Page 3084 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 2013
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The Gungahlin to city corridor already has one of the highest levels of public transport in the city, yet this is very unbalanced. While public transport use is high in north Canberra, it is very low in Gungahlin. Car dependency in Gungahlin is very high. Nine out of every 10 journeys undertaken in Gungahlin is by car. This pattern of car use is consigning residents in Gungahlin—who are often on lower incomes, struggling to raise a family, facing the cost of a mortgage—with the burden of having to pay to maintain a two, three or four-car household. As fuel prices continue to increase in the coming decades, without a viable public transport alternative, we are simply consigning these households to financial and social vulnerability and isolation.
Labor will not let that happen. Development of capital metro will provide a reliable, convenient and frequent mass transit corridor which will give Gungahlin residents choice. It will reduce the number of journeys they need to undertake by car, as well as the number of cars they must—rather than choose to—own.
Canberrans do not want to wait until we have congestion like Sydney, Melbourne or even Newcastle. They want long-term decisions now for a better future for their city, to avoid the congestion nightmare that cities face as they grow. This is why Labor says light rail is the best choice for our city’s future.
Northbourne Avenue is the front door to the national capital. Yet right now our front door is suffering from deteriorating amenity. The current high level of car and bus congestion means that the environment for residents who live on the corridor, pedestrians, and cyclists who use it and those who stand there waiting to catch a bus is compromised by high levels of traffic, noise and pollution. It is an environment that discourages walking and cycling and discourages the development of the urban form which is envisaged by both the national capital plan and the territory plan.
This should be an active, lively corridor. It should feel safe. You should be able to feel very safe walking down the avenue at any time of the day and night. Yet right now, all too often, people feel alienated from using that space. It is made inhospitable by the cars, noise, pollution and lack of any genuine street-level activity.
Capital metro will give us the opportunity to drive a transformation of residential and commercial development in this corridor. The business case for capital metro recognises that the level of redevelopment along the corridor will move beyond business as usual levels due to the investment certainty and improved amenity that light rail can provide.
These assumptions are consistent with the experiences of other cities around the world, such as Portland in the United States.
Bus rapid transit simply was not considered to be able to achieve the same level of redevelopment activity or amenity for two important reasons. Firstly the economic analysis concluded that market forces are less likely to promote densification of residential and commercial activity around bus rapid transit. Secondly, government planning strategies in relation to zoning, density and the location of services were considered to be more likely to be influenced and supported by the development of light rail instead of bus rapid transit.
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