Page 3389 - Week 09 - Thursday, 24 August 2017
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Budget statement H states that “there are a number of factors that affect reliability, the condition of the bus fleet is the key factor”. Of course, this means that we have old buses. “The condition of the bus fleet is a factor”: so we have old buses. Given that we have DDA compliance obligations, the government will have to put the foot to the floor in order to actually meet those.
Approximately one-quarter of the buses in the fleet are between 15 and 30 years old, with 91 buses between 20 and 30 years old. A total of 99 buses in the Transport Canberra fleet do not have climate control and 93 buses, or over 20 per cent of the fleet, are not currently wheelchair accessible. The minister said in her statement last week:
The transportation field is rapidly changing in areas of technology, business models and customer expectations.
However, it would be fair to say that the government has not met customer expectations with regard to the age of the fleet. Of course, it is an expensive operation, but given the commitment they have to light rail, you would hope that there is the same level of resolve to ensure that the bus fleet meets our DDA obligations.
The government says it will deliver 80 new buses over the next two years. That still leaves over a dozen buses that will not be wheelchair accessible and that also assumes, of course, that those 80 buses are going to replace 80 buses. I would appreciate it if the minister could clarify whether they will have a “one in, one out” process for those buses as they are delivered or whether they will be keeping some of the older buses in the fleet in order to expand the fleet.
With regard to roads, we have seen significant allocations for road expenditure this year. The Canberra Liberals are relieved that the government is finally investing in some road infrastructure. There is work being undertaken at the moment on Gundaroo, on Horse Park and numerous other roads in and around the Gungahlin town centre. We eagerly await news about various other road projects, not the least of which is William Slim Drive, which we touched on yesterday during question time.
There are specific issues relating to the maintenance of the existing road network. These have been highlighted in the report by the Auditor-General entitled Maintenance of selected road infrastructure assets: Report No. 5/2017. In effect, she came to the conclusion that the roads are not in a good state and there is not a good process in place for how we manage this very important asset.
It is one of those assets that, unless you get it right in terms of maintenance, will end up costing you far more in the long run. I think I speak for many Canberrans in expressing concern about the use of chip seal right across the ACT. It seems that the government has listened to some of these concerns and they are exploring different options. The application of chip seal is, of course, necessary in some circumstances, but there are some low-volume roads where chip seal has been applied and because it does not have the compaction with lots of vehicles travelling over it, it never really
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