13 July 2016

Financing for light rail project finalised

| Michael Reid
Join the conversation
17
light rail artist impression

The ACT government and the Canberra Metro consortium confirmed on Tuesday that financing arrangements for the capital’s light rail project had been finalised.

The Capital Metro minister Simon Corbell said achieving financial close meant the term of the contract had begun.

“Canberra Metro will work closely with the ACT government in the lead-up to the start of construction activities in the coming weeks, with services scheduled to commence in early 2019, almost a year earlier than originally expected,” Corbell said.

“With financial close now having been achieved, I can confirm that the capital delivery cost of the project is $707 million. A territory contribution will be made at the beginning of operations, along with annual availability payments.

Planning and construction

“Availability payments will be approximately $47m in the first 12 months of operations and approximately $75m for the last 12 months of the contract term in 2038. The average annual availability payment will be approximately $64m.”

Corbell said the focus would now be on planning and construction, ensuring the community was kept up to date with the project developments, including the location and timeframes of construction works along the corridor.

He reiterated the project would provide an improved public transport network for Canberrans, along with a significant economic boost, supporting thousands of jobs.

“The benefits of an integrated public transport system for our community are substantial. It will support social inclusion, drive economic development, maintain liveability and help to reduce congestion.

“Transport Canberra will ensure that buses and light rail are integrated along with other forms of transport including cycling and walking. It will also encourage innovative approaches to driving, parking and traffic management.”

Join the conversation

17
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

gooterz said :

Mordd said :

…condemned to eternally travel on the same line to nowhere.

“Nowhere”? … but you keep repeating, it NEVER will go to Tuggeranong! 😀

We don’t want it because we can see it is not needed.

Mordd said :

…condemned to eternally travel on the same line to nowhere.

“Nowhere”? … but you keep repeating, it NEVER will go to Tuggeranong! 😀

rommeldog56 said :

btw Capital Metro is importing just 14 trams, approximately 500 tonnes, equal to approx. 300 cars, also shipped to Australia, but the trams carry over 100 times as many passengers (they operate all day) using clean quiet unobtrusive technology with next to no pollution for over 30 years.

And are condemned to eternally travel on the same line to nowhere.

madelini said :

WilliamBourke said :

HenryBG said :

Mordd said :

Arthur Davies said :

As well as creating a greener, cleaner future, our grandchildren will also be burdened with paying off the ridiculous cost of this debacle. I hope it is worth every cent.

Green ? Aren’t they shipping all this stuff from overseas?
Any net gain will be offset by small rider numbers and increased congestion of cars along the route

The vehicles are coming from overseas on a ship which is quite an efficient use of fossil fuels ublike say cars or indeed buses.

As for congestion yes congestion will increase on Northborne ave coinciding with the tram. But what the antis don’t get is it will increase at a far greater rate if we don’t do something like this. As for rider numbers clearly someone who has never been on a 200 series bus. They are close to full along this corridor most of the day and only half the corridor has been developed to its potential.

“The vehicles are coming from overseas on a ship which is quite an efficient use of fossil fuels ublike say cars or indeed buses.”
You mean these kind of ships are delivering our emission free trams?
http://www.treehugger.com/cars/just-15-of-the-worlds-biggest-ships-may-now-emit-as-much-pollution-as-all-the-worlds-760m-cars.html
It’s almost as if you are reading from Capital Metro’s “Instructions on how to deflect criticism of our beloved tram”.
BTW, have you calculated the cost of connection electricity to all those substations yet?

You really understand a tiny fraction of what you read because you are only looking for confirmation of your own preconceptions. So you read the headline but not the bit you didn’t like:

“Shipping is responsible for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions”

Yet moves the vast amount of world trade. The specific misquote you made was to the sulphate and nitrate emissions from the heavy diesel fuel which cars do NOT use (because it is outlawed in most vehicles). The suphates actually have a cooling effect not a greenhouse effect.

You do work very hard at making your point that you keep just persistently get everything wrong.

I ran into an elderly gentleman the other day who insisted that global warming was all due to volcanic eruptions. I tried to point out that the output of greenhouse gases from volcanoes is minuscule (less than 1%) relative to what we as humans are burning in fossil fuels – even though I quickly looked it up on my iPhone and tried to show it to him, he refused to look at it, because “that’s all lies!”. There is no hope for the guessologists vs the researchers.

Researchers look at the data to arrive at a conclusion, the guessologists search for what they want to hear and then offer that up as “proof”. The internet being what it is you can find evidence that the moon is made up of profiteroles and cavemen rode dinosaurs, because there are enough people with either a huge sense of humour and/or tin foil hats to generate the gumpf.

