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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 135 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

(2) If the changes in travel behaviour are not achieved and high car use continues, then the lack of the necessary access roads could mean high traffic infiltration through the North Canberra roads.

That was a very prophetic statement, as it has turned out. Mr Speaker, it is clear that public transport simply is not going to solve the problem.

I believe that we owe it to our community to try to resolve, in a reasonably foreseeable way, what will happen to those areas of land reserved for a parkway in the near future. It would be very easy, particularly in the lead-up to an election in 12 months' time, for this Government to say, "Well, it is a bit tricky; we will refer it to a major study" or "We will formally cancel any plans to proceed with a parkway or whatever". That would be a very neat little flick pass, and I do not think many people would notice it; and I think we would all be very relaxed that this was not taking place. But the longer we leave those lines marked on the map in the Canberra Nature Park between Belconnen and North Canberra, the longer we leave the various people who will be affected by that process in a state of uncertainty. I do not believe that it is responsible of us to hold out to such people false hope that these things will not happen one day or that they may in some way be avoided or delayed for a great deal of time through some alternative actions.

The suggestion was made that we should look at the alternative roads, roads that were less controversial. The suggestion was the Majura Parkway. I again point to GETS, which says very clearly that that should be an option for transport links undertaken after the John Dedman Parkway is constructed, not before. I also point out to members, if they care to look at the map of Gungahlin, that every single person who has built a house in Gungahlin has built it to the west of the town centre. This means that, if the Government were to move to construct a parkway off the eastern side of the Gungahlin township, to some extent it would defy the logical way people would choose to travel. The more you defy the logic of those kinds of natural transport routes, the more you invite people to ignore those routes and to rat-run or to find alternative ways of getting where they want to go.

The suggestion has even been made to me that we should build a ring-road to the west, around Belconnen, to line up with William Hovell Drive. I do not have to tell members that that is going to result in a round trip of something like 30 or 40 kilometres to - - -

Ms McRae: An excellent speedway.

MR HUMPHRIES: It would certainly be a very fast road to travel on, but it would result in people having to travel maybe 30 kilometres to get to somewhere that is, as the crow flies, about five kilometres away. There is no point in even thinking about those sorts of options, because they defy logic. For the same reason, we have to look at the route which is most logical in these circumstances.

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