Page 5098 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MS LE COUTEUR: I move:
(1) Insert new subparagraph (1)(b)(vi):
“(vi) difficulty and danger for pedestrians and cyclists using Hibberson Street;”.
(2) Omit subparagraph (2)(b), substitute:
“(b) investigate developing a plan to provide park and ride users with car parking away from prime retail parking;”.
(3) Omit subparagraph (2)(d), substitute:
“(d) consider additional car parking at Yerrabi;”.
(4) Add:
“(e) investigate opportunities to divert through-traffic from Hibberson Street and to convert the street into ‘shared space’, and report to the Assembly on this by 6 December 2012.”.
My amendment seeks to makes a few small changes to Mr Coe’s motion—I think some small improvements—and I will speak to both my amendment and Mr Coe’s substantive motion at the same time because, as I said, the changes, while important, are not overwhelming.
As we mentioned at the beginning, Gungahlin certainly has quite a number of transport infrastructure needs which have not yet been met. I am not going to go through all of these in detail, because Mr Coe and Mr Hanson have done that at some length, but, as I have said before, employment is the number one thing lacking, and the lack of employment has caused a lot of the transport issues.
Public transport is a particular concern of the Greens. Earlier I did mention how the Greens have achieved what was the Redex, which is now the 200 bus, and very soon we will have a park and ride at EPIC. These have been achieved as part of the Labor-Greens agreement. We do not think, of course, that that is enough in terms of public transport for Gungahlin. What we would like to see is light rail going from Civic all the way out to Gungahlin. In remembering the history of the GDE, as part of that history we should remember the original proposals to put light rail out to Gungahlin. If that planning had happened, it would have solved a lot of the problems Gungahlin has now.
I also note that this motion includes footpaths and bike paths, and I think it is very unfortunate that I have to agree with Mr Coe that we do not have as many footpaths and bike paths as we could have in some parts of Gungahlin. Some of the older parts of Gungahlin have footpaths in very poor condition. As someone who does a bit of letterboxing at times, I have walked a number of footpaths in Gungahlin. And Gungahlin is certainly an area that needs more bike paths. Given the increases in
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video