wagner team to provide urban design, landscape and visual assessment expertise for the Eastern Busway Concept Design and Impact Management Plan (CDIMP).

Given that the busway will serve many well-established inner city communities, much of the effort of the EDAW design team was directed at integrating the busway with its surrounding urban context. Extensive evaluation of alternative routes and painstaking fine-tuning of the most favourable options has ensured that the busway will be an exceptionally useable facility, a welcome neighbour and that its stations will become natural hubs in their local communities.

The CDIMP is currently with the Queensland State Government for consideration.

The essence of the success of the Eastern Busway project is in the way the final plan has responded to the needs of people – those who will use it, those who will live close to it, and those who will seek to take advantage of the catalyst that the busway will be for change. This focus on people and their needs has been the driving force behind the busway planning and design process. The result is an infrastructure project that will be so seamlessly integrated into local communities that it will feel like it has always been there. Specifically, this will be achieved by:

A high standard of detailed design in elements such as entry plazas, retaining walls and noise barriers, which are critical to creating a strong identity for the busway;

High quality landscape treatments along the busway (in particular around the stations), which will be important in mitigating potential visual and noise impacts; and

Planting themes that reinforce the character of the areas through which the busway will pass, forming strong connections with local areas, as well as establishing a powerful sense of place around the stations.

The preparation of the design proposals for the busway utilised an iterative process, involving the client in a weekly workshop-based process of multidisciplinary input and evaluation. The process was exhaustive and ensured constant dialogue within the design team and the production of robust planning, urban design and engineering solutions.

The first component of the urban design work analysed the existing urban environment along the busway alignment and provided an understanding of the context, visual elements and values of the built form and landscape setting.

The second component developed the goals and objectives used to direct the preparation of the urban design, landscape and visual enhancement strategies for the entire busway.

The third component prepared design concepts for each section of the busway and assessed these in terms of their potential benefits, impacts and mitigation measures.

Extensive assessment of the character of the existing urban areas, involving both desktop studies and field studies identified three distinctive urban characters – urban, suburban and rural-residential.

Integral to ensuring that the urban design for the busway accurately reflects the unique nature of each area, considerable attention was given to:

Landscape elements, such as topography, activity precincts, open space networks and circulation systems;

Character of the existing urban form and quality of the public realm; and

Existing visual values (including views and vistas of significance, local landmarks and the definition of edges, barriers and filters) as determined through a GIS-based viewshed analysis of many viewpoints in a catchment extending five kilometres either side of the busway.

The comprehensive landscape, built form and visual analysis led to the development of a series of goals to direct the preparation of the plans and designs for the busway. These include:

To ensure the legibility of the system, by providing for the busway and stations to be well located, easily understood by passengers and the broader community;

To maximise integration of the busway and busway stations to achieve a good fit with local environments;

To reduce visual impacts of the busway and busway stations on the local environment;

To maintain connectivity and/or improve the metropolitan and local routes, as well as pedestrian and bicycle connections; and

To capitalise on urban value to ensure enhancement rather than simply the mitigation of impacts on the local environment.

These goals ensure that while the busway structure will have a consistent language throughout the corridor, there will also be opportunities to reflect the local character and culture of each station locality through feature planting, artwork and various hardworks treatments, such as noise walls, retaining walls, glazed awnings and paving treatments.

One of the key aims of the busway is to connect people and places with fast, regular and safe public transport. In this respect, the busway has been thought of as a “conduit of connectivity”. This notion of a “conduit” has guided the approach to the busway’s design with the intention of producing an outcome that responsive to its setting as it changes throughout the corridor.

Where a conduit is considered to have an undesirable impact, it is hidden away out of sight and touch. Therefore, if the analysis of a character area’s landscape, built form and visual value revealed it as a sensitive receiving environment, the busway has been designed to be in tunnel.

Similarly, where a conduit is located in an exposed position, it tends to be stylishly shaped, attractively finished and well integrated. In locations where the busway is designed to be on structure, a great deal of attention has been devoted to producing a well-resolved and attractive design outcome.

Also of key importance to the success of the busway is its legibility and usability. This will largely be determined by the design quality of the elements with which passengers have the most regular and direct interface with, namely the stations and their immediate urban settings.

The soundly conceived landscape architectural strategy directs the provision of hard and soft elements in ways that reflect the existing or desired quality and character of each segment of the busway corridor and ensures the elements are robust in use and maintenance.

In addition, the promotion of community acceptance and ownership of the facilities has been encouraged through an integrated artwork strategy. The strategy enables a particular account of selected locations, thoughts or notions to be related in ways that engage the senses and inform, interest, delight or stimulate recognition of, or response to, places along the busway.

The outcome of the proper addressing of all of these matters will be an outstandingly functional, comfortable, safe and attractive system of busway stations and related facilities that passengers will enjoy using on a regular basis.

The integrated design for the busway and busway stations acknowledges the layers of local cultural and environmental history for each area within the corridor. These aspects have informed the busway design from small-scale street frontage and pathways to larger scale features such as viaducts, parkland planting schemes and noise/retaining walls. Significantly, there will be no net loss of green space as a result of the Eastern Busway.

