Page 4070 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 30 November 2022
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We do not yet know exactly what stage 2B is going to look like, but we know that, if we can get light rail all the way to Mawson, for example, then park and ride and bike lockers there will make it easier for people in some Tuggeranong suburbs, like Wanniassa, Kambah and Fadden, to incorporate light rail into their regular commute. The way that this would work is by seeing light rail as part of a transport network. It is not the only answer; it is a choice that you make available to people, along with having buses and active travel.
For people who are paying $16 to park all day in the Parliamentary Triangle or paying $13 to $19 to park all day in the city, that cost saving of not having to drive their car is really important. There are 854 people who live in Woden and work in the Parliamentary Triangle who earn less than $2,000 a week and there are 1,981 people who live in Woden and work in the city or the inner north and earn less than $2,000 a week. If they were able to make light rail part of the transport network that they are using, that is really important in the context of the rising cost of living for those people.
But, really importantly, as Jo Clay was saying earlier, it also gives us more flexibility in our transport network. It frees up buses for suburban network services. It also frees up road and parking space for those people who need to drive their car, and it is really important for people for whom the current hub-and-spoke bus network design does not meet all of their needs.
For people who are going from one suburb to another rather than to a town centre or the city, if we have more buses available then we can help those people more with a more flexible network in future. For people who do a lot of trip chaining, where they might make stops on their journey, you have to look at the total transport network and how buses and light rail are part of that. That planning is really important, and it is very important that we do not commit ourselves to what exactly that might look like before people have had a chance to look at the data and understand how that fits into people’s lives.
Light rail is also about making more choices available to people. In a personal example, I do not actually like having to drive to work every day. So, on a day where I do not have to drive, I would actually prefer to combine active travel with mass transit. At the moment, what that looks like for me is getting on something like the R5 with my skateboard, so that on the way home if I am not feeling like I want to stand around and wait an extra 10 minutes for the bus that goes closer to home, I can catch, say, the 59 and ride my skateboard from Deakin back to Hughes, which has some very nice footpaths that have been resurfaced regularly and well maintained.
In the future, that could be light rail that I am using there. That not only is good for my physical activity but also means that I can enjoy being able to use my time more effectively on the bus or, in future, the light rail, rather than sitting in traffic on the road. I might pop my headphones in and listen to music, I might be reading my email, or I might be getting the online shopping done while I am on my way home. It could be any one of a number of things that are all much better than sitting in traffic and looking out for other cars on the road.
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