Page 2288 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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always returns fire. Whenever someone comes out and says, “Look, we’ve had a look at this; it doesn’t stack up,” you can guarantee that the next day there will be an article from Simon Corbell having his return fire.
The problem in this case was what he thought was very exciting news about the number of people who would be catching the tram. The problem is it did not actually excite anyone. It amused people; it disappointed people. But he said that in 2021, at peak hour, 3,500 people—3,500. I am not sure how many are on the buses right now. Mr Coe might know the answer.
Mr Coe: Three and a half thousand on that same corridor.
MR HANSON: Right. So there are no extra people. There is no-one else getting on light rail. So essentially the people on the bus are going to get on light rail. That is the government’s own figures. Mr Rattenbury is shaking his head and smiling. He might be able to explain why it is that we are building a light rail system that is actually not going to increase the number of people getting on the bus and getting on light rail.
If you look at his figures—and this is where it becomes quite interesting—in the morning peak there are 3,500. But in the afternoon peak there are 3,400. So there are 100 people who get on the tram in the morning and go into Civic and decide, “I don’t want to go back on this system.” So they’re probably saying, “That’s enough of that for me.” Maybe Mr Corbell can explain where the missing 100 people are—whether they have decided to walk home or catch a taxi or what happened to the hundred people. Maybe they are trying to find a bus somewhere.
Even using the government’s own figures, when you assume that there are return trips, that is 6,800 travellers a day. I know that Mr Coe has talked about—and I have heard others talk about them—the cheaper option of buying everyone a Ferrari. Of course you would not, but it just shows the nonsense of the number of people who will be travelling on this system. It just does not stack up. And that is the point: we do not have the population density in the ACT to make this viable.
What Mr Coe is saying is not that one day light rail might not be viable—one day it may well be—but until we have that population density that means that you get more than 3,500 on this system, which is no more than go on the bus now, this does not stack up. That is what Mr Coe is saying, that is what Infrastructure Australia is saying, that is what the Productivity Commission is saying, and that is what just about every other expert looking at this rationally is saying—everyone outside a fairly narrow band of light rail enthusiasts and Greens supporters.
The other aspect to this is: where are we going more broadly with the light rail program? The city to Gungahlin line was picked as a favourite without a proper analysis of all the lines. A lot of people have said, “Well, what about Belconnen to the city?” There is some argument. There was a future feasibility study done by Kellog Brown and Root which said:
Based on revenue performance the first stage should be the Belconnen to City line.
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