Page 2800 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2018
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to Gungahlin town centre and then catch another bus on to the Belconnen town centre. This transfer will add time, but, importantly, it will add considerable inconvenience, especially for people that are mobility-impaired.
I believe that senior Canberrans deserve better than to have their bus cut. Whilst there are growing amenities and services in the Gungahlin town centre, the reality is that many people in Gungahlin still depend on the services that are offered at the Belconnen town centre. The Belconnen health centre offers considerable services for people in Gungahlin as well as other parts of north Canberra. To lose the direct bus to Belconnen will have a severe impact on many people.
I think the idea that some people have proposed, that residents should either walk a kilometre or more down to Gundaroo Drive or catch a local bus for one kilometre and then transfer onto a rapid bus, is quite unreasonable. You should not have to get a connecting bus in order to travel nine or 10 kilometres to what is a major town centre in Canberra.
Instead of the existing direct service that operates every 30 minutes, and every hour on weekends, residents will now have to take one bus to Gungahlin and then change to another bus. What used to be a 20-minute trip will now be considerably longer and considerably more inconvenient. These changes will see not just Crace residents worse off but many other people as well. Of course, all suburbs in Gungahlin will lose their bus service to Belconnen.
Further to this, kids who depend on route 54 and other buses to get to school or university will also have to transfer. So the impact of this will be felt not just by elderly Canberrans but by parents, commuters and all people who patronise ACTÂ buses from Gungahlin to Belconnen. They will be severely impacted.
The lengthy commute time, combined with having to constantly change bus services, turns what used to be a small hassle for elderly Canberrans into an extensive day trip, particularly on the weekends. Whilst the cost of living in Canberra continues to increase through taxes, fees, rates and charges, these proposed changes see a deterioration in value for those taxes. Crace residents will not get the direct benefits of light rail, as some other people in Gungahlin will, but they will still be forced to commute to Gungahlin in order to backtrack to Belconnen.
This simply is not good enough, and that is why so many people have seen fit to sign a petition calling on the government to reverse this proposed change. We very much hope that the ACT government sees sense and reverses this change. But in the interim, we hope that this motion referring the out-of-order petition to the Standing Committee on Environment and Transport and City Services will be supported by the Assembly. The committee does not need to conduct an inquiry. We are simply asking for this to be treated as an in-order petition, and that, because it contains over 500 signatures of people, it goes to the committee. The committee can choose what it does with it, as per every other in-order petition.
The difference with this petition is that the petition is to Ms Fitzharris, as opposed to a petition to the ACT Legislative Assembly, which would make it in order. To that end
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