Page 195 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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As I have said, the government is not supporting this motion, but that does not mean it will never undertake the projects listed in the motion. Indeed, as I have said, we are already working on the duplication of William Slim Drive. Other projects are under consideration, and we are looking at installing flashing lights at targeted locations. But it would be quite irresponsible to agree to these major measures via this motion in the Assembly, particularly one that I do not believe the Liberal Party has properly thought through. For example, the Liberal Party does not even know the cost of the major road duplications that it is requesting. I note that Treasury was unable to cost these road duplications when the Canberra Liberals promised them during the election because the Liberals provided insufficient detail. Of the Liberals’ roads promises Treasury said:
Treasury notes no specific projects have been identified, and as such, Treasury is unable to confirm the reasonableness of capital costs to deliver particular projects.
How much would these duplications cost the ACT budget? How much would they cost ACT taxpayers? Would the Liberal Party just agree to taking a mystery amount of funds from the budget regardless of how that would impact on other areas that need funding or the budget’s bottom line?
The item in the motion calling for the government to “provide thousands more parking spaces” is also poorly considered. It appears to be a rather lazy addition to the motion. Where would these thousands of extra car parking spaces go? How much would they cost? What impact would they have on the broader planning of our urban environments? This is not covered in the election promises put forward by the Liberals, at least the ones submitted to Treasury, and they are the ones that I treat with some seriousness. Those promises submitted to Treasury refer only to 32 new parking spaces in Erindale and a $250,000 study about parking.
What we need is a sensible, considered approach to parking that takes into account all the ways that parking can impact on our city and its citizens. These include impacts that are not always obvious and are far-reaching, such as the long-term transport patterns of our city and the inclusion of people with a disability, older people and people who cannot drive. No thoughtful policymaker will agree that the community will benefit if we just unthinkingly increase the amount of parking without considering the way this shapes the city in the future.
We should remember, for example, that there is around a 25 to 30 per cent vacancy rate of the car parking across Canberra’s town centres. These figures have just been gathered through a 2012 parking, survey. This is a sensible way to approach changes to Canberra car parking. We should also remember that there are significant public transport improvements in the pipeline, such as more bus services, bus priority lanes, light rail, and park and rides. These are the kinds of measures that will help alleviate parking pressure.
In conclusion, while we will not support this motion, the government are taking a sensible approach to the road network. There are various upgrades in the pipeline and
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