Sounds like you have a copy of JC’s “deflecting criticisms” book.

btw Capital Metro is importing just 14 trams, approximately 500 tonnes, equal to approx. 300 cars, also shipped to Australia, but the trams carry over 100 times as many passengers (they operate all day) using clean quiet unobtrusive technology with next to no pollution for over 30 years.

WilliamBourke said :

HenryBG said :

Mordd said :

Arthur Davies said :

As well as creating a greener, cleaner future, our grandchildren will also be burdened with paying off the ridiculous cost of this debacle. I hope it is worth every cent.

Green ? Aren’t they shipping all this stuff from overseas?
Any net gain will be offset by small rider numbers and increased congestion of cars along the route

The vehicles are coming from overseas on a ship which is quite an efficient use of fossil fuels ublike say cars or indeed buses.

As for congestion yes congestion will increase on Northborne ave coinciding with the tram. But what the antis don’t get is it will increase at a far greater rate if we don’t do something like this. As for rider numbers clearly someone who has never been on a 200 series bus. They are close to full along this corridor most of the day and only half the corridor has been developed to its potential.

“The vehicles are coming from overseas on a ship which is quite an efficient use of fossil fuels ublike say cars or indeed buses.”
You mean these kind of ships are delivering our emission free trams?
http://www.treehugger.com/cars/just-15-of-the-worlds-biggest-ships-may-now-emit-as-much-pollution-as-all-the-worlds-760m-cars.html
It’s almost as if you are reading from Capital Metro’s “Instructions on how to deflect criticism of our beloved tram”.
BTW, have you calculated the cost of connection electricity to all those substations yet?

You really understand a tiny fraction of what you read because you are only looking for confirmation of your own preconceptions. So you read the headline but not the bit you didn’t like:

“Shipping is responsible for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions”

Yet moves the vast amount of world trade. The specific misquote you made was to the sulphate and nitrate emissions from the heavy diesel fuel which cars do NOT use (because it is outlawed in most vehicles). The suphates actually have a cooling effect not a greenhouse effect.

You do work very hard at making your point that you keep just persistently get everything wrong.

I ran into an elderly gentleman the other day who insisted that global warming was all due to volcanic eruptions. I tried to point out that the output of greenhouse gases from volcanoes is minuscule (less than 1%) relative to what we as humans are burning in fossil fuels – even though I quickly looked it up on my iPhone and tried to show it to him, he refused to look at it, because “that’s all lies!”. There is no hope for the guessologists vs the researchers.

Researchers look at the data to arrive at a conclusion, the guessologists search for what they want to hear and then offer that up as “proof”. The internet being what it is you can find evidence that the moon is made up of profiteroles and cavemen rode dinosaurs, because there are enough people with either a huge sense of humour and/or tin foil hats to generate the gumpf.

WilliamBourke said :

BTW, have you calculated the cost of connection electricity to all those substations yet?

Do road projects also factor in the cost of connecting up the street lights, traffic lights and moving underground infrastructure? Hmmm

HenryBG said :

Mordd said :

Arthur Davies said :

As well as creating a greener, cleaner future, our grandchildren will also be burdened with paying off the ridiculous cost of this debacle. I hope it is worth every cent.

Green ? Aren’t they shipping all this stuff from overseas?
Any net gain will be offset by small rider numbers and increased congestion of cars along the route

The vehicles are coming from overseas on a ship which is quite an efficient use of fossil fuels ublike say cars or indeed buses.

As for congestion yes congestion will increase on Northborne ave coinciding with the tram. But what the antis don’t get is it will increase at a far greater rate if we don’t do something like this. As for rider numbers clearly someone who has never been on a 200 series bus. They are close to full along this corridor most of the day and only half the corridor has been developed to its potential.

JC, the odd thing about this project is that Capital Metro themselves unambiguously model congestion as being worse with the tram, not compared to current levels, but compared to future levels if the tram is not built. Capital Metro’s own modelling is always comparing “Base” (no light rail ) with “Project” (light rail) for the year in question. They have modelled 2021 and 2031. For example, see Table 4.3 on page 39 and Tables 4.5 to 4.10 on pages 41 to 45 of http://www.planning.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/41352/Capital_Metro_Light_Rail_Stage_1_Draft_EIS_Volume_03_Part_5-Traffic_and_Transport.pdf

The reasons are at least two-fold:
– tram operation reduces the vehicle throughput of the intersections. [Indeed, because many more people are not on the tram than are on it at the vast majority of intersections, the reduced intersection delay for tram passengers is more than offset by increased delays for the many more people travelling across and along the path of the tram. Unfortunately, even for most tram passengers, journey time will not be reduced because of the increased need for mode transfer between feeder buses at one or both ends of each journey.] This means the travel time benefits of the project are negative.
– the business case of the tram is predicated in increased population along the corridor. However, not only does the tram as planned for 2019 have a lower AM peak total capacity than buses in 2016 (and about half the seated capacity), the other urban infrastructure is not being upgraded to cope with the increased transport demand of this higher population, not all of whom will be able to use the tram for their travel needs.

