Page 1758 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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But in respect of the responsibility of the government to provide public transport to help the community in general to get around safely, I am afraid that it cannot extend to getting every child directly from any suburb to any school in any other suburb. It is simply not practical. Yes, maybe it would be nice if it were, but it is not. I would also note that there are quite a few other people in Canberra who would really like to have a public transport system that was door to door. There are quite a few elderly or disabled people for whom walking distances are a problem.
There are clear trade-offs in running a public transport system. The Greens have said forever that we would like to see more money going into public transport, and in particular the bus system. But given the budget that ACTION has, they have to make the best use of their limited resources. Under the previous network, the government was running school buses on very long trips across Canberra for a fairly small number of children.
At the same time, other people were on busy routes where full buses were driving past them. The situation needed to change. A rearrangement of school services was required. Of course, that is always going to be difficult. Once children are established in their particular school, understandably parents do not want the school bus to be moved, even if it is poorly used.
I can note from personal experience that Radford College kids seem to be doing fine. I see quite a few of them on the R4 bus, which I catch. One day I went home early because of a tooth extraction. There they were on the bus as well. They certainly appeared to be coping absolutely fine, as you would have expected, with the bus.
The second assumption that I disagree with is that negative feedback equals a failed bus network. Look, we all know this. The reality is that people who are upset and concerned contact us; they complain and complain. People who are happy do not bother telling us about something they are happy about. This, unfortunately, is life and human nature. We all see this as MLAs in this place.
Of course, as a public transport user you find the same thing. People have issues. Every change triggers complaints. But over time the change is often better for the majority of users. I have no doubt that this change will be better for the majority of users. Whatever you may think about Transport Canberra, they have access to a huge quantity of MyWay data. I am absolutely confident that whatever you may think about it, they have tried their best to get the most use out of their limited bus fleet. I really do not believe that anything else is possible.
Of course, that involved some trade-offs between one route and another. Given the limited resources of buses and bus drivers, that is the issue. It would be really good if the solution to this problem were less around “buses are unsafe” because people do catch buses. I catch buses. I walk home at night, and I do not feel unsafe.
As Minister Fitzharris said, Canberra is a very safe space. I do not think that this commentary is helping. What would help would be more money towards our public
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