Page 1828 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 May 2010
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be replicated here. For example, pedestrian zones in city centres can boost foot traffic by 20 per cent and retail sales by at least 10 per cent. This makes sense if you think about it. It eliminates the kind of drive-by shopping that usually characterises streets that are dominated by cars. Instead, people linger and enjoy the space. We see good examples of this in places like Melbourne, where there are a lot more outdoor cafes and so forth.
As Ms Le Couteur and Ms Bresnan pointed out earlier, Canberra’s existing transport system is imposing significant costs in the ACT economy. These costs will grow if we do not change. The impacts of peak oil will change our way of living and cities that remain car dependent will become very vulnerable. As the ACT government’s light rail submission to Infrastructure Australia pointed out:
Canberra’s existing transport system is not sustainable from an environmental, economic and social perspective and is already imposing significant costs on the ACT economy and society.
We really do need to have that commitment to building an active transport option here across the ACT.
The Liberals’ position is less clear. Possibly the Liberal Party denies that costs to the ACT will spiral higher if we do not change our current transport patterns. Mr Seselja cares about economic costs to Canberra, so he should be very supportive of changes that will mitigate our future costs.
As Ms Bresnan has already flagged, increasing active transport will also bring huge savings by reducing the risk of preventative disease and easing the burden on the health system.
These are enormous benefits. We need to be supporting this move, this direction that we all need to go in. We in the ACT Greens have not just stood on the sideline and thrown rocks. We have been actively engaged in this area. We comprehensively researched and put out a paper that was tabled here in the Assembly today. It has a number of options, ideas and ways forward. We believe that is our genuine contribution to this matter. We look forward to continuing to work with other members of the Assembly to look at how those ideas may be implemented and what other ideas may be out there that we could put in place in the coming years.
It is something that we do need to tackle. As I said, we genuinely want to participate in a good debate, to be active participants in that. We look forward to further discussions with the government and with the opposition. It would be good if they could also participate in this matter.
I commend Ms Le Couteur’s motion for making excellent recommendations to increase active transport and help make Canberra a healthier, happier and more sustainable city.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (6.26): I will speak briefly on the amendments and then close the debate. The amendments which Mr Stanhope has moved en bloc we
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