Page 3379 - Week 09 - Thursday, 22 August 2019
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are listening, and I put on the record that I am happy to continue to take the bus with people, and speak to constituents in that way.
There has been a lot of good in this regard, too. What I have really liked hearing, and what I have experienced myself, is that a lot of people are at least giving things a go for the first time. In the past, when we were updating the network each year, there were minor changes to different routes. We were not seeing people say, “Maybe I’ll actually have a look at the bus network and see if there’s something that suits me after this network change,” because they knew that things had not changed dramatically, so why bother?
This time there are a whole lot of people who looked maybe two or three years ago and thought, “No, the bus doesn’t take me where I need to go.” With this shake-up it has encouraged them to look at the new network to see if there are some routes that will benefit them. In some cases maybe not, but in some cases I have heard people say, “I didn’t even know that I could take the bus from Belconnen to Dickson, and do it quite quickly, in under half an hour.” That can save people money on things like parking, and particularly if they need to leave their car behind, for whatever reason.
Importantly, there has been a whole heap of new rapid routes. I think that has been a little bit dwarfed by or missing in the broader conversation here. It is something that has really benefited people in Belconnen. That includes being able to take a bus directly from the outer suburbs all the way to the airport. You might remember, Madam Assistant Speaker, that about two-and-a-bit years ago the government announced the No 11 and 11A—maybe just the 11A—to the airport from the city. That was not too bad for Belconnen residents, because they could take a blue rapid to the city, then they could walk a little bit and get on another bus. Now they can just get on the bus in the outer suburbs of Belconnen and go all the way to the airport, which is a huge saving in terms of taxi costs or parking fees; you just have to pay $5, or less if you have a MyWay card.
One of the biggest pieces of feedback that I used to receive before the new network change was from the many public servants in Belconnen—and I used to be one of them—who worked in Barton. A number of years ago there used to be a direct route to Barton from Belconnen; then that was changed, and you had to take multiple routes to get to Barton. Now, under the R2, that has been restored, and there has been a lot of positive feedback about that.
As a government, while we are hearing feedback from people who might be negatively affected by some of those changes, we need to make sure that we are not completely disrupting a whole route or network for a few people when there might be a silent majority who are really benefiting from the change. We might make the change for a few and the silent majority suddenly might be worse off. It is something that we have to approach quite carefully. I think that the minister has been really considerate about it. We have made over 100 tweaks, and I know that there is a broader review on the cards.
I am encouraged by the feedback that I have been getting over time, and I thank the minister in particular for his openness. I am one of those people who has been taking
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