Take a fresh look at the Woden interchange and CIT project

Fresh look? – this is still the same traffic shambles in the making, and will remain that way long after construction of the interchange, CIT and Hellenic Club redevelopment are completed.

Closure of Callam St is nuts. It’s the main feeder from Athlon Drive through to Launceston St.
Remember when Callum St was realigned to meet Athlon Drive? The tram should go into the old interchange area. Mobility compromised people heading to Woden offices or to shop at the mall will be faced with a longer access route after alighting and again when going to catch the tram. Not enough thought has been put into this. Yet another nutty amateurish ACT government brain short circuit.

Do Canberra’s trams have the same cracks that have closed down the Newcastle trams and the ones in Sydney?

I still recall the last time I used public transport to regularly get across town. That was in the 1970s. I was young and had infinite tolerance, and time to waste. There was no internet nor mobile phone. Imagination and diesel fumes only went so far wiling away the time sitting on a cold metal bench or pacing the cold concrete pavement at Woden Interchange.

To get from Downer to Farrar took three separate buses and two changes, with trip times of at least two to three hours. The same coming back the other way.

At least there were the express busses between woden and civic straight down Adelaide and Commonwealth avenues, with no stops they took 15 minutes. Of course, there would often be long wait times at the interchanges.

One Sunday afternoon, realising it would be faster to walk from civic to Downer than to wait for the connecting bus, I passed an elderly American couple patiently sitting at an open bus stop half way up Northbourne Ave. It was clear they’d been there some time when they asked if I knew when the next bus would be along. I knew roughly how long I’d been walking already and have never been able to unsee their pain when I gave them the bad news.

That’s when my tolerance and patronage of the system ended, resolved to get myself a car ASAP, and vowed never to rely on public transport again, at least until it could meet my criteria for a return. Those being: a system that’s reliable, regular, diffuse and frequent enough not to need timetables; 24/7.

Bring on the driverless electric vehicles.

I don’t understand what’s wrong with the current layout that was designed to separate vehicles and pedestrians, so pedestrians never have to cross the roads within the interchange. Why rip it out and replace it with a layout that mixes vehicles and pedestrians by forcing people to cross roads, often while hurrying to make their connecting bus? …it’s almost as if they want people to get run over (interestingly, it’s the exact opposite approach to what private companies do to keep pedestrians safe).
It’s just repeating the mistakes of the Belconnen interchange – it’s now so spread out and disjointed and forces people to cross roads, sometimes a number of roads, some of which don’t even really look like roads – it looks like passengers wanting to get on a bus were an afterthought.

“Canberra might have to take on streetscape activities such as food vans and active set up and pack up stall like real cities in between the interchange and shops.”

Mr. Barr won’t be happy to hear that “the coolest little capital” in the world isn’t a real city.