1999: The Introduction of a Bus Station at a Major Australian University

November 17, 1999

In the state of Western Australia (WA), a bus station built on the Bentley campus of Curtin University of Technology was opened. Bentley, which is a southern suburb of WA’s capital city of Perth, serves as that university’s main campus. (This official name of this educational institution was shortened to Curtin University in 2010.) This university is the largest one in WA. It is also a member of the Australian Technology Network, a consortium of six of the country’s universities significantly involved in initiatives focusing on enterprises, innovations, and partnerships with private industry.

Curtin University bus station is owned by the Public Transport Authority, the statutory body overseeing public transportation in WA; and managed by Transperth, the transit system for various bus, train, and ferry services in the vicinity of Perth. This station was formally inaugurated by Murray Criddle, who served as WA’s minister for transport from 1998 to 2001.

Criddle highlighted the benefits of having a bus station at the university. He said, “The university has had an ongoing parking problem and it is encouraging to see that it has chosen to allocate resources to promote the use of public transport to the campus in lieu of additional parking spaces.”  Criddle further noted, “This new Transperth bus station will vastly improve accessibility for students and staff, reduce traffic congestion around the campus and eliminate the need to construct costly multi-story car parks.”

Curtin University bus station, which is specifically located on Hayman Road in Bentley, is served by several Transperth routes. The Perth-area bus companies operating these routes are Path Transit and Swan Transit. (The accompanying photo of this station was taken in 2018.) In 2019, another Transperth bus station was opened at Curtin University’s Bentley campus. This facility — known as Curtin Central bus station — can be found on Karrak Drive in Bentley.

Photo Credit: Andrew Owens (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

Additional information on Transperth bus stations is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Transperth_bus_stations