House of Assembly Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2) 52 2 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Priority Bus Lanes PRIORITY BUS LANES Mr SIBBONS House of Assembly Mitchell PRIORITY BUS LANES Mr SIBBONS (Mitchell) (14:19): My question is to the Minister for Transport Services. Can the minister update the house on the introduction of bus priority lanes on Currie and Grenfell streets and East Terrace and the 1 July timetable changes? The Hon. C.C. FOX House of Assembly Bright Minister for Transport Services PRIORITY BUS LANES The Hon. C.C. FOX (Bright—Minister for Transport Services) (14:19): Thank you, member for Mitchell, for this entirely unexpected question. The bus lanes that have been introduced— The Hon. I.F. Evans House of Assembly The Hon. I.F. Evans: That's not true. The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Order! The Hon. C.C. FOX House of Assembly The Hon. C.C. FOX: In this case, it is. Members interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Order! There is too much noise going on. If you are going to have conversations, please go outside the chamber to have them. The Hon. C.C. FOX House of Assembly The Hon. C.C. FOX: Since we introduced the priority bus lanes at the beginning of this week, the response has been very, very good. I am pleased to announce that we have had very few complaints at all about those bus lanes. In fact, if anybody has taken the opportunity to drive down the bus lanes either way during rush-hour traffic, I think most private motorists would be pleasantly surprised to see that they no longer have to deal with buses on those roads. No longer is there a case of dodgem cars going on on those particular streets. The cost of introducing these bus lanes has been in the area of $250,000—that is, of course, mirroring the amount we fined the bus companies during the last quarter of proceedings. I must say that, at this point in time, we have had very smooth running. We all know that the school holidays are about to come to an end and, when the school holidays come to an end, things may be slightly different as people adjust to those bus lanes. We know anecdotally that it takes some two weeks for people to change their traffic behaviour, so we do expect that there will be a certain period of time when people have to readjust their driving patterns. On the whole, I have been extremely pleased not only with the implementation of the bus lanes but also with the way in which the people of Adelaide have really, without much fuss at all, taken to them.