Page 2907 - Week 13 - Thursday, 23 November 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
multi-use vehicles and public transport, it fails to deal with the more fundamental issues of planning, transport movements, through traffic, residential amenity and public transport interchange.
In the area of public transport, a number of the proposed strategies, such as park-and-ride options and transfer ticketing, are laudable and we will be encouraging them in the future. However, one of the fundamentals of an adequate public transport system for Civic is, as the report suggests, an adequate interchange facility with a design and location that actively encourages bus travel. We certainly do not have that at the moment. In fact, it has been suggested that the current interchange will very shortly be running out of space to continue its operations and there is some possibility that it may have to move around into Northbourne Avenue.
Indeed, if all the proposed extra bus commuters were to leave their cars at home and use ACTION, it is doubtful that the current bus interchange could cope with the increased numbers, particularly in peak hour. The question remains, Mr Speaker: where and when will a new purpose-built bus interchange be located, and how will it fit in with an overall plan for the movement of people and traffic in, around and through Civic and with the overall public transport system for Canberra?
Mr Speaker, members may or may not be aware that there was originally a proposal to construct a bus interchange in Civic, but my understanding is that, because of a shortage of funds or because of the inability of the Commonwealth Government to get its act together, it was decided to initiate the temporary proposal that we have at the moment. We in this town have some indication as to how temporary things can be. We just have to look at the temporary Parliament House to realise that some of these things can go on and on for years. So let us hope, Mr Speaker, that the Government has some plans a little further forward for a permanent interchange in Civic.
So, by sticking doggedly to the proposed development on section 19, for example, and against considerable planning advice to the contrary, the minority Labor Government is closing off an important option in this transport debate. In my view, no major new developments ought to be contemplated in Civic until a plan for the whole is finalised.
The winning design in the recent competition sponsored by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the ACT Administration, by Mr Roger Pegrum and his associates, at least attempted to address this urgent problem of a unified Civic plan, one which has a vision for the Canberra of tomorrow and which attempts to grapple with transport needs of the future. If we cannot approach the future with some sort of vision, then Canberra is going to go the way of most other cities, with short-term bandaid solutions to
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .