We're chopping the parking to save the planet?

Here’s an idea for you that will be in my submission:
Close the Belconnen Bus Depot and relocate it to cheaper land Mitchell. Establish a park n ride interchange at the northern end EPIC carparks – making use of carparks that are empty 99.9% of the year. Buses collect around Gungahlin and drop people to EPIC, or you can drive or treddle there (bicycle lockers provided). Express buses run every 5-7 minutes during peak from EPIC down Northbourne to the city.
Similar arrangement for serious park n ride at Belconnen.
The key problem with th buses is that the one bus does all the suburban collecting then runs all the way into the city. You get 3 or 4 buses all nose to tail down Northbourne all the time. Dumb. Divide the suburban collectors and the express services. Make them synch at the various interchanges to minimise changeover time. Lots of FREE parking at park n rides. Then you have the start of a bus service that could work.

There should definitely be more park n ride.

People will go to great lengths to get cheaper parking, walking to town from the Rex, Anzac Park West and the Lake, so I’m sure people would take up Park n ride. As long as the ‘ride’ is reliable.

Well Mael that rules out a lot of employment opportunities for you then doesn’ it? Like every single city in Australia. Not to mention that you are paying every time you turn the key in your car.
That home-based web business is looking good…

Al, anywhere where you have to pay to be able to go to work is rubbish.

Here we go again: “Canberra is a car city”. FFS!

A city is whatever you make it. If enough people whack in submissions to the bus review Action has been embarrassed into, then they will have to take notice and do something about making Canberra NOT a car city!

A submission doesn’t have to be much. VY’s comment above is enough – just email it to committees@parliament.act.gov.au
The bus inquiry info is here: http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/committees/index1.asp?committee=55&inquiry=712
Do it before 18 May.

As for “stunning news” JB, the city has the lowest office vacancy rates in 16 years. And putting office blocks at Gungahlin is exactly the sort of thing that needs to happen, because many public servants DO live there and if they can work where they live, they do not have to drive/park in the city. What is so hard to understand about that?
McMullen is exactly on the money and I look forward to a commitment from an incoming Labor Federal Government to do something about it.

I think people are starting to fall for Catherine Carter’s regular bleatings in the CityNews that we have a “parking crisis in Civic”. Codswallop!

McMullen didn’t say “most” public servants live in Gungahlin, he say “many”. Big difference.

He does have a point too. There is currently very little employment in Gungahlin, hence the net traffic flow in the morning is heavily weighted towards those departing. Increased employment opportunities would see this change, as many of the people living in the area would work locally.

I still don’t see why they can’t implement some cheaper version of park’n’ride.

there may be parking available for casual shoppers now, but what about workers? How much is all day parking in those multistorey carparks?

And I think they are still planning to demolish a couple more carparks – the one by the pool and the one to the left of Canberra Theatre.

What amazes me is McMullan’s quote that “most public servants” live in Gungahlin. There’s no way this can actually be accurate — maybe he meant that most public servants live in places outside the Inner North/South, but then again that’s true of most of Canberra, not just public servants.

Its time for action. Went to leave the motorcycle in that lane opposite Canberra Centre the other day and it was full up – with those damn vespa thingies. Morew motorcycle parking is needed urgently.