Page 5099 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 26 October 2011
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petrol prices, given our need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is crazy to develop a new area of Canberra without sufficient footpaths and bike paths.
In paragraph (1)(b) of Mr Coe’s motion he talks about the congestion and issues with Hibberson Street. Hibberson Street is clearly a major issue. I remember that in the 2008 election a Labor candidate whose name I cannot remember—I do very much apologise for that—was there every Saturday. She had a petition for people to sign, basically to do something about Hibberson Street. Everyone who went past signed her petition. Clearly, given the votes, they did not vote for her, but the people of Gungahlin are very clear that Hibberson Street is an issue.
I would like to be clear that what I am saying is that there is an issue in Hibberson Street. I am not agreeing with Mr Coe that all of these things are problems. The pedestrian crossings do cause significant delays for car and bus traffic on Hibberson Street; however, I do not think that is necessarily a problem. In fact, the pedestrian crossings are probably the things that slow the cars down enough so that Hibberson Street has a degree of safety. Without them, whatever you may feel about pedestrian crossings, there would be a lot more accidents in Hibberson Street.
In terms of the major bus stops impeding traffic and visibility at Hibberson Street, the government needs to do a lot more long-term thinking about how we do our bus transport in Hibberson Street. It is an issue of degree rather than an absolute issue. There is an amount of bus traffic which is simply too much for a retail precinct and there is an amount which is not. You could say “unfortunately” from a public transport point of view, but at present the amount of bus traffic in Hibberson Street is not the major issue for Hibberson Street. I will talk more about the major issues for Hibberson Street in point (e) at the end of my amendments, so I will just park that one for a minute.
The park-and-ride users are occupying prime private underground car parks built for retail shoppers. This is an issue. However, it is not something that the government needs to solve. The solution to that is in the hands of private enterprise.
I will continue in order. One of my amendments is to add in “difficulty and danger for pedestrians and cyclists using Hibberson Street”. When crossing Hibberson Street, even on the pedestrian crossing, you sometimes feel that you are taking your life into your hands because there is just so much traffic there. And the cyclists—the only way they survive is because there are so many pedestrian crossings slowing things down. This is a longstanding issue.
So in terms of calling upon the government, I totally agree with Mr Coe that we need to investigate alternative arrangements for bus traffic in the town centre. I do not think the current level of bus traffic is enough to be causing a significant problem, but I sincerely hope—I do more than hope—that there will be more bus traffic in the town centre. Given that this is going to happen, we need to look at whether Hibberson Street is the best place in the long term, particularly given that there needs to be a bus interchange.
Presumably we are going to have express buses—or potentially, in the future, light rail—coming into Gungahlin town centre and then a network of suburban buses going
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