Page 1948 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 June 2015
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I will acknowledge that, while Mr Coe and the Canberra Liberals have moved on from an Audi-filled Gungahlin, they still lack the vision to produce an effective plan for public transport in the territory. The announcement of the Liberals’ transport plan shows us this. The Liberals’ half-baked transport plan is just that. You cannot speed up bus services down Northbourne Avenue without affecting existing traffic. Just because you call a bus a super bus does not give it supernatural powers. It is unable to fly over Northbourne Avenue.
Do they propose to put tarmac down the centre of Northbourne? I know the Canberra community would be opposed to this and I can pretty safely assume that the National Capital Authority would be opposed too. If this is not their plan, do they plan to dedicate one lane of Northbourne Avenue to buses only, exacerbating the already congested situation which occurs along the corridor each morning peak? I do not think the Canberra community would appreciate that measure either.
The Canberra Liberals also cannot keep attempting to spend light rail money on projects which will not achieve the same results. A combination of light rail and bus services is the only way to continue to provide Canberra with a rapid, sustainable public transport network as part of an integrated transport network.
The calls from the Canberra Liberals to cancel the capital metro project show that they are behind the times. The majority of Canberrans support this innovative project and can see the way forward for our growing city. Today in the Canberra Times Peter Newman talks about light rail in cities. He says:
A number of articles in the past year have questioned the economics of Canberra’s light rail …
The same scepticism was directed at Perth’s rail building in the past and in most light rail projects around the world. Perth’s Southern Rail Line was parodied as a complete waste of money as no-one would use it. The line, opened in late 2007, now carries the equivalent of 10 lanes of traffic and its biggest problem is that at peak times you can’t get on at many stations.
Perth is a low density, highly car-dependent city, like Canberra. Yet the rail system has dramatically increased patronage from 7 million passengers a year in 1992 to 70 million in 2014 due to new lines going through low density corridors. This was beyond the expectations of everyone but is increasingly seen in other car-dependent cities across the world.
At the same time we have seen land values rise dramatically near Perth stations thus attracting denser development and achieving a more economically efficient city. The city centre has become a thriving business, residential and entertainment centre, no longer called Dullsville. This could not have happened without rail bringing 100,000 pedestrians a day through the central station, who do not need damaging and expensive parking.
As you can see, Mr Assistant Speaker, there are many that support light rail in congested cities.
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