An environmentally sensitive and sustainable approach to integrated design has been embodied within all the concepts. Key principles include:

Minimising impacts on numerous creeks

No net loss of open space

Special attention was given to parts of the natural environment considered significant by the community e.g. Fig and Leopard trees in front of Stones Corner Library, near the Stone Corner station and the significant Figs on Old Cleveland Road at Bridgewater Creek.

In a broader sense, the busway also contributes to the promotion of sustainable transport policies including:

Increasing the efficiency and flow of bus moments, thereby reducing travel times between the city and eastern suburbs; and

Reducing overall vehicle emissions by encouraging more people to use public transport and less to use private cars - for every full bus there are 40 fewer cars on the road.

In addition to being environmentally sustainable, the design for the busway is also economically and socially sustainable. Key features include:

Cost effective staging of the busway by constructing the highest priority sections first, with missing links to be completed over time;

Significant ‘people carrying capacity’, which makes efficient use of infrastructure;

Improved cost recovery for bus services through reduced travel times, lower operating costs per kilometre and higher revenue though growth patronage;

Improved connections to where people, live work and play; and

Improved access to major destinations such as Brisbane CBD, Carina, Capalaba, Princess Alexandra Hospital and University of Queensland via Eleanor Schonell Bridge.

The busway alignment has been designed to minimise impacts on the sensitive nature of the environment and the numerous creeks that traverse the busway corridor. These environmental features have added a layer of complexity to the engineering of the busway design and have led to:

Mitigating potential flooding issues by elevating stations at Stones Corner and Bridgewater Creek;

Using the important natural features of the corridor to inform the busway design, from major urban elements such as viaducts and portals, to walls and pedestrian scale details such as pavements. In the case of Stones Corner, the riparian character of the creek has influenced the alignment of the busway concept design and the design of the viaduct structure that will pass through the commercial centre. At Bridgewater Creek, the Bowies Flats wetland character has informed the busway design; and

Where possible, incorporating the wide variety of natural landscapes within the corridor into the landscape design and planting palette.

The busway alignment has also been designed to minimise impacts on the existing urban fabric of the corridor through:

Protection of key built features such as buildings of historic or local significance

Integration into existing built form

Enhancement of existing environment through creation of new development opportunities and urban spaces.

Water Sensitive Urban Design

Key to the design of the busway is the application of water sensitive urban design principles. The watercourses in the busway corridor, although already disturbed ecosystems, will be sensitive to impacts of further disturbance and measures have been put in place to ensure that the waterways are protected, both during construction and for the operation of the busway.

Impacts on waterways from road runoff will be minimised through the use of stormwater management controls such as gross pollutant traps, oil/water separators, sediment basins, grassed filter strips, swale drains and bioretention basins. The precise nature of water quality treatments will be determined individually for each major watercourse.

Biodiversity

The busway alignment has been designed to minimise impacts on the open space networks in the corridor. A number of measures have been recommended to reduce the impact of the busway, including:

Clearing only the smallest amount of vegetation necessary to protect vegetation of high quality

Using fauna exclusion fencing and drift fencing to direct animals towards area where they can pass safely under the busway

Providing ample space between bridge structures and the water edge to allow terrestrial animals to move through easily.

Landscape Materials

The integrated urban design, landscape and artwork strategy developed for the busway allows for the landscape hardworks, planting pallete and artwork at each station to be reflective of the local environment, character and culture of each station location. This strategy complements the consistent language of the busway station architecture, elevated structures and tunnels portals along the entire busway route.

Given that the busway will serve many well-established inner city communities, much of the effort of the design team was directed at integrating the busway with its surrounding urban context. Extensive evaluation of alternative routes and painstaking fine-tuning of the most favourable options has ensured that the busway will be an exceptionally useable facility, a welcome neighbour and that its stations will become natural hubs in their local communities.

The urban design components of the project were advanced to an unusually high degree of resolution in response to the need to provide the community with an in-depth understanding of the way in which the busway would be integrated into local settings and highly accessible. The detailed and thoroughly illustrated design proposals allowed people to obtain a very clear picture of the look, feel and functioning of the busway elements and the care taken to deliver an outstanding urban design result.

The client, TransLink, sought to engage communities along the eastern corridor during the Eastern Busway project and has sent information to over 60,000 households and businesses. The consideration of feedback and comments provided by community members proved to be a valuable part of the design process, particularly in situations where a number of design solutions were technically possible.

The consultation process was extremely comprehensive and provided extensive opportunities for the community to enquire about and input to the busway design. At the last round of community consultation, there was a high level of acceptance of the proposed outcomes, which demonstrates that the concepts have been sufficiently well designed and resolved for this level of work to be acceptable to the community.

Although not built, the level of public acceptance that the Eastern Busway CDIMP has generated demonstrates that the concepts are acceptable and welcomed by the community. Further adoption and/or implementation of the concepts are subject to a review of the CDIMP by the Queensland State Government, currently underway.

introduction / overview / images  /  location /  Qld-Projects

2008