Just when most locals probably thought that there have been more than enough discussions and surveys about the Canberra’s new light rail (or trams), the ACT Government has launched another consultation on the topic.
But wait – do not despair just yet – this time the focus is not about whether or not, or when or how much; all those discussions are now behind us as the government rolls on to the first stages. This time the government wants to open up a new debate about the longer-term decisions on the tram network across the whole of Canberra.
When I first saw the media release and then accessed the online survey and forum page, my first reaction was — well best of luck with that!
I could hear the keyboards being hit by all the usual suspects who have spent the last year or more pounding away and filling column spaces endlessly.
Meanwhile the tram supporters know it is a great initiative but look at these forums and the intensity of the tram opposition with despair.
As I have stated before, I support the introduction of the tram network to Canberra. I support a fully integrated approach to transport including trams, buses, cycling, pedestrians and cars (and maybe even jetpacks!).
The absence of trams in Canberra is a legacy of earlier planners who fell under the spell of cars, roads and Big Petrol. This all started with the NCDC in the ’50s and ’60s and their ambition to build LA style freeways across the capital. Subsequent planning authorities up to the present, remain dominated by road planners who love their roads and cars and put everything else as optional extras. Hence we still have a mish mash of infrastructure for cycling, a dangerous mix of cycling, cars and pedestrians and the present attacks on trees and open spaces in favour of parking.
I look forward to the day when Canberra, as well as having an integrated transport system, has a whole of government and a more healthy culture towards walking and cycling (real leisure cycling – not lycra racing) and the provision of the required infrastructure.
At last with this latest call for feedback we have the beginnings of a plan for a Canberra tram network. This should have been done years ago. But alas – sometimes things happen the wrong way around.
The priority for the network should be to link to the main town centres, Tuggeranong, Woden, and Belconnen, as fast as possible. The link to the airport can wait.
The airport sale was a questionable deal that has left this major asset and all the land around the airport in private hands. If the owners of the airport now wish to have the tram join the airport, then that link should be funded by the major beneficiaries, the owners of the airport site.
A link to the nearest neighbours should be explored though discussions with the NSW Government about establishing a link to downtown Queanbeyan.
The document has placed a priority on having the tram within the Parliamentary triangle. This should not be on the top of the list, if at all. The tram lines to Woden and later to Queanbeyan (Kingston) could provide more than enough linkages to this tourist haven.
Providing locals, especially those in the outer suburbs, with access to the tram must be the top priority.
In amongst the questions being asked are some loaded ones about land development. Obviously these have been embedded into the survey by the LDA/directorate to see if they could glean some form of credibility for selling off more of the cherished green spaces along the future tram corridors.
I would urge people to ignore those options. I suggest over time there will certainly be hoards of new developments along these trams routes. However these decisions should be based on honest and transparent engagements with the residents when the time comes.
The present practice by the LDA/directorate to constantly misuse results from generalised survey questions as a basis for many dubious land sales and developments continues to a major assault on the intelligence and good-will of the Canberra electorate.
The urgent change of culture within the LDA/directorate needs to happen to allow discussions on the trams not to be meshed with the LDA/directorates’ own style of propaganda that endangers the light rail initiative.
In fact I suggest the planning minister needs to take charge of planning and urban development and through real engagement with the electorate deal with the all the complex issues of city building. These debates are currently taking place elsewhere – in Melbourne and overseas – but not here in Canberra. Here it is ‘economic development‘ with everything else a very low priority.
But I digress! So back to trams and the proposed light rail network.
It is a fantastic thing that the government is letting people know that there is long-term general planning – or at least wishful thinking – being considered for a more comprehensive network of trams across Canberra.
I hope people will read the documents online. Curiously their main document is hidden away to the side of the main page under ‘document library’. I suggest it should also be a main link at the top of the page.
I urge people to ignore the wads of propaganda, to seek out the useful information and to participate in the survey to build up the body of opinions about this aspect of Canberra’s future transport options.
As I said earlier, just watch out for the trick questions and tick boxes that could result in responses that will be misused to justify later mass attacks on green spaces.
As for the forum, sadly I expect this will be dominated by the oppositional serial commentators – so I will be ignoring what is going on there.
25 minutes to civic (12km). Means that Tuggeranong to Belconnen would be in the order of (32km) 90 minutes.
Plus extra time for stops.
The same trip is about 15 minutes in a car.
Canberra is pretty hilly so routing the tram around will mean either (a) Tunnels (b) inefficient routes or (c) a ‘network’ that only exists in a patch.
Since the tram was announced all we have heard about is (c).
“The priority for the network should be to link to the main town centres, Tuggeranong, Woden, and Belconnen, as fast as possible. The link to the airport can wait.”
