Page 187 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 12 February 2020
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access to the Belconnen town centre from Allawoona Street via the University of Canberra and the University of Canberra Hospital connecting to the existing path network along the eastern side of Aikman Drive.
This path also provides connectivity to recreational facilities at Lake Ginninderra to the west and the suburbs of Bruce and Lawson to the east. In addition, the Belconnen bikeway, which is currently under construction, comprises both shared and separated cycling and pedestrian facilities, to make it easier for people to move around Belconnen. This active travel infrastructure will improve accessibility and provide safer and faster connections to places of work and recreation.
As members are aware, the suburb of Lawson is new. As with any new and developing suburb, this means that certain infrastructure components are also under construction and so sometimes it will be the case that there might be missing links in the path network. For this reason, I will also ask TCCS to investigate the linkages of paths within Lawson to the town centre to address the issues raised in today’s debate earlier in the motion from Mrs Kikkert.
Lastly, on the topic of access to sufficient parking for the current residents of Lawson, the government acknowledges these concerns and I will be asking TCCS to review the existing parking situation. This will include consultation with local residents, with a view to seeing how parking can be improved. I certainly acknowledge the comment by Ms Le Couteur in relation to parking by University of Canberra students. The parking review will examine all of those issues in consultation with residents and look at the best solutions for improving the parking situation in the suburb of Lawson.
Ms Le Couteur, I understand, has moved an amendment to the motion that focuses on improving public transport in Lawson. The government is committed to providing Canberrans across the city with options when it comes to getting around. These options include active travel, walking and cycling, more buses through an improved bus network, off-road cycle paths and other shared paths around the city and in suburbs like Lawson.
The government will not be supporting Ms Le Couteur’s amendment to Mrs Kikkert’s motion. The reason why we will not be supporting that today is that I am very happy to investigate what public transport solutions might be available until such time as we put in the standard bus services for stage two of the development. But we will not be agreeing to the specific wording of Ms Le Couteur’s motion at this time, which goes to looking at specific types of buses and specific routes.
I cannot commit to doing that but I will commit, in the debate today, to investigating what public transport options might be able to be improved in the suburb of Lawson, in addition to the existing routes that I have mentioned, servicing the outside of Lawson, which people can currently walk to or access via active travel means and other means of transport. I will also look at the parking issues and the active travel connections.
On that basis, I am very thankful to Mrs Kikkert for bringing this forward and raising these issues with me. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate and we will
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