Page 5152 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 18 November 2009
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“transport-oriented development” is something that needs to stop being a phrase in Canberra and start being a major part of our planning. It has been the Greens’ policy for a very long time that planning and transport should be looked after by one department because they are so interrelated.
As I imagine we are all aware, 25 per cent of our greenhouse gases are from transport. The rest is from stationary energy from buildings. Given that it appears that we are now going to commit to peaking our greenhouse gas emissions by 2013, with the aim, of course, of eventual zero net emissions, it is really important that we start looking at a transport system that is going to work and a transport system which will start helping to deliver actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The Redex trial would seem to be one part of that puzzle of getting that together.
Talking about transport in general, my colleague Ms Bresnan has a motion on the notice paper, which I hope will be dealt with in the next sitting period, concerning transport and master planning in Erindale. Gungahlin is not the only place where we have stress. The inner north is not the only place where we have stress in our transport system. It is important to look at the whole system. I commend Ms Bresnan’s amendments and also say that the Redex trial, while clearly not adequate to solve all the transport problems of the ACT, is a positive step forward.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (10.55): There have been a few things said in this debate that are really quite inaccurate and not sticking up for the good people of Gungahlin. The people on the crossbench, the Greens, may not actually know where Gungahlin is, but it is that bit to the north of Lyneham or to the north-west of Watson, north of the inner north. It is where 40,000 live and 40,000 people struggle to get the bus to the city.
It is all very well to bolster the services between the Gungahlin Marketplace and the city. But how do you get to the Gungahlin Marketplace? If you look at the times, each morning there are 22 services which run from Gungahlin suburbs, through the Gungahlin Marketplace and on to the city. If you actually look at these times and you compare them to the Redex, you get some pretty interesting statistics. For instance, if I was to get a bus at 6.45 am—up nice and early—I hop on the bus and I arrive at the Gungahlin Marketplace at three minutes past seven. If I was to go into the city on the same bus, I would arrive at 7.25 am. So I leave at 6.45, arrive at Gungahlin at 7.03, go straight on through and I am there at 7.25 am. If I was to use the Redex, I would have to get off that bus, which is using the same road as the Redex. So I would get on the bus at 6.45 in Nicholls, I would get off at 7.03 am, I would wait for 13 minutes at the Gungahlin Marketplace, then get on the Redex, which is going on the same route as my other bus, and I would arrive at 7.46 am. It would be 21 minutes slower.
That might be an anomaly, so let us look at the next time, 6.59 am. I get on the No 52 at Nicholls. I arrive at the Gungahlin Marketplace at 7.13 am. I would keep on going through and I am there at 7.35 am. If I had done something differently, I could have got off the route service, which is going to the city, waited at the Gungahlin Marketplace and then hopped on a Redex. How much slower would I be? Eleven minutes slower that way.
If you look at all these times, this is how much slower they are: 21 minutes slower, 13 minutes slower, 11 minutes slower, 20 minutes slower, 11 minutes slower, five
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