Page 2903 - Week 13 - Thursday, 23 November 1989
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The residents willingly compromised and willingly kept their side of the bargain in the interests of community equity. There are now 1,200 to 1,600 cars parked daily at residential kerbsides while over 2,000 car parking spaces remain vacant in the city. Loder and Bayly added:
We recommend that all commuter parking be excluded in the long term.
It is time for this Government and this Assembly to recognise that residents have kept their end of the compromise reached between them and the combined ACT Administration and the NCDC in this study. It is time to accept the Loder and Bayly recommendations and the recommendations made to the Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Infrastructure. It is time to implement a system of no parking, nine to 11, throughout all residential areas adjacent to town centres.
My final comment responds to the section on traffic management on page 11. I draw the Assembly's attention to the increased flow of traffic and the impact it will have as residential streets become "rat runs". Traffic is like water poured into a bucket. When roads get full and the flow continues it will find the nearest line of least resistance. That was reinforced again by Professor Black in his speech at lunch yesterday. With this in mind, the Loder and Bayly study recommended some street modifications and closures in Reid and Braddon. They are relatively inexpensive. Some have already been carried out, but others must be implemented as an urgent requirement of the transport strategy. I draw particular attention to the closure of Currong Street and Anzac Parade in Reid and other street closures identified by the study. Remember that 70 per cent of the respondents favoured a street closure scheme.
The transport strategy must at least be given credit for trying to address some of the mistakes that have been made, but it is not enough and it is not good enough. I now quote from a submission from a former chief planner of the NCDC, who said:
The sole cause of the transport problem in Civic is abundantly clear, has always been entirely predictable and indeed was frequently predicted: it is the overload of the mislocated 12,000 Commonwealth office workers whose presence has proved most profitable for property speculation -
Note, not development but property speculation -
but serves no civic purpose. With their removal to more suitable permanent locations the strategy now adopted by the NCPA, transport problems will diminish ... no other strategy is needed.
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