Simon wedges the ridge activists with his busway

Yes canberra does need a light rail system.

However, light rail works best when it can move large volumes of people from a to b not sharing public roads. its a cross between melbournes trams and melbournes rail network. if you look at the expansions to melbournes tram network, they are all ‘light rail’ type extensions and are ‘off road’ in that they do not share on road running, but run up the centre of major roads.

to the act.

orur population si much smaller, but geographically spread pretty widely. fortunately tramsport thoroughfares are gazetted.

the best implementation of lightrail would be initially gungahlin to civic. with a few stops along the way at say mitchell and dickson.

the next step cold be woden to civic via parlt house.

then tuggy to civic via kingston and perhaps russell.

at some stage bungendore, qbn, kingston to cvic could be viable (using the existing rail)

these are just rough suggestions without looking to closely at a map.

the aim is to move large volumes of commuters to areas with high worker concentration.

that would make it convenient for people to leave their car at home and step on to the light rail network.

belco to civic is a difficult and expensive busway route which by terminating where it does, doesnt capture the volume of population which would make a conversion to lightrail viable.

if you plan to set something up to fail, this is the way to do it.

ive never understood why it was even proposed.

HOneystly – are they announcing this as a smokescreen for something else they are pushing through. Why would a broke govt that can’t pay its teachers or medical specialists spend money on a busway the public doesnt’ want?

why not just dedicate a lane on major roads to buses only, enable traffic lights to phase themselves to turn green when the bus approaches an intersection. this would stop all other cars. Adding a specific bus traffic light would be cheap. no need for a dedicated road then. Then make public transport free and watch people leave their cars at home as they realise buses can get from A-B at a reasonable pace.

Sounds expensive.

I’ve heard somewhere before that Canberra’s clay soil makes it very difficult to dig traditional tunnels – perhaps that’s why the crazy dig out then put a dirt lid on it approach is being taken.

It kinda makes sense that the tunnel will be built and we’ll run buses we already have on it rather than put rail in immediately – you have to start somewhere (and it provides an incremental “upgrade” path). Although I think Canberrans are far too attached to their cars for this to be popular.

I’ve always said (since arriving from Sydney) that Canberra needs a decent public transport system. I guess expensive tunnels have to be done because of the NIMBY factor here (and I admit – railways are ugly). Imagine if they put an above-ground railway along through O’Connor or Turner! OMG!

why dont they DIG the hole into the hill, instead of digging out the hill and creating an artifical hole.
I’m pretty sure thats how they did the harbour tunnel.

No, it won’t.
The only way to placate those assholes who want to prevent society moving forward is for all of us to move back to caves.

Its ok for them, they have their houses, and their roads, and their easy transport to and from city centre.

Can’t pay teachers or nurses any more money; can’t fix the hospital system – but Jeez we can waste a shitload of money on a bloody Busway!

Simon/Kim Il Jong: please start taking the medication the doctor gave you again.

Time to bring on a tollway network in the ACT – how is the govt going to pay for this?

When I picked up the Canberra Times this morning and glanced at the lead article on the front page I immediately checked the date. No, it’s not 1st April even after checking twice.

Now I know it’s the in thing in NSW and Vic to have things like tunnels and tolls but does the local council really think it’s worth bankrupting the ACT just so the kiddies can say to their labor colleagues interstate “look, we’ve got one now”.

Please tell me it’s April Fools day!

c’mon bonfire, how’re you going to get your light rail without balsting down the ridges?