Page 2936 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 August 2015
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and associated infrastructure. At the Tuggeranong town centre $430,000 has been allocated for improvements in landscaping, street trees and lighting to improve safety and amenity at Anketell Street north. There is also $50,000 for public domain improvements at the Kambah group centre.
As a continuation of the age-friendly suburbs program, which started with Ainslie and Weston last year, a feasibility study, design and construction will be undertaken for a number of improvements in Kaleen and in the Tuggeranong valley to provide age-friendly facilities. Funding of $500,000 over two years will allow for new footpaths, widening of footpaths, community paths that cater for walking, bicycles, wheelchairs and scooters, traffic islands, refuge spots and wheelchair ramps. It is the sort of things that make it a bit easier for older members of our community to be out and about, to move about their suburb comfortably and to increase their social engagement.
The budget provides for the continuation of public transport services, including the funding for ACTION, and I will come back to ACTION specifically in a moment. It includes $264,000 over two years for the continuation of the annual Nightrider bus service. The service runs over five weeks during the Christmas and new year period and provides a safe and sustainable way for people to travel home from popular nightspots in Canberra city.
There is also nearly half a million dollars for the continuation of the flexible bus service. This is a free service for the aged, people with mobility restrictions and other transport disadvantaged residents. It has proved to be incredibly popular since it first started. It provides a service for people who might find it hard to even walk to the bus stop. They can have a direct service come to their homes and drop them at key local shopping centres and health services. The feedback we have had on that service has been really heartening. People say it has made such a difference to their lives, they love the drivers and the provision of that service really does improve their quality of life.
In terms of ACTION more broadly, I note the various comments that Mr Coe made. Certainly there is a need for ongoing improvement in ACTION. It is a significant investment of public moneys and we do need to get better value out of the money that we spend on ACTION. With network 14 there was a significant increase in services, with nearly 300 extra services a day on a weekday, an 18 per cent increase in services on Saturday and a 30 per cent increase in services on Sunday. One thing that members may have noticed is that with increased technology and an improved effort by ACTION’s timetabling team in particular, we are now moving into a phase where the timetable will be updated every six months, roughly. This is designed to enable the tweaks that staff identify, be it drivers or the timetabling team, as well as the feedback we get from customers.
With the recent adjustment of the timetable in May this year, we saw a significant spike in ACTION’s on-time running. It is now hovering at around 80 per cent, up from 70 per cent or thereabouts just a year or so ago. It is a great credit to the team in ACTION and it is something that our customers are certainly noticing. This is about making sure that we continue to refine the timetable so that it reflects what is happening on the ground and so that customers can have more accurate information
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