Page 5331 - Week 14 - Thursday, 19 November 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
narrow one. In fact, the way that we protect and prioritise the different modes of transport is closely linked to the quality of life in our city. It is also a key factor in our response to climate change.
Protecting and prioritising our vulnerable road users is a very high priority for the Greens. In particular, my colleague Ms Le Couteur has given a lot of energy to this issue in the last year. She will be contributing to this debate later by talking about some changes we can make in Canberra. This is a topic that we think needs significant attention from the government.
Firstly, I will clarify that, by “vulnerable road users”, I mean those who are the most sensitive to road injury. It is a term that recognises the inherent vulnerability of humans who use roads without protection. This idea should be clear to all of us. We have all been exposed to traffic, and we all know how one sided a collision is that involves a car, truck or bus and a pedestrian or cyclist. Primarily, I am talking about pedestrians and cyclists. They are the most vulnerable within these groups, though there are some special categories, such as children.
The vulnerability idea is a crucial concept to include into our planning and policy making. It recognises that some road users need special consideration and protection. In fact, it may also be appropriate to start entrenching this concept into our laws as a way to improve safety for non-motorised road users, such as bicyclists and pedestrians. This is happening in Europe, where planners and safety organisations are using this concept to categorise and describe non-motorised road users.
This MPI is about protecting and prioritising vulnerable road users, but, in many ways, prioritising these road users is the same thing as protecting them. By building policies and a traffic environment that prioritise pedestrians and cyclists, these modes of transport are made much faster and safer. However, even putting safety aside for a moment, the fact is that the forms of transport used by vulnerable road users—that is, walking and cycling—are the ones we need to prioritise anyway.
Some key issues point to this need. The first factor is climate change. Our current transport patterns create around a quarter of all energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Despite this, the ACT’s transport emissions are increasing each and every year. A second issue is peak oil. Car dependence is a problem that drives oil vulnerability. If Canberra provides other alternatives through public transport but also through walking and cycling, we will become resilient and sustainable in the face of this crisis.
A third issue that requires us to prioritise pedestrian and cycling transport is health and obesity. The Heart Foundation reports that currently 57 per cent of Australians do not achieve sufficient levels of activity for a health benefit. That is the equivalent of the Assembly’s entire opposition and crossbench heading towards preventable heart disease, leaving only the government in good health. Members may have seen some of the Heart Foundation’s excellent material on health and the built environment or attended the foundation’s forum on active transport earlier this year.
Despite these imperatives, here in the ACT, the government maintains very much a pro-car approach to traffic management. Take the Gungahlin town centre, for example.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video