Once again, Paul, I am in agreement. A rapid link between the major centres, promptly provided, should be the priority.
However, (because the bridges won’t support the weight of just adding a tram) it will require either the closure of one lane of vehicular traffic to provide one lane for a tram, (presumably 2 lanes on each bridge). That may have some implications for the rest of the bridge users, don’t you think ?
Alternately, it may be achieved by building new bridges. That may have some implications for the ACT budget, don’t you think?
“I look forward to the day when Canberra, as well as having an integrated transport system, has a whole of government and a more healthy culture towards walking and cycling (real leisure cycling – not lycra racing) and the provision of the required infrastructure.”
I look forward to this too Paul, however, I’m not holding my breath !
As a person with mobility difficulties, I can tell you I’m really becoming very frustrated by the ever deminishing places to find parking in Civic.
While I’m on the topic, can anyone tell me why “parents with prams” parking in shopping centres takes so much space close to the entrances? The other day, I got so annoyed & was in so much pain, I just went “disability trumps prams!” and parked.
“Providing locals, especially those in the outer suburbs, with access to the tram must be the top priority.”
Paul, I hate to be the one to point this out to you, since it would appear to have somehow slipped your notice, but transport has not been one of the priorities of this project at all !!!
It is & has been, from beginning to end, about selling land, changing zoning, turning it into apartments, shops, etc etc, making developers rich, (& probably also some of those “in the know”), and raising revenue.
But it has not been about public transport at any point. Transport is a by-product.
And that’s from the Minister’s own mouth at a Community Meeting, not something I’m making up
rubaiyat said :
The ACT doesn’t have any coal mines (yet) but this hasn’t stopped Minister Corbell declaring that the Canberra trams will be powered by renewables 100%, preferably from the local solar farms during the day and windfarms at night.
But, like SA just found out, the weather doesn’t always work to the plan so coal fired electricity must be purchased off the grid.
Does this will mean all Greens that use the trams will demand the trams stop until the sun is shining and the wind blows again?
ungruntled said :
And there I thought you were absolutely bereft of a sense of humour! 😀
This discussion just goes on and on.
If anyone is really interested in the pros & cons, or wants to look at the hard data, may I suggest they go to the Canthetram site.
It is easily searchable and seems to carry all the information that has been researched, not just everybody’s comments, without regard to the level of knowledge behind those comments.
Armed with some factual information, I suspect some of the conversations may take a very different twist.
dungfungus said :
South Australia has bugger all coal mines, how does that change anything?
If South Australia actually WAS more energy independent with local renewable energy then they wouldn’t have had the problem. And total eclipses do not happen often enough to be a practical concern.
dungfungus said :
The last sentence should continue “isn’t shining” (like today)
This is what happens in South Australia when the wind stops blowing:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/widespread-power-blackout-hits-adelaide/story-fni6uo1m-1227590229395?utm_content=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=EditorialSF&utm_source=AdelaideAdvertiser&utm_medium=Twitter%27
Our trams are going to run on renewables so what happens when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining?
Heavs said :
Possibly – probably. Who knows.
There is no way that current green spaces along or near the tram line will be all retained. Those will be needed for infill sooner or later. I would say that it is almost inevitable that currently underutilised sites such as the Dickson parklands, will be used for residential infill too.
So, the OP will not be able to have his cake and eat it too. I hope the OP and other pro-tramers enjoy the new “grown up” European style, Canberra.
chewy14 said :
Right on!
It’s as simple as that but they still wan’t accept it.
chewy14 said :
And I have shown that that is not true, complete with references and my calculations.
AGAIN you have shown nothing, just made another unsubstantiated assertion.
Given your other “facts” easily check out as only “say so” we give it the credit it is due.
rubaiyat said :
I’ve only ever presented figures that have been presented in the government’s own reports whereas you’ve consistently presented irrelevant figures comparing things like the total cost of owning cars vs light rail or overseas examples of capacity or mode.
Yes, it is all comparitive, which has been my argument all along. That the light rail cannot be justified based on demand predictions and costs in the current economic environment.
chewy14 said :
It has nothing to do with “like”. I drive when it makes sense or I have no choice. I also fly, bus, ferry, tram, rail, escalator, lift, cycle when that makes sense, which is most of the time.
You persist in the false notion that it is black or white, when it is comparative.
I am not demanding banning anything, which is what the CanTheTram lobby are demanding. The anti-rail reactionaries do not want an alternative, because they do not want a choice. With no options they can demand ever more roads, parking and pollution, to the usual result.
I am just pointing out how bad and damaging cars and freeways are as a transport option. They do not have a future, we have pretty well reached “Peak Car” and fro now on it is down hill.
