Hobart City Deal - Southern Projects

The Hobart City Deal is a 10-year partnership between the Australian and Tasmanian Governments and the Clarence, Glenorchy, Hobart and Kingborough councils. The partnership aims to:

• increase the use of public and active transport
• create urban renewal though compact, liveable and sustainable precincts
• deliver vibrant and liveable communities with access to green spaces, and supporting cultural and recreational facilities
• grow Greater Hobart’s status as a global connected city.

City Deal Partners are delivering a broad package of infrastructure improvements and services to encourage changed transport habits, manage congestion, improve traffic flow and inform decision making in the Greater Hobart Region.

The Hobart City Deal will leverage Hobart’s natural amenity and build on its position as a vibrant, liveable and connected global city.

The Southern Projects is a suite of coordinated transport projects focused on providing safer and more reliable travel options between Hobart’s growing southern suburbs and the CBD.

The Southern Outlet Transit Lane will operate between Olinda Grove and Macquarie Street as a T3 transit lane.

It can be used by private vehicles carrying three or more people, buses, taxis, motorbikes and emergency service vehicles.

The transit lane will support a greater uptake of public transport and carpooling, with improved travel times and reliability for transit lane users.

We are timing these works to minimise traffic impacts and make sure we aren’t working on too many sections at the same time.

Park and Ride facilities

New park and ride facilities are open at Firthside near the intersection of Browns Road and Groningen Road, and Huntingfield.

Both sites offer better pedestrian access, lighting, and safety measures, and new shelters and bicycle storage facilities.

New express bus services

We have added express bus services between the southern suburbs and Hobart to improve travel around Hobart and make public transport a more viable, attractive option for commuters.

The new express bus services support a shift towards greater public transport use in the Southern Corridor.

The express bus services will work with the Southern Outlet Transit Lane and Macquarie Street and Davey Street Bus Improvements when they are completed to improve public transport access all the way from the southern suburbs to Hobart’s CBD.

The latest round of community consultation finished in September 2021 for the Southern Outlet Transit Lane and the Macquarie and Davey Streets Bus Improvements.

You can read more about the consultation and findings here.

Previous consultation

Targeted consultation

In 2018, we delivered an online public consultation about the current Southern Outlet bus lane. Feedback was sought on the issues that are important to people, such as travel times, public transport, safety and the environment. This consultation process attracted more than 340 responses, with many people supporting the bus lane and expressing frustration in relation to congestion and safety issues.

In late 2019, two focus group meetings were held in Hobart and Kingborough to discuss local issues and obtain feedback to contribute to the planning and design processes of the Hobart Transport Vision.

A summary report was provided to participants and is also available to download.

November/December 2020 Park and Ride public display

Public display of concept designs for the Kingborough park and ride facilities and improved southern suburbs bus service changes took place from 18 November to 2 December 2020 and is now complete.

The public display period included a broad range of opportunities to engage the project team in dialogue about issues, challenges and opportunities and to provide feedback for consideration as part of the decision–making process.

We summarised the feedback we received into a consultation and feedback summary report.

Concept options report

In 2017, we commissioned consultants to produce a concept options report for the initial concept of a transit lane for buses and emergency services on the Southern Outlet.

Traffic modelling

We did extensive traffic modelling to help us understand traffic impacts for this project. A summary report on traffic modelling is available.

Click play below to see a video update on the Southern Projects.