Page 3719 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 29 October 2014
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We know that congestion on our existing road network already costs our economy over $100 million a year in lost productivity. That is a direct impact on the capacity of the territory’s economy to generate jobs, to generate economic opportunity, to generate prosperity for our city. And we know that by 2020 congestion will cost our city over $200 million a year
This is an economic issue for us to address. The more people spend in delay on the roads and the more people face longer commutes, the more there is a direct economic impact on our city. We need to address these challenges. We need to think about how investment in better public transport infrastructure can reduce the impact of growing congestion and improve productivity and economic opportunity for our city.
We also need to think about what the particular challenges are for the Gungahlin to city corridor. Obviously Gungahlin is the fastest growing area of our city. It is the new development front. By 2031, the estimates are, based on business as usual projections, that that 12-kilometre journey from Gungahlin town centre to the city centre will take over 50 minutes if we continue with business as usual. That is not an acceptable outcome for our city either.
In the last decade, our territory spent $1.2 billion on road infrastructure—$1.2 billion. Those who are critics of this project and cite their main concern as being cost should reflect on that figure. There has been very little commentary about the affordability to our budget of continuing to invest in road infrastructure, but when the suggestion is made that somewhere between $600 million and $700 million is spent on public transport infrastructure, all of a sudden it is an unaffordable proposition. People need to reflect on the investment and the commitment taxpayers have already made, over the past decade, in road infrastructure—$1.2 billion in the last decade alone. This is simply not a sustainable approach.
We know that building more capacity induces more demand; it is a well-understood concept. We need to respond to this challenge not by simply accepting the status quo, not by simply relying entirely—entirely—on road provision for people to move around our city, but also by giving people alternatives.
It is also clear that transport and land use are very closely linked. It is not, as the opposition says, as Mr Coe says, that land use outcomes are solely a function of planning and zoning controls. It is a well-understood concept. It is disturbing to me that the shadow minister for planning seems to think there is no relationship between land use and transport planning when it comes to the future planning for our city. That flies in the face of every well-understood tenet of contemporary urban planning. There is a clear and direct relationship between land use and transport infrastructure; the two sit hand in hand. This was acknowledged by Austroads, the federal government agency, as early as 2001. They said, “There is no question that transport influences land use development and that the effects of each need to be considered in an evaluation.”
We know that cities are prioritising public transport because they see the economic benefit from that investment. The lesson for us to learn is that good public transport infrastructure is essential for sustainable growth and for the prosperity of our city.
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