Page 7 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 8 February 2022
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The response read as follows:
Dear Mr Duncan
Thank you for your letter of 16 September 2021 regarding petition 25-21, lodged by Mrs Elizabeth Kikkert MLA. The petition has requested enhanced connections for cyclists from Ginninderry, Holt and Higgins to the Belconnen Town Centre, via Drake-Brockman Drive and Southern Cross Drive.
The ACT Government takes road safety and residents’ amenity seriously and wants to encourage all road users to share responsibility for road safety. The ACT Transport Strategy has a strong focus on encouraging active travel as a key way for Canberrans to move around our city. Having good quality active travel facilities is important to ensure that it is both easy and safe for people who choose to walk or cycle in our suburbs and town centres.
Canberra’s active travel network has been delivered over many years, to the design standards of the era in which they were built. Work is underway to better connect existing networks and create new connections as well as upgrading existing assets to current design standards. This is a significant undertaking and Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS) approaches this strategically by assessing and prioritising requests.
The ACT Active Travel Infrastructure Practitioner Tool (at https://activeinfrastructure.net.au/) identifies the current, intended and future on-road cycling routes and off-road community routes. This tool recognises that active travel improvements in West Belconnen are intended into the future. The ACT Transport Strategy also identifies future principle cycling route improvements intentions between Belconnen Town Centre and West Belconnen, via Kippax Group Centre.
The development of residential suburbs on the west edge of Belconnen is through the Ginninderry Joint Venture, which is governed by a commercial agreement between the ACT Government and Riverview Developments ACT. In relation to Drake-Brockman Drive, as you have noted, duplication is forthcoming. I am aware that in mid-2018 as part of Stage 1, the Ginninderry Joint Venture funded and completed a variety of improvements along Drake-Brockman Drive including adjusting line marking, introducing cycle symbols and marking through the intersections to protect cyclists. Planning for subsequent stages is currently underway for further augmentation works along Drake- Brockman Drive, which includes consideration of active travel facilities. Public consultation will be undertaken when planning has sufficiently progressed.
Of relevance to West Belconnen, I am pleased to advise that funding has been committed as part of the 2021-22 ACT Budget for the duplication of William Hovell Drive between Drake-Brockman Drive and John Gorton Drive. Along with catering for on-road cycling, this project includes building a new 6.7 kilometre, three-metre-wide asphalt off-road shared path along William Hovell Drive between Drake-Brockman Drive and Bindubi Street. The connection to Bindubi Steet will link to C5, which is the primary route connecting Belconnen to Lake Burley Griffin to provide access to both the city and southern Canberra (e.g. Tuggeranong via Weston Creek).
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