Page 3360 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 23 September 2015
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Major arterial roads—the only roads people can use to get in and out of their areas—are not large enough to carry the growing amount of traffic. This government is happy to continue to collect and increase rates for home owners but is not concerned with how those home owners get in and out of their suburbs and how gridlocked some of these roads are becoming. The plan for the tram will not fix any of it.
The Canberra Liberals are committed to the upgrade of Cotter Road. It is part of our comprehensive transport plan. We will complete the duplication for the 1.7-kilometre stretch between McCulloch Street and the Tuggeranong Parkway, at an estimated cost of $25 million. It is well known that during peak hours the road becomes bottlenecked and the problem lies between these two streets—McCulloch Street and the parkway. There are only two ways to get from Civic, as I mentioned, from Molonglo Valley and Weston Creek—unless you go across Cotter Road—that is, through this passageway or up the parkway.
This section of road provides vital linking services for travellers to the city, to the inner south, to Woden, to Weston Creek and to the developing Molonglo Valley. It has been scheduled for full duplication for some time now but has never been funded. We want to get this done as soon as possible. With the continuing development in Molonglo Valley and the increased population in this area, it is clear that the bottleneck on this road will only get worse.
As a Weston Creek resident I fully understand the difficulty the Cotter Road creates for commuters on a daily basis. The difficult question people have to ask themselves as they sit at the lights of the parkway is: “Will I go for that gridlock or that gridlock?” The merging is very difficult, somewhat dangerous at times, as three lanes of traffic become one with the entry from the parkway as well as the two lanes that are coming across from Weston and Molonglo.
A full duplication is absolutely necessary and will make life a lot easier for Weston Creek and Woden residents. The Canberra Liberals will engage extensively with the local community to make sure the vital infrastructure is built in line with community expectations. The duplication of Cotter Road is another initiative of the Canberra Liberals to help improve transport experiences for all Canberrans, not just the three per cent of Canberrans who live within walking distance of the proposed light rail.
I hope the government will support the motion. The government has a history, as many governments do, of suggesting that things will be done, but they never seem to come to fruition or they never seem to be funded. They use every election opportunity to promise the same things over and over again. The swimming pool for Gungahlin took a long, long time. I do not believe the cinema is built yet. The secure mental health unit was promised in 2008 and still not a sod has been turned. Horse Park Drive was mooted and spoken about and promised to voters at the Gungahlin crossing, but there was never any real intention of doing that this year that I can see.
Gundaroo Drive is dangerous. I find it amazing that a new member of this place, Ms Fitzharris, is running a petition online to duplicate something which she should
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