Page 5445 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 November 2011
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expand bus services. I hope that this amendment will be agreed to and that we can develop this central car pooling system for the ACT.
One of my other amendments calls on the government to assess options to resolve any road safety issues affecting the T2 lane on Adelaide Avenue. I am aware that the government and the Transport Workers Union have raised safety concerns, particularly about cars cutting into the T2 lane into the path of buses. I think it is appropriate that the lane remain as a T2 lane for now while the government assesses the best way to use the lane and how to address any safety concerns. Enforcement should be a key response, as it is actually illegal for people to cut into the lane over the unbroken line.
I would like to request that the government improve enforcement of the T2 lane and suggest that T2 signs include specific warnings about the penalties for using the lane incorrectly. I would also expect that this lane-cutting concern could arise on any transit lane, and I do not know if it is a reason to never have transit lanes or, particularly, shared lanes in Canberra.
I note that the government did not take any action about apparent safety concerns, despite Mr Corbell saying that the safety issues have been around for some time. As I noted earlier, the actual reason given when the government reverted to a bus lane was that the GDE had been completed. I would just like to note that I have spoken to the Transport Workers Union and I reiterate, as I did to the TWU, that the Greens are not disregarding the concerns that have been raised by bus drivers, but a proper assessment needs to be done.
Shared bus and transit lanes operate in other cities. We can look at what safety concerns have been raised there and how they have been addressed. We should not be negatively impacting on or almost punishing the significant majority of people who do the right thing and use the lane properly without doing the proper work to assess that.
I note that another question we asked was about the number of people using the Adelaide Avenue T2 lane for car pooling. It was noted that around 200 vehicles legally use it in the morning peak period. It appears that some assessment has been done but, again, we need to address those issues of enforcement. We need to see how many people are using it and do a proper assessment of this lane so that we can put it to best use. I often use Adelaide Avenue in the mornings and I understand the frustrations which have been expressed by the TWU that on most mornings there are cars with a single passenger in the T2 lane. Again, that goes to this overall issue of how you police these lanes.
I note that on Monday and Tuesday morning this week there were still the same number of people using the T2 lane as there would normally have been. So people are still using it. On the issue of enforcement, obviously you want to try and get people to use it properly first off without having a big stick approach, but some cities have looked at using a more enforcement-based approach. I read recently that Brisbane had experienced issues again with people using the T2 and T3 lanes against the regulated use. They have recently empowered traffic inspectors to issue fines. That may be something to look at. T2 and T3 lanes, along with park and rides, are forms of
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