Town centre plans offer hope for Molonglo's long-suffering road worriers

D.c. Haas yep, add another $30B of debt to the taxpayer 👍

Grant Ran we currently have a city where nearly every household is forced, or at least obligated to own and operate at least one car, if not more.

According to the NRMA and RACQ, the average cost to own and operate a car is $15,000 annually. If a household has two cars, there goes an entire year’s mortgage repayments just to get around. Then, we all pay for the roads that the ACT government spends over $300 million on each year.

Don’t talk about debt to the taxpayer for public transport when the underlying costs of driving are never discussed, or analysed in any detail.

Robert Knight yep, I ride a skateboard everywhere now, it’s great

Grant Ran micro mobility for the win!

Ian it can be dangerous when you have a politician holding the ceremonial shovel. Especially when it’s heavier than a pen.

As pointed out elsewhere, when Chris Steele was announcing the electric buses. He was in an actual working bus depot without his hi-vis on.

Ian McLeod not arguing against your suggestions. Just throwing a quick alternative onto the table because the key issue is the single occupation vehicles occupying the same space as vehicles with more than one passenger of course, adjusting departure times can also play a role.

Daniel Bryan still blown away that wasn’t part of the original Glenloch Interchange redesign.

Daniel Bryan the driveway through the carpark not good enough? 🫣🤷🏻‍♂️🤣

Alison Jones If you are hoping to create a time frame, look how long the signs promising an upgrade to the Monaro Highway have graced the road around Symonston.

Alison Jones it took over 15 years for the Amaroo shops to happen.

Helen Kvalheim Stephenson I reckon at least 8 years since this centre was announced.
8 more before it becomes a reality?

Robert Knight yeah mate, we all know you hate cars and can’t stand how Canberra was designed before the current crop of rent seekers took over 🙄

Geoff Stewart no mate. I don’t ’hate cars’. I hate the outcomes that result when we focus our transport system almost exclusively on them. And everyone else should as well because it costs us all extraordinary amounts of money that we otherwise wouldn’t have to spend.

Ian McLeod you’re projecting thoughts onto me that I don’t actually entertain. I don’t want to guilt anyone into anything.

What I want is a government to deliver infrastructure and land use planning that gives people better options for where they live, and better accessibility to all the things we expect as citizens – education, employment, recreation, health etc.

Simply building bigger and better roads is counterproductive to any of that. Simply building bigger roads positively HARMS our city’s liveability and amenity.

Again, these are lessons that are readily available to anyone who cares to look.

Robert Knight Of course they will. More lanes fixes everything. 😉

Ian McLeod we already know what would improve active and PT usage.

WE ALREADY KNOW.

That’s the problem.

Ian McLeod what would make active and public transport more appealing is less focus on cars as the only transport option.

One more time, because I don’t know why you insist that I hate cars – I DO NOT HATE CARS. In fact, I really enjoy mine, and one day hope to afford an e-tron Audi.

What I hate is living in a place where people are obligated to use a car simply to act as a citizen. It’s unhealthy.

Ian McLeod ok, you don’t appear to be listening to what I’m saying, at all.

One of the key reasons our bus network is terrible is because for 70 years our land use planning has been predicated on the notion that cars are the primary form of transport for all our city’s residents, and visitors. Accessibility and ease of movement for individual automobiles has taken precedence everywhere. Investments in active and public transport have, until the light rail, been a very distant second priority for decades.

It was only in the late 70s and early 80s, on the back of moves made by the Whitlam government years earlier to focus on public transport improvements, that Canberra had an effective PT system attracting patronage away from private cars. Those results came on the back of heavy investment in interchanges and other infrastructure like the Belco busway, and a focus on frequent feeder services that linked up with an express inter-city service (the old 333). But, it was labour and resource intensive, and ultimately deemed unsustainable, particularly after self-government. A big reason it was deemed unsustainable is because at the same time, the NCDC invested heavily in big new roads everywhere which induced demand, and people chose to drive rather than take a bus.

Unfortunately, providing sufficient coverage of our far flung neighbourhoods, alongside sufficient frequency to make using PT more attractive is an impossible task. Buses end up taking meandering routes because the service is obligated to provide the coverage, but as a result, take orders of magnitude longer to cover distances we can otherwise do in a fraction of the time in a car. And why can we do those distances in a fraction of the time in a car? Because we’ve invested literally billions of dollars in a gold-plated road network.

With those billions of dollars invested in road networks we have induced a transport system that sees over 80% of daily commuting done in a car, with the majority of that being single occupant. As our population grows, the amount of space that is needed to accommodate all of that traffic, as well as store it at the other end, is becoming unrealistic. Our town centres and other employment centres are a finite size. We cannot continue to squeeze more and more cars into these places. Something has to give.

And so, the issue with places like Molonglo is pretty simple. Building more roads, or widening existing ones is simply creating a bigger funnel. There’s still going to be a capacity limitation at the opening. Plus, with all of this traffic and need for parking, we denude any value in the places where we want to go. Traffic infested places, and large expanses of car parks, are not very nice places to be. Businesses don’t want to invest in places like that.

What we need is to recognise this. YOU need to recognise this. We CANNOT continue to invest in prioritising the ease of movement and accessibility of cars if we want to see our city remain sustainable. This is not to say we cannot keep what we’ve currently got. What it means is we need to rebalance the scales, and start investing in more efficient methods for people to get around, and give people genuine choice in their transport option. As you demonstrate with your circumstances, you presently don’t have a choice, do you? You’re effectively forced to own two cars (you ‘need’ them, right?). So, why on earth would we double down on that and only make it easier to drive, rather than invest in other options?

Ian McLeodyou sound like a boomer complaining about your parents kicking you out of the nest 35 years ago, forcing you to start paying for own way in life. Self-government and the federal money tap being turned off happened in 1989. Time to get over it.

Ian McLeod dude. You’re not taking the time to self reflect, or deeply investigate the points I’ve put forward.

Why do I say more roads aren’t the answer? Why don’t you investigate that idea?

Charles Godworth after the lack of foresight in Gungahlin and they still make the same mistakes time after time