Page 2825 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019
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when you do not take off very quickly from a stop point means that traffic lights are very welcome indeed.
As Belconnen’s population increases, so too does the number of cars on our roads. This year’s budget commits $4.1 million over the next two years to begin duplicating and extending several roads across Canberra, including parts of William Hovell Drive, to help reduce congestion. The early stages of this 4.5 kilometre duplication have already been met, with the works at the John Gorton Drive intersection being completed. Tenders for the next tranche of work will, I understand, open later this year. (Second speaking period taken.) Construction is due to begin in late 2020 and should be finished by 2023.
This year’s budget also commits $44.5 million, including $20 million from the federal government—they did come to the table on this one—to duplicate the arterial road between Ginninderra Drive and the Barton Highway. The project introduces 3.2 kilometres of new carriageway and 6.4 kilometres of on-road cycle lanes and hard shoulders. The reconfiguration of existing intersections, including Ginninderra Drive and Owen Dixon Drive; the signalisation of the Dumas Street intersection; and new bus bays, streetlights and landscaping are among the planned changes. Right near there as well, from a previous budget, we will start to see the work on Kuringa Drive and Owen Dixon Drive, which I know people are very much looking forward to, as am I.
Sometimes the best way to get around is on foot or by bike. Aranda and Holt are among six suburbs sharing in $2.25 million of footpath and cycleway upgrades. This funding delivers upgrades to bus stop infrastructure throughout the ACT, also allowing more people to combine active travel with public transport. Let us not forget the much anticipated Belco bikeway, again announced in last year’s budget, which will better connect parts of Belconnen and put the old Joynton Smith busway to good use. I am looking forward to seeing this fantastic project coming to fruition, after participating last year in the community consultation on where it will go. I think it is absolutely going to change the look and feel of and how we get around Belconnen town centre.
This budget delivers a series of measures that will have a tangible impact on our day-to-day lives: more local infrastructure and services to keep our suburbs clean, safe and accessible; more improvements to our shared community facilities; and more and better ways to get from A to B, whether on foot, in the car or via public transport. These measures will ensure that neighbourhoods throughout Belconnen and the rest of Canberra continue to thrive.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate—Part 1.6
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (5.46): It is a pleasure to rise to speak to what is a very important part, an essential part, of this supposedly one government system here in the ACT. We all know that this is still very much a siloed public service. We know that because of the structure of the government and the way that
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