Page 929 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 21 April 2021
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see some better servicing on weekends. But we are pleased to see that there has been a bit of progress in some of those areas.
We are pleased to see light rail doing so well. It has proved to be incredibly popular and reliable, and it has contributed strongly to getting Canberrans onto public transport. I grew up here in Canberra, and I know that a lot of my friends who love light rail simply did not catch the bus. I think it is actually opening up a new market for public transport. It was a major Greens initiative, and it took a lot of work to get it going, and we are pleased to see that it is rolling along now. I am personally keen to see it expand into my electorate of Ginninderra. I was really glad, when we made the suggestion to Mr Steel, the minister for transport, that he took it up. He is including a connection to Kippax in the feasibility study for light rail stage 3. A lot of people live in west Belconnen; that region is growing really fast, with Ginninderry. It is essential that we provide good public transport services in that area.
We are also pleased to see the continuation of the flexibus service, but we have made a few recommendations for improvement through our recent estimates process. I am happy to see that the ACT government have taken up some of those recommendations. We look forward to seeing what happens when they investigate a convenient app to book on-demand flexibus services alongside the existing options.
We are also pleased that we are exceeding targets set for bike lane and footpath construction, but we do not think that those targets are ambitious enough. We need a lot more investment in this area. We know that a lot of people will not ride or walk, or they will not feel safe doing it, unless they have a well-maintained network of separated paths, and there are still too many gaps. If we want 20 per cent of Canberrans using active transport, we need to spend 20 per cent of our roads capital and maintenance budget on that network of footpaths, shared paths and bike lanes.
I am pleased to hear about the efforts to improve the efficiency of inspections of the community path network, and I will be really keen to see what happens with the trial of e-bikes by ACT government officers looking at that network and checking conditions.
The government have set a target that 90 per cent of roads should be maintained in good condition. My estimates committee recently recommended that we need to set a similar target for our footpaths, shared paths and bike lanes. The ACT government have not quite accepted that, but they have said they will look at developing an appropriate indicator and they will look at acquiring the equipment they need to make sure they can carry it out. I am looking forward to seeing what happens on that in the next estimates.
I am pleased to see that the government is finally moving ahead with a food and organic waste processing facility. It is great news; it is the essential next step in our waste strategy. Not all organic waste can go into a home composting system and not everyone has access to composting. Organic waste in landfill is generating methane, which is a powerful climate change gas, so the facility is really good news.
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