Page 3721 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 28 October 2015
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There is no doubt that ACTION provides a good service for the many Canberrans who use it regularly. It is a well-loved community service, but let us also be frank: ACTION’s patronage has not kept pace with our city’s population growth. So simply just adding a few extra buses, plucking them out of the air, will not solve our city’s problems. As a first step, we must attract more ACTION users, and this means making it more reliable and more user-friendly. This work is already underway.
For example, next year the government will trial an on-demand pick-up system to complement our weekend suburban services. During off-peak times buses providing coverage services to the suburbs, even through some routes, are in fact barely used. Under this trial, passengers will be able to easily and quickly arrange to be picked up from their nearest suburban bus stop and taken to the bus interchange to join more frequent major routes, all for the cost of a single bus fare. This offers the potential for better services along with greater efficiency.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the delivery of light rail will be a key task for the new agency. The first stage, the city to Gungahlin corridor, will transform this area and will support economic development but, importantly, it will free up around 1.2 million bus kilometres per year. It makes sense to reallocate these freed-up kilometres for the benefit of transport across the city. Transport Canberra will design future bus networks to take advantage of these freed-up kilometres.
Another central component of the transport improvement plan is, as Dr Bourke has indicated, the draft light rail network. As the city continues to grow over the next 25 years, we will need a modern light rail network servicing all parts of Canberra. This is the only way that we will keep traffic congestion and commute times down.
Today is very clearly a day that demonstrates just how isolated those opposite are in their commitment to reducing congestion in Canberra. They can join the progressive side of politics today and support a motion that supports a more livable and more functional Canberra.
I note that there has been a dramatic change of heart in the Liberal Party federally. The Prime Minister is particularly supportive of light rail projects in our cities. He recognises that infrastructure such as light rail helps relieve congestion and makes cities and towns more livable. He has commented regularly on the benefits of such investment. That is why I have written to the Prime Minister to raise potential partnership opportunities for high priority rail corridors of mutual interest in our city, particularly in the parliamentary triangle which, of course, accommodates around 60 per cent of Canberra’s workforce and caters to five million visitors every year.
If those opposite care about Canberra’s transport needs they will support a public transport network that delivers now and delivers over the next 25 years. They will support the reallocation of 1.2 million annual bus kilometres freed up by stage 1 of light rail to improve public transport services right across the city, and they will support the government’s efforts to investigate further partnership opportunities with the commonwealth. If not, Madam Deputy Speaker, their only commitment is to more congestion and to more Canberrans being stuck in longer and longer traffic jams.
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