Page 4710 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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The year dawned with a fresh reminder from Victoria of the brutal power of our climate combined with our landscape. While we have learnt much from our own disaster of 2003, we have the chance to learn more from Victoria’s more recent calamity. With another fire season looming, a brand-new strategic bushfire management plan was launched by the government in September. Six new community fire units have been funded in the most recent budget, and a number of new emergency vehicles have joined the fleet over the first year of this term. These include the new ACT Fire Brigade aerial appliance and eight new medium bushfire tankers. A revised national scaled warnings framework has also been implemented.
But of course not all threats are from nature, and not all are confined to the urban fringe. Our public spaces have been made safer over the past 12 months. Closed-circuit television coverage of public spaces has been expanded and live CCTV monitoring on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights has begun. A canine drug detection team has been established. Gungahlin police station has become a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week station, with an additional 24 police officers. Videoconferencing equipment has been installed in our courts for victims of sexual assault and vulnerable witnesses. And airport-style security screening has been installed at the entrance to the Magistrates Court and Supreme Court.
In the first year of this term Labor has made the largest ever ACT government allocation to building and maintaining this city’s cycling and pedestrian network. All up, $18.8 million has been assigned this year, to be spent over the next four, for construction and maintenance of cycling paths, signage and footpaths. That is on top of our exemplary record.
The past 12 months have been a time of research, but also delivery. Feasibility studies on the upgrade of EPIC and possible on-site tourist accommodation have been conducted. A street furniture replacement program has improved the look and feel of Civic, and a designer has been engaged to advise on refurbishment of the Sydney and Melbourne buildings. The multimillion-dollar restoration of the Albert Hall is under way. Master planning is well advanced for Kingston and Dickson; tenders have been called for the Haig Park master plan; and the master plans for Black Mountain Peninsula district park and Weston Park are in the community consultation phase. A working harbour has been completed at the Kingston foreshore. Two immensely popular dedicated dog exercise areas have opened and locations are being scouted for a third.
On our roads, the Tharwa Drive duplication has been completed, as has a major upgrade of the intersection of Mawson Drive and Yamba Drive in Woden. The airport roads projects are all nearing completion and work has begun on GDE stage 2. Two road safety roundtables have been convened in partnership with the NRMA over the past year to pursue vision zero, a vision of eliminating road deaths in the ACT.
Planning has been completed for a $1 million trial of a high-frequency, limited stops, rapid bus service, Redex, which will start operating this month. The Redex will link Gungahlin, Mitchell, Northbourne Avenue, the city, Russell, Barton and Kingston, running every 15 minutes between 7 am and 7 pm, Monday to Friday.
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