Page 3572 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 20 November 2007
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Public transport is only a part of the 2004 sustainable transport plan, which intended to provide Canberrans with more sustainable modes of transport over the next 25 years. The Conservation Council had a look at this plan very recently, in 2007, and assessed the government’s achievements against the plan. It is clear from this assessment that last year was a black time indeed for public transport. We saw an absolute decrease in services provided by buses. We also no longer hear the government saying that it wants to reduce the number of car journeys to work.
In the assessment, the government wanted to increase the percentage of work journey trips done by public transport by nine per cent by 2011 and by 16 per cent by 2026. I am not sure that we are seeing those measures sustained, and I would like to see the government report on how it is making it more attractive to people to travel by bus to work. We know that it is attractive for some people. It depends where you live in Canberra. If you live anywhere in the inner north or inner south, there are quite reasonable bus services, due not only to specific services but to the buses that come from further away that travel through those suburbs.
People who live in outer Belconnen, Tuggeranong and even Weston Creek who need to go to an interchange to get onto another bus are the people who are taking the two to three-hour journeys to get to their doctors. People who are not commuters can have an hour’s wait during the daytime. I would say that most of the changes last year were primarily to benefit commuters, which is admirable, but it does not recognise that the most disadvantaged people are the ones who travel during the day. If you miss a bus you can wait for a whole hour. That is not convenient, and it also explains why it takes so long to get anywhere.
Cycling is part of sustainable transport, and it is very good to see the bike racks on buses on some services, but I have mentioned in this place before that that is no good if you have a basket or something on your bike, because the buses will not take it. It is a pity that the bike racks do not suit people like me who always have a bike basket because of the huge amount of stuff they carry around. So that is a good thing but not quite good enough yet.
One of the things that we hear every time we talk about buses is that Canberra was designed as a car city; therefore we cannot really go as far as we might like to. It is true that Canberra was designed for cars but I do not think it is good enough to say that means we cannot really improve our public transport, including our walkability. Parts of Canberra are very walkable but others are not. I refer, for instance, to riding over any of the bridges in the parliamentary triangle. There are black spots. I know that, in getting onto Kings Avenue bridge, I have had to pick up my bike and try and get it up a fairly steep hill because, except for one access point to the bridge, there is absolutely no way of getting your bike up there safely. These are simple things which I have written to the NCA about. They say they are looking at it, but it is taking a long time.
If we really want to get people on buses, the kinds of people who seem to be glued to their cars, I suggest that the government introduce a free public transport day. It could be done, for instance, in the school holidays, when there is not the demand for bus
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