Page 4490 - Week 12 - Thursday, 26 October 2017
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So most cities like Canberra adopt some sort of multi-modal approach. You have high frequency, high capacity trunk routes—rail or express bus lines—and low frequency support services, which are almost always bus routes. We are making that clearer with the light rail, but we have had the beginnings of the rapid network with the 300 and 200 services for some time.
Unfortunately, it seems the only proven solution to the conflict is to be an older city. If your city was built before, say, 1900, it would have been built with walking in mind. These are the so-called human-scale cities. Places like New York, Tokyo, most European capitals and even inner-city Sydney and Melbourne are built to a certain density with a varied mixed of residential, commercial and industrial zones so people can walk to where they want to go.
Human-scale cities do public transport. Density is high and there are good places you can walk to. Residents are already used to walking and cycling and are more likely to take public transport, especially if they do not own a car. My daughter lived for many years in Hanover in Germany. She did not own a car. Her friends did not own cars. Nobody owned cars.
But Canberra is not a human-scale city. It is basically a car-scale city, which is one of our major transport challenges. We are changing this, however. Some of our developments have not been as good as we might have liked. But the densification of Civic and along the Northbourne corridor should help to get people out of their cars and on to our footpaths. The revitalisation of Haig Park and Garema Place will both help to make a human-scale corridor in the inner north.
Likewise, the $300 million for active transport—sorry, it is not $300 million; in my dreams. That is probably what we should spend. The $30 million for active transport the ACT Greens negotiated in the parliamentary agreement will start to pay dividends over this term by supporting cyclists and pedestrians to get to work, to school and the shops. I was just looking at Pedal Power’s newsletter. I think they were looking for $128 million to address cycling needs. Yes, we need to do more.
Looking at the smaller scale, I, as well as the Liberal members, have been contacted by residents who are concerned about the recent changes to bus schedules, particularly for elderly residents of the inner south. While for many of us a minor scheduling change or route change may seem inconsequential, and it could be inconsequential at the macro scale compared to improving bus reliability or improving access for a majority of potential bus users, these changes can impact people in real and meaningful ways.
I am not advocating for a moment stopping the changes towards the rapid network. The changes proposed are sensible. This is one of the real pluses of the MyWay data. We at last have enough data to see where people start, where they transfer, where they are going to and design a system which is actually going to work for a lot of people.
But we have to acknowledge that these changes will not work for everybody. Even if overall the changes are positive, there are some people for whom the changes are not
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