Page 4058 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 30 November 2022

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Transport—services

MR PARTON (Brindabella) (2.55): I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) notes:

(a) the Government ignored its own 2016 travel survey which indicated that the majority of Canberrans wanted direct buses to the city by redirecting most of those services to terminate at the tramline;

(b) prior to the commencement of Stage 1 of the tram, it was possible to get on a direct bus from every suburb in Gungahlin to Civic, except for the suburbs that weren’t actually populated at that stage;

(c) on the commencement of tram services, Gungahlin lost the:

(i) 200 Red Rapid bus;

(ii) 202 Express bus from Gungahlin to the city;

(iii) 251, 252, 254, 255 and 259 Xpresso routes from Gungahlin suburbs to the city;

(iv) 56 service from Palmerston;

(v) 57 service from Franklin; and

(vi) 58 service from Harrison; and

(d) that services from the inner north and Belconnen that went to the city were redirected to the Dickson interchange, namely the 30 and 31 services from Kaleen and Giralang and the 39 service from Watson was changed so drastically that it ceased being a viable option for commuters;

(2) further recognises:

(a) once the Stage 1 tram was opened, the travel time to Civic from many suburbs that once had direct buses routes increased;

(b) since Light Rail Stage 1 services commenced, the percentage of Canberrans as a proportion of the growing population, that use public transport has not increased, even before COVID hit; and

(c) there are currently many southside suburbs that have direct routes to Civic; and

(3) calls on the ACT Government to guarantee that:

(a) direct bus routes from suburbs south of Lake Burley Griffin to Civic will be protected, will be maintained and not cancelled when the Woden tram commences, and that commuters will not be forced onto the tram; and

(b) the public transport travel time from any suburb south of Lake Burley Griffin to Civic will not increase compared to the time it takes today, and doing this by keeping the direct bus routes as is, once the tram to Woden commences.

Ministers who I clash with in my shadow portfolios all know that I take my job pretty seriously. I am focused on holding the government to account; I am focused on

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