Page 5144 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 18 November 2009
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In July this year, the government brought together over 100 representatives of community and business groups to seek their ideas and input on the transport issues for Canberra and the region that are most concerning them in the future. At the roundtable I announced that the government is developing the sustainable transport action plan 2010-16. The sustainable transport action plan will be a detailed policy document setting out how the government will implement the sustainable transport plan in the short to medium term from 2010 to 2016. The input from the roundtable will be reflected in the sustainable transport action plan when it is developed over the next six months.
The sustainable transport action plan will link together four strategies which detail how we move around Canberra and the region. These four aspects of the integrated transport system—parking, public transport, cycling and walking, and transport infrastructure—require detailed planning and strategic policy thinking. We acknowledge that these aspects are strongly related and sometimes difficult to consider in isolation but it is also important to be clear to the community and business about where our intentions lie across the transport spectrum. The four strategies will be prepared alongside the overarching sustainable transport action plan in 2009 and will be released next year.
Also feeding into the sustainable transport action plan will be the feasibility studies for park and ride centres in Mitchell and Erindale. A park and ride in Mitchell would complement the Redex service from Gungahlin to the city.
As I mentioned before, the Redex route is one of the key rapid transport routes identified in the draft strategic public transport network plan. In preparing the draft strategic public transport network plan, the government has consulted with leading transport planning expert Jarrett Walker from McCormick Rankin Cagney. He advised ACTION that the trial would be more successful if we focused on the route between Gungahlin and the Canberra railway station in Kingston via city, Russell and the parliamentary triangle. By restricting the trial to one route instead of the original two, it also allows us to run it over a longer period and with more frequent services.
Redex services operate every 15 minutes from 7 am to 7 pm. Redex buses stop at specially marked, red-topped bollards along the route. These bus stops are strategically located along the Redex route. Redex services are high frequency, with limited stops between Gungahlin Marketplace and the Kingston railway station. However, it does need to be noted that Redex services are not express services the way that ACTION’s Xpresso services are.
As noted in the timetable, the Redex services timings are currently approximate only. This is because the services run every 15 minutes, which is not a long time to wait for a rapid service and, in fact, it puts the ACT on par with rapid networks in some of the world’s leading public transport cities that are of similar size and have similar urban densities as Canberra. As most people would find a maximum wait of 15 minutes to be a reasonable time to wait for a rapid service, there is no real need for a timetable. However, ACTION is conducting real-time, onboard timings over the first four weeks of the trial and adjustments will be made where necessary.
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