Page 4068 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 30 November 2022
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not drop city-wide public transport usage. COVID dropped public transport usage; light rail has helped to restore it.
I would like to chat next about the “calls ons” in the motion. Mr Parton wants a guarantee of a direct bus system that duplicates stage 2 of light rail. The Greens cannot support this, either. It does not make sense to commit to such an expensive undertaking without seeing whether we need it and whether people want it. The Liberals are constantly saying they are worried about the costs of light rail and this motion would increase those costs—and for what?
I hear the concerns of those who worry about journey times. We need to give people public transport that they want to use, so we certainly have to watch that really carefully. But we know that, going forward, all journey times to and from the city will increase because of congestion, and our congestion is increasing three times faster than other Australian mainland capitals. Light rail will help that.
Mr Parton referred to ACT government surveys, and I am not sure which one he is looking at. We are looking at the ACT government’s 2016 report Keep Canberra moving—what you have told us. That survey tells us that journey time matters. It says that the largest barrier to public transport use is that it takes longer to travel by bus to get to where people want to go.
Let us unpick that. In 2016, when that survey was done, the ACT government ran a network that had very long bus journeys. Many buses travelled for well over an hour end-to-end, snaking through every suburb and stopping frequently at many stops. This meant that the whole city had lots of coverage, but it also meant that frequency, reliability and journey time struggled. The longer the runs, the more the chance for delays, the more traffic the bus might encounter over its long journey, and each small thing added up to a large delay. The newer bus network is focused on shorter, more direct and frequent journeys with less risk about reliability.
Buses that share the road with cars will always face problems with reliability and with frequency. Buses get stuck in the same traffic that cars are stuck in for most of their run. They hit the same lights. They are delayed by the same accidents and collisions. Reliability is also an issue with our ageing buses. With such a large fleet, it is not uncommon for there to be buses out of service. Our overall bus reliability is pretty good. It is at 99 per cent. But some of our weekend services are far below that. It is pretty notable that Canberra’s buses often run late, with on-time running at only 76 per cent.
Our light rail does not suffer from any of these problems. Canberra’s light rail service’s reliability was 99.9 per cent, with very little late running. Light rail does not get stuck in traffic. That is one of its key benefits. The 2016 poll found that frequency and reliability were significant barriers to the uptake of public transport, and since then we have found these issues are significantly reduced when light rail is delivered. The actual uptake of light rail bears this out. More people are using it.
Direct buses are also not always the best buses. It depends on your situation, where you want to go and what you are doing. A direct route might suit you if you are using public transport for commuting to a nine to five job in the city, and if there is a direct
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