Page 2624 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 11 August 2015
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improvements to increase active travel opportunities within the town centre. The active travel office will provide guidance on the priorities and objectives of the program.
Also there is $532,000 to design and construct upgrades of the pedestrian path connection and associated infrastructure between Woden town park and the Canberra Hospital. Improvements to the amenity and way finding between Woden and the Canberra Hospital will benefit a broad range of people who walk this circuitous route. Signage, lighting and new path connections will be provided to ensure a safe and clear route.
Finally, I mention $230,000 for paths and signage in the first stage of the Oaks Estate heritage walk. In response to requests from the community during the master plan process, this project will improve the awareness of the heritage importance of the area. New interpretive signage and a walking track will be constructed to record and share the heritage values of the community.
Members can see that we are not there yet but through these kinds of improvements—and, hopefully, a lot more to come—we can create a city that enjoys the best walking and cycling environment in Australia. In the future we want it to grow into one of the world’s best walking and cycling cities.
I will, for the benefit of members, note that there are a number of areas I have just talked about where feasibility studies are referred to. I am endeavouring to ensure that each year we have a series of projects that are being constructed but also we are doing forward studies so we have projects ready for the coming year so we do not have a stop-start program but, rather, a series of initiatives that are ready to go.
Apart from the signature capital metro project, the government is progressing other reforms to enhance the public transport network, as I touched on earlier. As the first step of this transport reform agenda, we will undertake a number of specific projects through the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate, working with partner directorates, including the active transport cross-city collaboration forum, which has helped to design an integrated bus and light rail network, a road transport corridor efficiency trial and a range of business improvement measures within ACTION. These are each small but excellent and important projects that together will really advance transport progress in our city.
In terms of the cross-city collaboration, Canberra is well recognised as a pedestrian and cycle-friendly city, but there is innovative work occurring in many cities in Australia on the active transport agenda. I am keen that Canberra has knowledge of and adopts the best of these ideas for local use and also that other communities see the benefit of new projects being put in place in Canberra, such as the Civic cycle loop and the Bunda Street shareway. I have asked TAMS to progress, in collaboration with the newly established active transport unit, an active transport forum hosted in Canberra, with invites to active transport practitioners from around Australia to share their experiences. This concept is already in place in other countries. In the US, for example, they have the NACTO forum, which has a similar purpose. I am pleased Canberra can take a lead in this space.
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