It seems the BCC has said recently that they expect to finish their business case by next August and the federal government is indicating they will consider funding after the business case.

As always, there is plenty of debate about the roles of LRT and BRT in Brisbane (and now the Sunshine and Gold Coast too).

But now with the M1 (Brisbane Metro) having a reasonably similar capacity to the L1 (G:Link), even if we ignore every other frequent bus that uses the busway, when is it a good idea to opt for the massively increased expense for LRT over BRT?

For the sake of this debate, I’m assuming BRT to be a median busway (not something as high-quality as the SEB) down a main arterial road with signal priority, and LRT to be a G:Link-style system.

Hopefully this will (nearly) bring an end to the days where one 333 and M1 could hold up the entire station.

New GCLR stage, new Roma St platform 1… exciting next few days ahead.

Just to take a small break from all my grand busway/metro proposals, I decided to come up with some new BUZ/Glider ideas, lol.

BUZs

• 175: Logan Rd is the only major arterial road in the BCC that I'm aware of that is so vacant of BUZs; everything past Marshall Rd is effectively a ghost town on weekend nights.
• 300: Nearly unchanged, but I'd make it continue after Toombul to Chermside via Nundah (following the 598 route).
• 450: Unchanged, though I would be open to making it follow the 456 via the Legacy Tunnel just to reduce the number of services heading via Moggil Rd and to rationalise some extra buses to borrow for this service. Would also replace the 453 and 454 (and possibly the 455).
• 460: Unchanged.

These last 2 would really, really benefit if we could create some sort of busway or bus lanes between Mt Ommaney and Chapel Hill.

Gliders

• Gold (62): Basically as has already been planned, but I'd extend it past Woolloongabba to Coorparoo via the 185 route.
• Rose (63): Basically the 348 + 470, going from Toowong to Stafford City.
• Purple (64): 199 would continue past its terminus, following the 192 route to UQ Lakes.
• Green (65): 196 would continue past its terminus, following the 192 route to Yeerongpilly.

The Gold City Glider would be the only one that really needed additional buses to cover, which would partially come from the deprecated 192 route (given the 192 has been completely replaced here by the Purple and Green City Gliders.

I’ve been hearing the slightest of whispers every now and then. Someone mentioning a particular sute being surveyed here or there etc. The most interesting one was hearing mention about a new bus “station” being “built” just outside Chermside interchange that the 333 might start using?

I suppose the business case study would’ve started officially in the last month, but I get the impression there had been talks with business groups and various levels of government prior to this.

Just wondering if anyone has any interesting tea lol? Even the slightest “I saw 5 guys in BCC attite around Chermside holding a 24m long tape measure” or “I was having coffee at Coorparoo abd kept hearing the builders talk about the station underneath the square” would satisfy my need for tea lol.

I find it a bit weird that as Haiti, I can convince the disinterested great empires of Russia, Prussia and Austria to have bi-directional commercial privileges simply by offering an obligation.

What are they even going to ever use their obligation for? Ask for one of my random generals?

And this is all assuming too that I don’t just “renegotiate” the treaty frequently to avoid ever giving them the obligation (i.e. resetting the treaty timer).

I feel obligations should scale between 0 and +30 depending on the relative GDP and military projections of the treaty parties? Also I reckon the obligation should be received when the treaty is renegotiated to avoid gaming it.

I feel one thing the game misses is the “irrationality” of economics. Something like the Great Depression will never happen because your pops will never panic and tear down the financial system overnight.

I feel a variation on “Harvest Conditions” in the form of “Financial Conditions” could help without trying to model a banking system, monetary policy, inflation, land scarcity etc.

For instance New York and surrounding states might suddenly be hit by an intensity 6 “recession” (just one of many possible conditions), which causes a dramatic reduction in investment pool efficiency, an increase in interest rates, and a sharp reduction in standards of living.

This would suddenly cause a sharp stagnation in the economy’s capacity to expand, and reduce pop demand for goods. If the economy is stretched too thin this might require a slow down in construction which will deflate prices for construction goods, eventually rippling across the economy.

It wouldn’t be a perfect representation, but I feel it would help fight back against the player’s capacity to create a “perfect economy” that can only ever go up.

Working for a self-insured (reputable) business, I was involved in a minor car incident in recent months.

I was at fault, and other party's insurance has been sending me several letters.

I keep passing these letters onto my (employer's) insurance (and my insurance keeps asking the other party's insurance for the letters to be addressed to them), but the letters have gradually turned more threatening* with references to bringing in debt collecters against me personally.

I'm wondering what my rights are here in regards to debt collection, and if I have any means to force the other party's insurance to stop sending the letters to me?

I would really like a month where I don't have to open the letter box to a threatening* letter...

-------------

* threatening in the sense of asking for large magnitudes of money to be paid (near) immediately

I've been pondering a bit on how we might deliver something great for the city's busway/metro network, while dealing with the challenges of little time and little funding from state and federal governments.

The following plan is comprised of several smaller stages, all aimed at being something that the council, if willing, could feasibly fund and build prior to 2032?

