Page 209 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012

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The Assembly voted—

Ayes 4		Noes 13
Ms Bresnan	Mr Rattenbury	Mr Barr	Ms Gallagher
Ms Hunter		Dr Bourke	Mr Hanson
Ms Le Couteur		Ms Burch	Mr Hargreaves
		Mr Coe	Ms Porter
		Mr Corbell	Mr Seselja
		Mr Doszpot	Mr Smyth
		Mrs Dunne

Question so resolved in the negative.

Roads—T2 lanes

MR COE (Ginninderra) (3.58): I move:

That this Assembly calls on the Government to:

(1) immediately convert the bus lane on Barry Drive to a T2 lane; and

(2) acknowledge that car pooling is an effective means of reducing the number of cars on our roads and alleviating road congestion.

Today I bring before the Assembly a motion which is about delivering a tangible benefit to the residents of Canberra. It is about delivering on local services. It is doing what I believe is the core business of the ACT Assembly. What I am talking about is basic infrastructure. I am talking about the travel times of people going to work.

As it stands at the moment there is a bus lane on Barry Drive. From a question that I put on notice last year and from an answer I received—I think it was question on notice No 1910—the road carries approximately 27,000 cars per day. When you consider that out of 27,000 cars a fair few would be carrying two or more passengers, the actual number of people that are using that road on a daily basis is considerably more than 27,000. It is perhaps 40,000, even 50,000, in private motor vehicles. By encouraging people to car pool with two or more people, we would be having a positive impact on the number of cars driving on that road and, indeed, having a positive impact on the environment.

We have seen the positive response from the general public to our successful motion last November which resulted in the reinstatement of the T2 lane on Adelaide Avenue. We know that the commuter, the person that car pools into town, welcomed the move that makes their journey to work just that little bit faster and easier. We saw last year when this government chose on a whim to revert the T2 lane on Adelaide Avenue to a bus only lane that it was a short-sighted decision. The decision effectively removed an incentive for people to car pool, what is by far and away the easiest and most efficient way to get multiple people to and from their destination. That is by far and away an easier cultural shift than to get people onto public transport.

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