Page 1556 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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Mr Wood: But it would be better if you read it.
MR CONNOLLY: As Mr Wood said, it is one thing for us to provide material; it is another for opposition members to study and understand it. You can lead a person to information, but you cannot make them think, as they say.
The outcome of that survey is that there are three options which should be looked at further for a general public transport system for Canberra, and they may be interchangeable. Obviously, the first is expanding the current bus network, with obvious efficiencies and changes over the years; secondly, the O-bahn system, which has been used in Adelaide and which is used in certain parts of Europe; and, thirdly, light rail focusing, it should be said, on what the report describes as the cheaper end. Light rail can really run from a very light rail system through to almost a metropolitan, heavy-tracked, electric train system, as we would be familiar with on the Sydney metropolitan transit network. The report suggests that we would look at the lower end of that.
There seem to be some problems with the O-bahn system in so far as it requires fairly intrusive track works; it requires concrete barriers on either side of the track, which are getting up towards waist height, and they are quite large, intrusive objects.
Mr De Domenico: Speak for yourself.
MR CONNOLLY: I suppose it does depend on whose waist it is, but I will not go into that. If we are looking at trialling a newer technology for public transport as the prime trunk route between the city and Gungahlin, light rail offers real attractions over O-bahn in so far as light rail would be quite environmentally compatible with the grassed area up the middle of Northbourne Avenue. The well-established trees on either side of the Northbourne Avenue nature strip would be untouched, and you could have a light rail track running along that grassed area, which would be quite visually unobtrusive; whereas to do it with the O-bahn system you would have a very, very obtrusive concrete barrier running up the middle of Northbourne Avenue, with quite costly engineering works whenever through traffic has to cross.
The problem with light rail, which appears in the study, is that to have a system for the whole of Canberra we would be talking about an investment of up to $250m, which is a massive new investment compared with the cost of expanding the bus network. But an option will be a light rail system that may service Gungahlin and the city, with interchangeable ticketing arrangements through to the bus network, which obviously would have to feed into light rail at the other end of Gungahlin, and it could just as conveniently feed out.
It is a major survey. I commend both the summary and the document to members as it is being distributed. From this, it recommends that we go on now to cost precisely some of these three options for specific intercity routes. Obviously we will be looking at the cost of light rail.
Mr De Domenico: When will we get it?
MR CONNOLLY: I think our officers have it ready for distribution. We released it this morning, so it should be available during the day.
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