1. Windsor to Lutwyche Link:
   • One of the most obvious, and relatively short, missing links in the busway network that could solve a lot of problems in one go? This would involve a new underground station beneath Windsor rail station.
   • To try to make it cheaper and more feasible, I propose using Truro St and Federation St as the dive sites for the tunnel. It would be a shame to lose these stops/stations, but it isn't like the nearest bus stop/station is far away from either. I believe Windsor War Memorial Park and Windsor rail station could also be used as sites for ventilation shafts rather cheapily.
2. New "M3" route:
   • With the newly completed link from above, and turn-around facilities already available at Kedron Brook station, I would have a new metro route that ran from Kedron Brook to Woolloongabba, essentially "replacing" the busway-portion of the 333.
   • A possible variation on this route, though one that would need an upgrade to the Woolloongabba Y-Junction, would be to have it turn around after Woolloongabba and continue on towards Buranda, Stones Corner and Langlands Park? Personally I wouldn't really bother with this, but it could be handy if Woolloongabba proved too busy to allow for holding up for a frequent metro route.
3. Extend the M1 to Springwood:
   • From what I can tell, this is reasonably easy? Perhaps an intersection upgrade or squeezing in more bus holding zones? Maybe a slight review of bus routes in the local area?
4. Replace the 169 with the "M4":
   • Running from (now) Springwood to UQ Lakes, it would provide invaluable support to the M1 (that now has to cater for much more Logan patronage) as well as dealing with the massive headache that is how unequiped the 169 is to deal with its own peak patronage.
   • To ease up congestion at UQ Lakes station, alongside the now "deleted" 169 route I would also cull the 139 route (as this new M4 could easily cater for the transferees from the 130/140). I would then shift the other routes around (29, 179, 192, 209) to allow platforms 1F and 1E to be vacant for the M4.
   • This route would probably be rather quiet on uni holiday weekends, but hey, it isn't like we base our train routes off if they have super-high patronage all times of the day/year?
5. Finally increase to 3-minute frequencies:
   • This would almost most certainly require the expansion of Rochedale depot and the building of Fitzgerald depot if we were adding 2 new metro routes.
6. Expand 24-hour service to 365 days a year:
   • Seems like an obvious home-run with little reason besides extra wage bills that it couldn't be done. It would be really cool if late-night workers finally had a guaranteed form of public transit to and from work.

Personally, I feel this entire plan should be do-able for <$2B, which leaves it in a price range that the council could probably take out the loans for if no one else is looking to assist.

Interested to hear all your thoughts on this.

The 114/119/120/121 would surely benefit from stopping at Greenslopes station and then exiting at Barnsdale Place?

It would save them going through about 3 unsynchronised lights in the outbound direction, which all often add upwards of 5 minutes to the journey during peak.

Unfortunately Stop 17 at Earl St would be missed, but this stop is only ~500m away from Greenslopes station already.

I’ve always been interested in geography, both from a “world history” as well as an “urban planning” perspective. I’ve always had a keen interest for computer science too… so Geographic Information Science (GIS) seems quite an apt pathway.

Curious to hear from people on here what sort of jobs and prospects there are related with this field? Internet research gives me the feel that it is a rather niche field and that the mines or councils are some of the few pathways to a job (with the latter also being rather underpaid).

I'm a wage earner. Unfortunately not much of an investor of any variety yet. I took a large risk, investing money, copious time, and lost earnings, towards studying a degree.

Unfortunately that risk didn't really pay off, and now I'm in a below median wage job. I risk my health (and sanity, lol) working large amounts of overtime to keep up with expenses.

Each extra dollar I earn is taxed roughly at 47 cents. That is 30 for income tax, 15 for HECS, and 2 for Medicare. This has meant that overall, my average tax rate is nearly 30%.

At this rate I probably have a decade left before my marginal tax rate is finally down to 32%. At this rate I probably have a decade left of inflation devaluing my mortgage to finally have any spare cash to throw into investment.

I thought I would add this perspective into the wider debate on if it is fair or not for CGT discounts to exist, or fair or not for someone to be taxed a minimum of 30% (inflation-adjusted) on capital gains.

I'm an individual who had always planned (well, perhaps "hoped" is a better term) to eventually build an investment portfolio that could allow myself an early retirement. These tax changes do negatively impact my (hopeful) retirement plan. If these tax changes do eventually allow for a reduction in the tax burden on wage earners though, my retirement plan might not be so theoretical anymore.

I hadn't played Vic 3 since before Charters of Commerce, until about a fortnight ago. My god has the game matured so nicely in this period. Companies, trade, movements, diplomatic interests, amendments, and treaties all feel so much more incredibly fleshed out and interactive.

I remember when companies were basically just a glorified modifier, and when trying to create an export economy was near impossible.

Now I see my glassworks company directing the rapid expansion of glass factories to produce china that gets exported in the 1000s on the world market (without having to place a diplomatic interest in some random corner of the world to find someone to trade with).

I remember when interest group leaders and support for passing legislation was basically just RNG beyond cheesing or hiring certain generals to get the ideology you wanted.

Now I work hard to cultivate a modernisation movement which pressures interest groups to align with my modernisation agenda, and propose amendments to legislation to buy the support of remaining interest groups (as long as they aren't too powerful).

Everything about the game just feels so much deeper.

I see the big tip from the wiki is just to release them all as puppets, but I’d rather avoid this.

I’ve tried a few games in a row now. At one point I got the number of radicals down to less than 200K by 1840… but Nicaragua still broke off, which increased radicals, which then convinced Honduras to split… and that was that game over.

In another game I tried to really hyper-focus on my 3 most populous states so that I would at least have a platform for conquer everyone else back into the fold… but the number of radicals from the split nations made that impossible.

On several games a nation would split off in February 1836.

I generally try to rush to bring down wood, fabric and food prices, and then build consumer goods (though I rarely get to this stage), have the lowest taxes and highest wages with a stable government, quickly pass religious education with amendments to appease the main movement and as many interest groups as I can… and it just doesn’t seem to do a thing to save me?

I haven't played Vic 3 for quite a while now - I think maybe even over 2 years ago since my last game?

I have gathered speed on a few of the changes, but there are still 2 big ones I'm looking to wrap my head around: movements and trade.

To help myself with understanding, I'll run with the following example.

I'm playing as Venezuela, wanting to create a gigantic tobacco export economy. To achieve this I have 2 aims; get industry banned for the huge investment pools buff for argicultural buildings and get a big enough trade advantage to export a steady amount of tobacco.

This, from my understanding, would likely require a strong peasant movement that spawns leaders with the luddite ideology and lots of influence in various regions of the world to get my trade advantage up? Is this correct, and are there other pathways for either objective?

Now assuming this is the case, apart from bolstering the peasant movement when (if) it spawns, how else can I best increase its strength? I also frequently see pop ups about "X ideology politician has spawned for Y interest group", but I'm not quite sure how to take advantage of this to get those politicians to leader their interest group?

As for trade advantage, it seems it is very hard as Venezuela to get a large influence in any region outside of South/Central America (without a lot of navy investment), so I'm honestly not sure what I would do here? Is there a way that I can export huge amounts of tobacco profitably without needing this influence?

StationLink (route 19) takes up a lot of daily services (running as frequently as a BUZ for most of the day) and, well, is hardly used by anyone.

Now it makes sense that it continues to run until Moorooka Station has finished its rebuild... but does anyone know what will happen to it after then?

My hope would be that its services could be redistributed among the nearby services, that in ways act as "station links".

For instance the...

• 102 (Inala to Oxley station),
• 468 (Oxley station to Indooroopilly station),
• 104 (Corinda station to Yeerongpilly/Boggo Rd stations),
• 105 (Indooroopilly station to Yeerongpilly/Boggo Rd stations),
• 112 (Griffith station to Boggo Rd station),
• and 113 (Holland Park West station to Boggo Rd station),

... could all really benefit from increased frequencies. These would combine nicely with the existing increased frequencies to the 177 (Carindale to Griffith station) and 182 (Garden City station to Holland Park West station), to potentially form a bit of a "station link" network on the southside?

Feel free to roast me lol.

Some explanations:

• Woolloongabba, UQ Lakes, and Roma St are designed to be the main termini - with 4 chargers each (or 6 in the case of Roma St), they should be able to handle each route travelling at 3 minute frequencies
• Mt Ommaney to Mt Coot-tha follows the Western Freeway
• Darra, Beenleigh, Carseldine, Windsor, and Cleveland are located at their respective train stations
• The UQ Lakes to Toowong alignment involved crossing across the river at Guyatt Park - Orleigh Park, and then from Orleigh Park - Toowong Village
• Naming conventions:
  • M1 (111, extended to Springwood)
  • M2 (222, extended to Cleveland)
  • M3 (333, extended to Carseldine)
  • M4 (Western suburbs use the 4xx convention)
  • M5 (Logan uses the 5xx convention)
  • M6 (66)
  • M7 (Gold Coast uses the 7xx convention, and Beenleigh was not only temporarily part of the Gold Coast, but also connects with the Gold Coast line)

https://preview.redd.it/dk6gqnnszypg1.png?width=4400&format=png&auto=webp&s=96be20056e0a8edf6ba5f8fbe602ed2292390227

Recently, Infrastructure Australia shortlisted the Brisbane Metro as one of its few high priority projects for QLD. Hopefully this means that we might see a bit more action politically.

The Lord Mayor acknowledged this on his social media, but an interesting part of his posts jumped out to me. He mentioned that they were keen to expand the metro to: Capalaba, Springwood, the airport, and Chermside.

Perhaps this was a typo (as all council websites still reference Carseldine), but I found it interesting that they didn't mention Carseldine in this case? If it wasn't a typo, I wondered if this indicated that they were progressing on an M2 extension already and had started firming on Chermside as being the terminus?