Page 560 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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As a result of light rail, we are going to see significant increases in congestion and we will see a compromised performance of the wider road network. And all this for the same number of people that are riding ACTION buses on the same route at present.
The reason for the congestion under light rail is evident: new traffic lights will be installed along the light rail route. More traffic lights mean more red lights. Light rail vehicles will also receive priority, making it harder for cars to cross both Flemington Road and Northbourne Avenue. Building light rail from the city to Russell also involves the removal of a general lane of traffic on London Circuit.
The options paper released by the opposition notes these flaws and looks at ways to improve public transport travel times without increasing congestion. We have done this by proposing more express buses on Northbourne Avenue. This is something that trams cannot do. Of course, a tram is only as fast as the tram in front. Indeed some buses travelling now between Gungahlin and the city are quicker than the proposed light rail route, and that is pretty much without any priority, with a couple of exceptions on Flemington Road. With sensible infrastructure improvements, we can make these travel times even faster. The government cannot cry out about the levels of congestion because it is their poor management which has increased congestion across Canberra.
Of course, under this government, we have seen public transport usage go down. We have seen a significant decrease in the number of people riding on ACTION since 2012. We think that is extremely disappointing. It is a government that claim to be the champions of public transport, yet they have done the opposite. In effect, they are not only treating ACTION buses as a second-class public transport system but also they are attracting fewer people to public transport than prior to the last election.
The opposition firmly believes that this is a reasonable motion. It is a motion that the government should be able to support. If this government refuse to give an approximate figure for the annual payment for the light rail contract, it goes to show exactly how desperate they are to hide the truth from Canberrans. We firmly believe the right thing to do is for the government to come clean with all the information about this 20 or 25-year project.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Capital Metro, Minister for Health, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Climate Change) (5.57): The government does not dispute the fact that the people of Canberra have a right to know the value of the annual availability payment for the provision of the capital metro light rail contract. In fact, we have always said that this information will be released after contracts have been signed between the ACT government and the preferred bidder, now known as Canberra Metro. I think it is important to point out that there is nothing new in what the government has said in this respect, and I want to remind those opposite of the importance of a binding contract and the function of a public-private partnership.
First of all, let me be very clear that there is already a policy that governs the release of information associated with the public-private partnership. The ACT government’s
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