Page 2353 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 31 July 2018
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The committee made two relevant recommendations. Recommendation 205 seeks a commitment that an equivalent fast service is maintained, delivered either by buses or by express light rail services. It would take less than 25 minutes. Express light rail services could be delivered by timetabling services so that they do not stop at all stations or through infrastructure like passing or overtaking tracks at stations.
Recommendation 206 is on the infrastructure design to support fast services for light rail stage 2, not just for now but for the future, when there is going to be a Tuggeranong stage of light rail. This could include a combination of allowing buses to run on the light rail track and/or keeping the existing bus lanes on Adelaide Avenue; leaving room between the two tracks on Adelaide Avenue for an express third track; leaving room for a Barton bypass route to be built as part of a future light rail stage; and allowing space for smaller diversions at some light rail stops.
I will now move to climate change. I have to start off by reminding us all why we should be worried about it—really worried about it. Let me give some examples from the northern summer, in the last month. Severe floods killed at least 220 people in Japan in early July, early this month. The nation was then hit by an unprecedented heatwave which peaked at 41.1 degrees. That left 35,000 people in hospital. In the US, the extreme heat in the west is feeding wildfires, and Yosemite National Park is being evacuated, while there is flooding in the east. The Guardian reports:
This is the face of climate change,” said Prof Michael Mann … one of the world’s most eminent climate scientists. “We literally would not have seen these extremes in the absence of climate change.”
I am very pleased that the estimates committee made a number of recommendations about more action in the ACT to reduce the impact of climate change. There are a series of recommendations, 117 to 124, which look at concentrating on eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from transport and natural gas, in particular, looking at further all-electric suburbs, such as will be developed in Ginninderry stage 1, and then moving on to say:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government facilitate the development of zero emissions buildings, including high density residential and commercial buildings.
Along the same lines, we said:
… the ACT Government should ensure all new/infill estates/developments are compatible with a zero emissions future, prioritise sustainable transport, and emphasise living infrastructure to adapt to a warmer climate.
We talked at length about electric cars. We thought that we could set a milestone date by which time all registered vehicles in the ACT would be zero emission vehicles. We also said that we should have a strategy for transitioning all of the ACT government’s fleet, including buses and trucks et cetera, not just cars. But let me give a note of caution: we thought that we needed to produce a plan for how the electricity supply in the ACT will cope with the expected uptake of electric vehicles.
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