Page 2764 - Week 08 - Thursday, 11 August 2016
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to provide more buses more often, to deliver simplified ticketing arrangements and a better customer experience and to honour Labor’s election promise to deliver light rail for Canberra.
An integrated transport system will reduce congestion and save commuters time. It will strengthen the economy and create jobs. By encouraging active travel—things like more walking and cycling—an integrated transport system will improve our community’s health and wellbeing.
We are also taking steps to reduce congestion on our roads. Traffic jams on Northbourne Avenue are bad now and, unless we take serious action, will get much worse. The congestion on Northbourne Avenue is not a problem just for those who drive along Northbourne Avenue. It has a flow-on effect to other areas of our city, and it is a glimpse of our city’s future if we do not take decisive action now. For those Canberrans who do not experience the daily commute along Northbourne Avenue, make no mistake. Unless the people they elect to the Assembly take our transport challenges seriously, then in time congestion will come to other roads across other parts of our city.
Planning our city’s transport future is not simply a matter of coming up with a few lines on a map. As we all know, Canberra is a unique city. We do have an over-reliance on cars and traffic corridors that demand innovative transport solutions, solutions that do not just encourage more people to use public transport but that renew our city and encourage sustainable development.
If you agree that our city needs greater density along urban corridors to help deliver more affordable housing for more people and offer people greater access to employment hubs and essential services, then we need to think differently about how we deliver public transport. This government has a plan to achieve that. We established Transport Canberra on 1 July to ensure that all our transport modes are integrated. We conducted a comprehensive survey to find out what Canberrans want from public transport and we are moving forward with major improvements to our bus network, building on Labor’s commitment to the rapid routes and adding new services as our city grows.
A new ACTION timetable will be in place later this month that offers more services for more people across our city. Our city loop service is proving a huge success with the city’s travellers and workers, who are using it to get around our city’s most popular precincts.
We are looking at ways to encourage more walking and cycling around our city, better bikepaths, improvements to footpaths and investing in better infrastructure around schools to get more kids riding and walking to school each day. Our vision is for public transport that is integrated with walking and cycling options, with the possibilities now offered by ride sharing, car sharing, taxi services and smart parking. In the future, autonomous vehicles will also be part of this picture.
We are also working towards a trial of electric buses, which have the potential to provide a smoother and more pleasant ride for customers, as well as being more environmentally sustainable. We are overhauling our ticketing system, with $3 million provided in this year’s budget.
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