1986: The Debut of an Australian Bus Interchange that Resides in Paradise  

March 9, 1986

A newly built bus interchange first went into service in the community of Paradise in the Australian state of South Australia (SA). Paradise Interchange, which is located 3.7 miles (six kilometers) from the central section of SA’s capital city of Adelaide, had been officially dedicated a week earlier. John Bannon, who served as premier of SA from 1982 to 1992, officiated at that ceremony.

Paradise Interchange was constructed as the eastern terminus for the first stage of the development of the O-Bahn Busway. This bus-based public transportation system is part of the larger rapid transit network serving Adelaide’s northeastern suburbs. The O-Bahn Busway was modeled after a bus system that was being developed at the time by Daimler-Benz (now known as the Mercedes Benz Group AG) for West Germany (part of the present-day Federal Republic of Germany). The O-Bahn Busway, which is owned and operated by Adelaide Metro, owes its name to the German words for bus (omnibus) and way (bahn).

A smaller bus interchange in the Adelaide suburb of Klemzig was also built as part of the first segment of the O-Bahn Busway. Construction on both Klemzig Interchange (originally called Klemzig station) and Paradise Interchange began in 1983. In 1989, the infrastructure for the O-Bahn Busway was extended approximately 5.8 miles (9.3 kilometers) northeast of Paradise after the construction of a bus interchange in the Adelaide suburb of Modbury. Originally called Modbury Interchange, this hub is now known as Tea Tree Plaza Interchange.

Paradise Interchange — situated about halfway between Klemzig and Tea Tree Plaza Interchanges — is served by 34 bus routes altogether. In addition, Paradise Interchange has a total of 625 parking spaces for automobiles.

Photo Credit: Marcus Wong (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)

For more information on Paradise Interchange, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Interchange

A video of buses at Paradise Interchange can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q7moUaRKbI

Additional information on the O-Bahn Busway is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway