Page 3722 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 28 October 2015
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Successful city planning depends on a capacity to think and to plan over decades. The transport improvement plan is a plan for Canberra as a well-designed city with good public transport, a city that is easy to get around now but, most importantly, over the next 20 years.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (11.34): I believe that the government should stop pursuing this light rail agenda, which is simply to appease a lone Green MLA and to keep themselves in government. In stopping light rail the government has the opportunity to conduct a genuine assessment about the best way to improve public transport in Canberra.
Indeed some of these assessments have already been done and show that investment in our bus network is a better return on investment than is light rail. Any review that the government does is going to be biased, because this government is politically committed to light rail before having a genuine assessment and a genuine look at how best to roll out public transport in Canberra.
Indeed, even TAMS is sceptical of light rail. In a submission in response to the capital metro environmental impact statement TAMS stated:
TAMS is concerned by the information shown in Table 10.5 which shows assessment of overall modelled network performance for 2021. This table indicates no significant decrease in the AM and PM traffic for both base and 2021.
I will read out that second sentence again:
This table indicates no significant decrease in the AM and PM traffic for both base and 2021.
What TAMS are saying is that there is not going to be any decrease in congestion on Northbourne Avenue or on Flemington Road as a result of light rail, and that is backed up by the figures. They say only 3,900 people will use light rail, but if there are 3,500 currently using buses we are not seeing the increase that is being touted by those opposite. If TAMS say there is no significant decrease in the AM and PM traffic for both base and 2021 the light rail business case is flawed.
If the government wants to remove congestion, as stated by the Chief Minister in his press release today, then maybe they should listen to their own directorates who believe that light rail would do little to remove congestion on the route. And, deep down, I know those opposite think so as well. How could they not think that sensible and substantial improvements in the ACTION bus network would not deliver a better return on investment and a better outcome for all Canberrans?
The long-awaited light rail master plan was disappointing to say the least. In fact it was very little more than what was released at Christmas time last year—in effect an image with some tabbed drawings on top of it and some wishful thinking. Although the artist’s impressions and the maps are prevalent there is next to no substance attached to it. There is no mention of the cost of the network and very little regard was given to the practicalities of building this network. Worse still, there is no mention of what patronage forecasts might be.
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