Page 696 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2018
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rail corridor, social media, public information sessions held in various locations around Canberra and a temporary information centre in the city open for the duration of the consultation period. The community provided strong feedback on the proposed options for stop locations along the route, with over 70 per cent of those completing the survey stating they would not use a potential Mitchell stop at Lysaght or Sandford streets. Of those who advised that they would use these stops, almost 80 per cent said they would use them only once a week.
Through this feedback and analysis of the range of other stops considered along the light rail route, it was determined that a light rail stop in Mitchell at Sandford Street was not warranted at the time, due to the relatively low patronage. It was not included in the final design and the considerable public consultation and debate on the project following the initial consultation. There are, however, two other stops located in Mitchell, one at the intersection of Well Station Drive and Flemington Road, 1.4 kilometres from Sandford Street; and one at EPIC, 1.2 kilometres from Sandford Street.
Mitchell is currently serviced by four bus routes on weekdays and three bus routes on weekends. This is a relatively high service level compared to other light industrial areas of Canberra. Average daily passenger movements are 212 on a weekday and 52 on a weekend. For context, there are around 130,000 passenger movements in total each day on the Transport Canberra bus network.
In late October 2014, further community feedback, media reports, the outcomes in the environmental impact statement on the light rail consultation and the release of the light rail stage 1 business case all clearly identified that a light rail stop in Mitchell at Sandford Street was not supported as part of stage 1.
I acknowledge the feedback from Mitchell traders and from the association in particular that, for a variety of reasons, they either did not know about or chose not to engage in the consultation process at the time. Indeed, some businesses have opened in Mitchell since that early consultation.
I think all of us in this place acknowledge that there was enormous public debate about light rail. There was also considerable opposition to the project, which some members of the community have informed me shaped their views on whether light rail was going ahead. That is a shame. It clearly is going ahead. We will continue to learn some of the lessons from the consultations we undertook for light rail, the most consulted on and scrutinised project, we believe, that this government has ever undertaken.
We acknowledge that Mitchell is a growing area and will be positively impacted by the growth of Gungahlin. It will also be the new home of light rail, housing our state-of-the art light rail depot. As a result, we have ensured that a future stop can be constructed, by doing that work now as part of stage 1, effectively future-proofing the stop. It is the only additional stop along the stage 1 route that has received this treatment. This future-proofing work includes track alignment and underground communication and utility services work, and will allow for the development of a Mitchell stop at Sandford Street to be constructed in the future.
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