Page 901 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2012
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For that reason, the government sets out in the transport for Canberra strategy a number of key targets. The first is to see the percentage of journeys to work by walking, cycling and public transport to be 30 per cent by the year 2026, with a new interim target placed into the strategy of 23 per cent by the year 2016. So we are setting ourselves a new benchmark to demonstrate performance and to measure performance in the short to medium term as well as having the long-term goal.
Mr Speaker, yesterday in the announcement on the new strategy two key objectives were unveiled. The first is to shift to a seven day a week timetable so that we deliver bus services consistently throughout the seven days of the week rather than having a completely different and often confusing schedule on weekends.
But more importantly, we also announced the implementation of new benchmarks to guide service delivery as new networks for ACTION are delivered and, in particular, a new benchmark of delivering coverage services—that is, the suburban bus feeder services—at 30 minute intervals throughout the period 7 am to 7 pm seven days a week. This is a key objective of the sustainable transport for Canberra policy.
This is a very important commitment because this responds directly to the feedback we have heard from Canberrans. Canberrans have said to us that the rapid network—Blue Rapid and Red Rapid—are working very effectively in getting people to and from the different town centres and Civic.
But the big challenge, of course, is the interchange—the connection to the local service, the connection out to the suburbs where often the wait time is excessive. So the new transport for Canberra policy is designed to address this by putting in place a benchmark measure of 30 minute frequency and some service guarantees about wait times—no more than 15 minutes to connect from the rapid or frequent service to the coverage service and then reducing that wait time to no more than 10 minutes at a later date.
These are very important policy commitments that will guide the government’s decision making around investment in public transport services, around delivering more park-and-ride and bike-and-ride facilities, delivering better bus stations, delivering better priority measures for public transport, as well as investment in walking and cycling, to give Canberrans greater transport choices.
MS PORTER: Supplementary.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, you have stated a target of 23 per cent of work trips being public or active transport by 2016. Could you please outline some of the specific initiatives by which you will achieve this?
MR CORBELL: I thank Ms Porter for her supplementary. I have already outlined a number of these measures, including the improvements that we will target around frequency of service delivery, but there are further investments that the government
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