Page 1808 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 June 2022
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In recent months I have updated the Assembly on some of the local and community highlights of this big investment pipeline. This includes Canberra’s biggest ever suburban infrastructure program, delivering more than $20 million of improvements across our suburbs and regions. With upgraded local shopping centres, new and improved playgrounds and dog parks, and more accessible and inviting places to gather and connect, we are making Canberra’s suburbs even better.
The program also includes $77 million in active travel projects, which I updated the Assembly on earlier this year in the active travel statement. This includes building new, dedicated active travel path infrastructure, like the Sulwood Drive shared path in the south and the Belconnen bikeway stage 2 in the north, as well as getting on with the feasibility study which is underway for the construction of further projects like the new Garden City Cycle Route through the inner north. During the recent campaign I was really pleased to see our new federal Labor government commit to co-funding that.
Over the coming years we are investing around half a billion dollars in upgrading some of the ACT’s key strategic transport corridors. These corridors are the backbone upon which we deliver all forms of transport for Canberrans. The corridors provide routes for our buses to drive along; they provide the direct connections between key locations for our shared path network to follow, particularly between town centres; and they are increasingly used by Canberra’s expanding zero emissions vehicle fleet, as well as by regular private vehicles.
Climate change continues to be at the forefront of our planning and decision-making. As a government we need to adapt to a wave of more extreme weather events, driving us to continue to deliver safer and more resilient infrastructure for our community. It is also a reminder of the need to provide more flexible infrastructure to allow Canberrans and visitors to our city to move around more efficiently and with reduced impacts on our environment.
I would like to provide an update on a number of larger projects being delivered within my portfolio, which are not only supporting the ongoing economic recovery within the territory but are also supporting the continued growth of our city, from the south of Tuggeranong to the northern regions of Belconnen and Gungahlin and throughout the Molonglo Valley. Before I do, I would like to highlight some of the challenges that we, like all jurisdictions around Australia, are facing in delivering major projects at this time. We have felt the real impacts of climate change across our infrastructure program with the current La Nina weather events delivering the wettest summer in seven years. It is an important reminder that climate change is not something that is going to affect us just in the future; it is happening already, and it will continue to get worse unless we act to tackle its causes.
Globally, the reduction of steel manufacturing in China has seen an escalation in the price of steel, while the conflict in Ukraine has resulted in higher prices for oil. From filling up their cars, Canberrans are well aware of this effect, but it is perhaps less
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