The one thing about excess capacity is that it will be used. Freeways build in excess capacity, but it is not very large and gets very quickly exceeded because most of it is wasted. The one eyed perspective of drivers ignores how badly they use the very expensive and land hogging freeways.
The driver looks at full peak rail and not so full off-peak rail and sees a “problem” where there actually is no problem, that it is in fact the correct use of resources. Fully used when demand is high, run less when not so high.
The driver does not look at the largely empty cars with just one driver, stuck in stop start peak hour traffic, the largely empty off peak roads or the thousands of empty vehicles, going nowhere, littering our streets and open spaces as a problem, even though it is a HUGE waste of resources.
I have shown over and over again, that the total cost of the light rail is a fraction of the cost of the total cost of road plus vehicles and their consequences.
Maths frightens most people, so they avoid it. If there are any more than a few separate numbers to be calculated and added up to work out the real cost they just fudge it and go “I reckon…”.
They reckon wrong. Massively wrong.
BRT is very much a dirty, noisy and unpleasant option. It is not “half the cost” because the calculations mysteriously did not cost in the vehicles, drivers or other operational cost of the buses. It is a very bad stop gap because it only adds to the ultimate cost of the solution without contributing anything but more pollution in the interim.
Now you can actually advance this debate by doing some research and calculations. No more fudging and “I say” because we can all make wild guesses or even lie about all the options till the cows come home. I wasn’t particularly happy with the governments poor efforts so went off and did my own research and found the results quite interesting.
I actually started off questioning the Light Rail because I don’t like the route, still don’t for a number of reasons I have enumerated, but, and this is a big but, it will work as a means of clean transport for Gungahlin and as an alternative to bulldozing swathes of Canberra and inflicting a lot of pollution and noise on our suburbs. It will also be the start of a broader public transport solution, which Canberra desperately needs now that it is grown into a real city, and the densification that will take the pressure of urban sprawl. So win win IMHO.
wildturkeycanoe said :
All fine but a distraction. If it can be done, do it. What is stopping a tradie turning up at 11pm to “sort out a problem”?
Except he can’t even turn up on time any other time of the day. If at all.
Meanwhile people still pile in their cars or whatever transport in the peak hours for all sorts of reasons.
The difference is that in public transport they don’t do it 1.2 persons per vehicle and clog up the roads.
Rail based public transport keeps on schedule in the peak as well as the off peak periods. Drivers ignore the peak problems and persist in the self delusion that that is abnormal, not normal and the off peak is normal. You can not escape that a large number of people hauling around individual heavy vehicles is extremely inefficient, polluting, dangerous and consumes a lot of real estate and creates barriers to the movement of everyone else.
rubaiyat said :
Firstly, I thought you didn’t like roads and cars? Now you want to protect extra lanes on roads for cars over a public transport bus option?
But regardless of that, I’m really wondering why you believe that we need a transport mode capable of upscaling to 25000-40000 people per hour when the total current usage along the corridor is around 9000 per day and the Capital Metro numbers suggest that will increase to 20000 per day in 15-20 years time through densification of the area? The kind of numbers you’re talking about are a few generations away.
Why would you spend such a large amount of capital now when you could have a much cheaper option and upgrade to light rail when the demand actually materialises? Seems like a massive bet on what is a very unknown and fluid demand.
Light rail or bust?
rubaiyat said :
This is interesting. You say the roads are at capacity. That is true between the hours of “X” and “Y”, twice a day. The rest of the day you could set up a picnic in the middle lane and have tea. Instead of trying to work around a transport problem, why are we not looking at ways to eliminate the problem in the first place? Spread work hours around so that not everyone is trying to get to the same place at the same time. Work from home, seeing that most of what people do in their office could easily be done on their home internet connection. Congestion is caused mainly by gazetted work hours. The government wants to get rid of penalty rates for working after hours and weekends so make use of this philosophy and have people working around the clock on different shifts. Imagine if you could go and do a car registration at 11 PM or sort out a problem with your Centerlink payments at 3 in the morning.
If the push is on to change things and not say no simply because we don’t want change, then here is an opportunity to do something radically different that will solve a lot of issues and create some new jobs.
rubaiyat said :
Correction. The Melbourne City bus is yet to happen, they are still testing the bus, and it is not Geelong it is Yuroke.
For those who’d like to know more:
http://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/all-electric-bus-unveiled-in-melbourne-heading-to-sydney-on-one-charge/
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/adelaide-creates-worlds-first-solar-powered-public-transport-system-32530
http://gizmodo.com/adelaides-solar-buses-could-be-the-worlds-greenest-pu-1301379604
http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/em3945/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_bus
NB The Brighsun site is extremely sketchy and the Tindo has been around for a few years now but I can see no sign of it being expanded or any reasons why not. So I am guessing early days and other factors we have not been told about.