Page 220 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
ride services. This allows people to drive their car to a park and ride, have it secure for the day and then get onto a rapid service. Again, this is the Greens pushing for solutions and the sort of infrastructure you need to go along with those solutions.
We have already achieved a number of park and rides. Mawson and Mitchell are already built and they are operating. Others are on the way at Calwell and Erindale. And I know that the Liberal Party thinks these are good achievements because their 2008 election policy spruiked the importance of park and rides.
Last year, when we also pushed for the Blue Rapid line, I had been advocating a proper park and ride at Kippax. I had a number of conversations with the former Chief Minister and we exchanged correspondence. I have also been out to have a meeting and talk with the owners of the Kippax shopping centre about that park and ride. So again, this is looking at the solutions we need around the infrastructure we are going to need to go along with more frequent services.
Mr Coe talked about car pooling. Because of the amendments that we made to the motion last year, the government also now needs to develop options for introducing an ACT government-wide car pooling service and investigate options to allow federal government agencies to utilise an ACT government car pooling service. So that is another real and practical achievement on this front. Of course there are the millions of dollars saved when we pushed through the parliamentary agreement to get more money into pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.
All of these are improvements that benefit people commuting by car as well as travelling by public transport. As I said, good public transport is the key to reducing congestion. Therefore, of course, it frees up road space for those essential car trips or for easier travelling for those who do not have any other reasonable transport option available to them.
What is actually happening with this motion is that it appears Mr Coe and the Liberals, as I said, have just had this thought bubble and have gone out with something they really have not properly researched and investigated. Otherwise I think there would have been a far more comprehensive approach than just pulling off one road within a whole electorate and deciding that suddenly you are going to make it a T2. I think we would have seen a far more considered and comprehensive approach to the transport needs of Belconnen.
Mrs Dunne raised in her speech the car parks and the commuting times across Ginninderra. This is a really unfortunate thing. If you go way back seven years to a SMEC report—and SMEC was commissioned to do a report around the GDE—at the time, the SMEC report said that once you get this full lane, every lane operating, what is going to happen is that it will be full from day one and you will have choke points. It names the choke points.
Mr Hanson: That is right. It was one lane. How has it gone from—
MS HUNTER: No, it was not to do with the one lane. It said once you build all of the lanes and you put in the full road, from day one you will be backed up coming off the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video