15 October 2010

Civic facelift for the centenary

| johnboy
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Katy Gallagher has announced a Canberra City Area Action Plan 2010- 2016 (hopefully to be available on the Land and Property Services website soon). It promises to spend $26 million sprucing up Civic over the next two years before the all important 2013 Centenary of Canberra.

Included in the works to be undertaken are improvements to the public areas around the Sydney and Melbourne Buildings, City Walk between Ainslie Place and Akuna Street, Alinga Street between Marcus Clarke Street and West Row and Bunda Street between Northbourne Avenue and Mort Street.

The City Interchange toilets are also going to be upgraded.

Transport will be improved with the construction of a bus priority lane from Clunies Ross Street to the City Interchange and a new ANU/City West bus station.

There will be improvements to the cycleway on Northbourne Avenue and bus priority measures along the Gungahlin to city corridor will be determined.

During this time, master plans will be designed for City Walk between East Row and Allara Street, the Civic Square cultural precinct and Mort and Lonsdale Streets in Braddon.

Design work is going to be undertaken on the Edinburgh Avenue extension, a real time parking information system, pedestrian and bicycle access for Marcus Clarke Street and the investigation of pedestrian access to City Hill.

All of the work will be overseen by the newly appointed Coordinator Hamish McNulty, the Executive Director of Property and Strategic Projects in the Department of Land and Property Services.

“Much of the infrastructure in the public domain is more than 40 years old and is no longer functional. Old concrete footpaths, inadequate lighting and outdated street furniture are simply not appropriate for the nation’s capital and the work to be undertaken in the next two years will go a long way to improving the look and feel of our city centre.”

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NickD, thanks for the link to the PDF. (which I might add doesn’t meet basic accessibility requirements)

I had a great laugh at this part of Katy’s foreword:

At the heart of Canberra’s international image is Civic. It is the place where our
cultural identity is most positively expressed, where commerce is concentrated,
where the Australian National University and Canberra Institute of Technology
anchor each side of the city and where our transport systems converge.

Everyone knows that the Canberra “transport system” converges at Kings Avenue/Parkes Way from 8:00 to 9:00 weekdays.

The comment about Civic being the pinnacle of our cultural identity is an indication that the Government is clearly in love with its cultural window dressing, the pretense of which is being consistently undermined by urban sprawl, commercial/retail decentralisation and the seemingly unfettered expansion of the Canberra Centre.

I chuckled about the Edinburgh Ave extension, which despite being an opportunistic land grab may have some positive effects on the city west precinct in terms of transport access for the proposed buildings on the adjacent sites. (Although I predict it will cause traffic chaos during peak hour.)

Keijidosha said :

Edinburgh Avenue extension? To where, and for what purpose?

They want to extend Edinburgh and Constitution Ave to Vernon Circle

The plan is now available at http://www.laps.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/161867/Canberra_City_Area_Action_Plan_2010-2016.pdf

It looks fairly sensible at first glance. I’d like to see a walkway over or tunnel underneath Northborne Ave, but the city west bus station looks like a positive move.

Edinburgh Avenue extension? To where, and for what purpose?

I seem to remember at least one other revamp of Civic, and at the time thought it to be a cynical exercise by the traders who wanted taxpayer money to help dig themselves out of a hole.

However this revamp seems to hit the mark as a genuine upgrade to the infrastructure and look forward to its completion.

The priority bus lane and Edinburgh St works will be most welcome.

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