HenryBG said :

Mordd said :

Arthur Davies said :

As well as creating a greener, cleaner future, our grandchildren will also be burdened with paying off the ridiculous cost of this debacle. I hope it is worth every cent.

Green ? Aren’t they shipping all this stuff from overseas?
Any net gain will be offset by small rider numbers and increased congestion of cars along the route

The vehicles are coming from overseas on a ship which is quite an efficient use of fossil fuels ublike say cars or indeed buses.

As for congestion yes congestion will increase on Northborne ave coinciding with the tram. But what the antis don’t get is it will increase at a far greater rate if we don’t do something like this. As for rider numbers clearly someone who has never been on a 200 series bus. They are close to full along this corridor most of the day and only half the corridor has been developed to its potential.

“The vehicles are coming from overseas on a ship which is quite an efficient use of fossil fuels ublike say cars or indeed buses.”
You mean these kind of ships are delivering our emission free trams?
http://www.treehugger.com/cars/just-15-of-the-worlds-biggest-ships-may-now-emit-as-much-pollution-as-all-the-worlds-760m-cars.html
It’s almost as if you are reading from Capital Metro’s “Instructions on how to deflect criticism of our beloved tram”.
BTW, have you calculated the cost of connection electricity to all those substations yet?

Mysteryman said :

Lots of money for light rail and TAMS have advised me there is no allocation of budget for tree plantings in Canberra. They “hope” some money for tree plantings may arrive before spring…..

The ACT Government-
Great on rhetoric for delivering fancy new projects that will make them look good in the media.
Absolute shit at delivering basic services that effect TAXPAYERS? RATE PAYERS.

I guess it could be worse……Andrew Barr is not as bad as Trump but they’re both arrogant.

Don’t bag Trump as he is the only one that can save the Western world.

Lots of money for light rail and TAMS have advised me there is no allocation of budget for tree plantings in Canberra. They “hope” some money for tree plantings may arrive before spring…..

The ACT Government-
Great on rhetoric for delivering fancy new projects that will make them look good in the media.
Absolute shit at delivering basic services that effect TAXPAYERS? RATE PAYERS.

I guess it could be worse……Andrew Barr is not as bad as Trump but they’re both arrogant.

Echo … echo …. echo …. echo….

Mordd said :

Arthur Davies said :

As well as creating a greener, cleaner future, our grandchildren will also be burdened with paying off the ridiculous cost of this debacle. I hope it is worth every cent.

Green ? Aren’t they shipping all this stuff from overseas?
Any net gain will be offset by small rider numbers and increased congestion of cars along the route

The vehicles are coming from overseas on a ship which is quite an efficient use of fossil fuels ublike say cars or indeed buses.

As for congestion yes congestion will increase on Northborne ave coinciding with the tram. But what the antis don’t get is it will increase at a far greater rate if we don’t do something like this. As for rider numbers clearly someone who has never been on a 200 series bus. They are close to full along this corridor most of the day and only half the corridor has been developed to its potential.

Arthur Davies said :

As well as creating a greener, cleaner future, our grandchildren will also be burdened with paying off the ridiculous cost of this debacle. I hope it is worth every cent.

Green ? Aren’t they shipping all this stuff from overseas?
Any net gain will be offset by small rider numbers and increased congestion of cars along the route

Arthur Davies said :

As well as creating a greener, cleaner future, our grandchildren will also be burdened with paying off the ridiculous cost of this debacle. I hope it is worth every cent.

Our left skewed education system (you know, Australia was invaded), has already conditioned the grandchildren into accepting that green is good and the cost is worth it.

wildturkeycanoe7:35 am 26 May 16

As well as creating a greener, cleaner future, our grandchildren will also be burdened with paying off the ridiculous cost of this debacle. I hope it is worth every cent.

Billions spent for the gains of thousands.

That’s like a million dollars for every job created.

Still waiting for nowaste by 2010

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.