ACT Light Rail Coalition - reforms to refight the good fight.

I’ve never seen any serious discussion about where a light rail system would go. And how would this city pay for it, anyhow? Keeping ACTION buses on the road already costs taxpayers something like $65 million per year. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to get some more urban densities so people could walk to work?

Light rail 5 years ago was estimated to cost $800 million for a start. As with the cost blow-outs for GDE, those costs have probably sky=rocketed. Canberra just cannot afford $ 1 billion dollar projects without substantial Federal funding.

OK I know you will say again that the costs are based on heavy rail, but from what I have seen and what you will not accept that there is lots of recent Australian construction and unit purchase costs to show that the figures are valid.

If costs were so low, why did the Federal government reject the old-time tram line between the National Museum and the War Memorial that ws proposed some 5 years ago? Why don’t the developers of Tralee extend the line rail line and run a rail car to Civic-better than expect ACT residents to expect to upgrade Monaro Highway yes?

Also, you still will need a bus network to feed in to the rail network. We cannot even afford to run a decent bus network with clapped out buses. So what hope is there to run,let alone a bus network, replaced with Ero V diesel/LPG/NG/hybrid buses? Frankly, the local government should be seeking funds to replace the bus fleet.

Anyway, the light rail route if built should be first built to Belco (yeah!) because nothing has changed since it ws decided that the busway should be built to Belconnen.

BTW: You will need a change of local Government first.

Well if we’re going to trade something uneconomic (buses) for something completely uneconomic, lets go the whole hog and get an underground subway system.

Ralph what is with all the underground comments? – Elaborate?

Underground would be best.

its a volume issue.

buses are excellent in moving say 30-100 people.

but the volume of cars pouring out of say gungahlin and surrounds heading towards civic would indicate that mass transit in the form of lightrail would service this more effectively.

when teh voluem of passengers increases, you add another carriae. this doesnt require an extra driver.

personnel scheduling and costs are the major issues behind action route timetable problems.

while you may still require the same number of drivers for lightrail and schedules it would follow – increased volume is more easily catered to.

also physical tracks encourage higher density development and employers to build. they dont need to provide as many car spaces when proper pt infrastructure exists.

buses are very good for pt but they are not a good solution to the increased pt patronage the city is experiencing and this is only going to get worse.

lightrail has no downside except initial installation cost. bite that bullet and the benefits to this city would be great.

Why can’t the buses be made to go where the light rail would go? Is it a timing issue?

the ‘sustainable transport plan’ indicated that there would be more use of public transport if a light rail system existed. the govt chose not to go that route. the KBR report calculated light rail costs based on us heavy rail figures.

we keep extending the boundaries of urban density via new city centres (gungahlin, stromlo etc) and consider that a part of planning, yet installation of a suitable transport system is bizarrely the responsibility of some future govt.

the act labor govt has made it clear its a bus only supporter. light rail does require a change of govt.

Seems to me to be a classic case of trying to define the problem in terms of a preconceived solution. How about working out exactly what the public transport issues are (I mean doing real analysis not just capturing opinionated crapola), and coming up with a series of options that could be considered as solutions. If this was done for real we may have a way forward. At the moment I suspect we are in one of two possible situations:
1) We haven’t done the analysis; or
2) We have the analysis, and it says that we don’t have the population size or density needed to make public transport work effectively.

But defining a problem in terms of a solution? No, no, no.

So the Feds are interesting in funding light rail only if there is a change of government ?

Call it what you will, I’ll call that discrimination with a hint of pork barrelling.

Put it underground.