Page 474 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 March 2014
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In addition, we have got the city plan. This is about the fifth or sixth iteration of the city plan. Full credit to the designers and the printers; they have done a superb job in presenting that document. It really does look a million bucks. That is incidentally not dissimilar to what the cost was. But the fact is that these plans are just plans until they are implemented.
That of course leads me to the one that I am very keen to talk about, and I am sure those opposite are desperate to hear me say a few words about capital metro. Wait no more! Due to popular demand, I will say a few words.
Mr Hanson: I have come back into the chamber for this.
MR COE: Thank you, Mr Hanson. He could feel me building up to capital metro. He could feel me building up to it. And what a massive improvement to the chamber, with Mr Hanson coming in and Mr Barr leaving! The chamber is a better place right now and it is going to get even better when I discuss some of the issues with capital metro, the $614 million extravaganza. And only now are they doing a master plan.
How is it that you chose to do a route for light rail between the city and Gungahlin before you even assessed the other options? It is just extraordinary. And it will be interesting to see whether the master plan actually does detail what the economic impact will be of doing the other routes first, because that is an all-important question. Regardless of whether the overall project stacks up, the overall grand plan for light rail stacks up, it would be better if the most productive route were done first. I am not sure that is going to be happening here.
If you go to the government’s own submission to Infrastructure Australia of August 2012—and it is pretty interesting—it says that the cost-benefit analysis for bus rapid transport is 1.98, with business as usual. With light rail, it is 1.02. The higher density situation—and this is what the government keeps talking about; it is all about the uplift; “we will be able to redevelop Northbourne et cetera”—includes the uplift value. This includes what you can do around the track. For light rail, it is 2.34; for bus rapid transit, 4.78.
According to the government’s own submission to Infrastructure Australia, even with the uplift, even with the patronage projections, even with the environmental benefits, even with all the social benefits that they have touted, bus rapid transit, in their own report, is doubly effective, doubly efficient than light rail. Light rail comes in at 2.34; bus rapid transit, 4.78. The government cannot say, “That does not include uplift.” It does. It does include uplift. It does include land value. It does include what you can do in the corridor. And bus rapid transit comes in doubly as good.
So how is it possible that they made this decision? Of course, it is all about the politics. And I imagine, as I have said before, Mr Rattenbury would be pretty cranky with how the government is selling light rail, because they are doing a pretty ordinary job. And that is indicative in the government’s own survey.
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