Page 4174 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 24 October 2018
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The government has been working hard to deliver on our commitment to build a city-wide integrated public transport network that can move people around our city efficiently and effectively and meet their needs.
The government has already committed $43 million for the addition of 80 new buses to our network. To get more people using public transport, we will be providing a month of free travel on the new bus network next year for MyWay card users.
More than half of Canberrans will be in walking distance to a turn up and go rapid bus or light rail service and the seven-day bus network will be more reliable and easier to use, importantly, Madam Speaker, with the same route numbers and the same routes, whether it is a Tuesday, a Sunday or a public holiday.
MR PETTERSSON: Minister, can you advise the Assembly how feedback received during the consultation period was incorporated into the final design of the network?
MS FITZHARRIS: Those opposite continue to accuse me of denying that the community’s concerns were legitimate in stating that I had no intention of either listening or responding to those concerns. These statements were and remain unjust, unfair and quite simply incorrect.
Through the consultation 13,000 individual pieces of feedback were received. Many community consultations were held right across the territory and many changes have been made in response to the feedback. We have listened. We have made 37 changes across the 58 routes on the regular network and added an additional 78 school services following consultation on the draft network.
I will give examples of just a few of these changes: we have extended a proposed rapid service from Tuggeranong to Belconnen instead of terminating in the city to ensure that people travelling from Tuggeranong to Belconnen do not need to change buses. We will also add direct local connections to Woden from Weston Creek, provide better coverage in south-west Belconnen and add new peak bus routes from the south of Tuggeranong.
The government will also provide new customer service officers to help school children and adults alike feel safer and become more familiar with using interchanges. We will also improve signage, particularly in the rollout of the new network. In addition to improving the regular bus network which school students are currently most likely to use, the updated network also includes 78 more dedicated school services.
We will recruit a specialist school bus services liaison position to ensure that buses continue to meet schools’ needs. This will sit alongside the very successful school transport liaison officer position, which has worked very well both for the government and for school communities to focus on active travel and car park congestion around schools.
Currently the overwhelming majority of students do not use the bus at all to get to school. The combination of the improved regular network and the school-only
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