Work begins on a sustainable transport plan

damien haas said :

ACT Light Rail were not invited, but one of our members did attend as they work for one of the bodies invited.

Their comments are as follows:

1.

The entire workshop was heavily stage-managed with virtually no scope for open discussion between participants except at the tables where attendees were seated ie about 6 per table.
2.

There was no opportunity to question the representative of the consulting firm who was engaged to prepare the report.
3.

We were all asked to do 2 things at each table – nominate the positives and negatives of the current bus system & nominate the 3 most critical issues. That was the extent of the consultation and the effort to solicit views from the audience. We had only about 10 minutes to reach agreement on nominating the 3 most significant issues to address in the Action Plan- quite ridiculous.

In summary as far as a consultation process with the stakeholder groups involved, it was a sham. There would have been many good ideas to be aired from the wide variety of people there but there was no opportunity to share views with anyone sitting at other tables. There also was no opportunity for representatives of each table to report back to the workshop as a whole in a meaningful way.

End Comment

regards

Damien Haas

Chair, ACT Light Rail

It is a shame Light Rail hasn’t been considered simply because funding wasn’t granted by the Commonwealth. What an opportunity for Stanhope to inject the ACT enconomy with a stimulus package and go into more debt! Seriously, they could have at least considered money to develop feasibility studies (real ones) and also setting aside transport corridors for a system in the future.

Damien, what are the stats re: population size of Canberra and transport options when compared to other similar sized cities of the world? Interesting to see how backward we are. I know we are considerably one of the highest users of private vehicles in the world –over and above most USA cities.

I could also argue and rant that Light Rail (well actually trams but still close) was part of the Griffin plan and I know for a fact Parkes Way was not. Of course I think the Plan as idealistic rubbish anyway but it seems a lot of Territorians seem to put that card on the table and reference it. So let’s consider the Plan’s merits. After all, it is only reason why Northbourne Ave is so wide!

ACT Light Rail were not invited, but one of our members did attend as they work for one of the bodies invited.

Their comments are as follows:

1. The entire workshop was heavily stage-managed with virtually no scope for open discussion between participants except at the tables where attendees were seated ie about 6 per table.
2. There was no opportunity to question the representative of the consulting firm who was engaged to prepare the report.
3. We were all asked to do 2 things at each table – nominate the positives and negatives of the current bus system & nominate the 3 most critical issues. That was the extent of the consultation and the effort to solicit views from the audience. We had only about 10 minutes to reach agreement on nominating the 3 most significant issues to address in the Action Plan- quite ridiculous.

In summary as far as a consultation process with the stakeholder groups involved, it was a sham. There would have been many good ideas to be aired from the wide variety of people there but there was no opportunity to share views with anyone sitting at other tables. There also was no opportunity for representatives of each table to report back to the workshop as a whole in a meaningful way.

End Comment

regards

Damien Haas

Chair, ACT Light Rail

We seem to be casting around trying to make sense of the unusual group of people around the round table because the full list of 40 people has not been published, only various random selections of it.

Perhaps the minions in Corbell’s office churning out press releases could have attached the full list of invited round tablers to the media release on the ACT Government’s website.

Or is this something that Johnboy is able to get hold of as a respected media person.

Then us lowly citizens could have useful discussions about whether there seems to be a reasonable and representative selection of potential round tablers.

Otherwise we seem to be in this process of questioning who has and hasnn’t been invited to round table and being told that we should assume that anyone who should be asumed to be invited would have been invited and perhaps, by implication, that we would be being unreasonable if we assumed that those who haven’t been invited were invited because it would clearly be unreaonable for them to be invited.

I would be interested to know, for example, if ACT Light Rail has been invited, if we should assume they have been invited, or if we should assume that it would be unreasonable for them to be invited.

It would have useful to have the actual list of those invited provided on the web site so that we could actually see what is going on.

So the Property Council and the NRMA are not “one trick ponies”??

Re “ACT Government’s submission to fund a light rail network….. Mr Stanhope said in the absence of Commonwealth funding the program was not viable in the short to medium-term”. Interesting that an absence of Commonwealth funding has not deterred the ACT Government in its commitment to major roads projects.

Anyway, why light rail when the Government is pursuing electric cars?

One initiative that won’t be in the 2010-16 plan is light rail, after the Commonwealth through Infrastructure Australia recently rejected the ACT Government’s submission to fund a light rail network. Mr Stanhope said in the absence of Commonwealth funding the program was not viable in the short to medium-term. ‘‘In the context of our current population and density levels, the cost benefit of light rail does not favour pursuing it now.’

Rather than light rail rolling on, looks like the bogie has fallen off.

PigDog said :

I just think they should use terms correctly and don’t like the spin. Don’t say it is sustainable when you actually mean ‘towards sustainability’ – even the electric car people say ‘more sustainable’. And unless they are talking light rail, why do we say public transport instead of bus? We can say walking instead of self propelled human propulsion, but instead of bus we say public transport.

Fair enough Pig Dog, a little picky but fair enough.

PigDog said :

What I do claim though is that it is a plan to make it harder for me to park my car. That’s what I like to do with it when I am not driving it. They are not offering incentives for me to use these other options beyond a disincentive to drive.

I must agree with you on that one, reducing parking space doesn’t concern me a whole lot, but doing so without providing viable alternatives to car transport is utterly foolish.

“The members of the roundtable as listed in Corbell’s press release don’t include Pedal Power, ACT Light Rail or the Conservation Council.I wonder why these groups have been left out.”

The Ministers original media release said that participants “include”… followed by a list of attending organisations- ie it did not claim to be a full list of who is attending. Today’s Canberra Times story confirms that Pedal Power will be there. I would have thought their participation so obvious that they scarcely needed to be listed.

Arescarti42,

I never claimed that there is a public transport system that makes a profit (there might be some, but I agree that it is not realistic in Canberra), nor did I say cars are any better or worse for society.

I just think they should use terms correctly and don’t like the spin. Don’t say it is sustainable when you actually mean ‘towards sustainability’ – even the electric car people say ‘more sustainable’. And unless they are talking light rail, why do we say public transport instead of bus? We can say walking instead of self propelled human propulsion, but instead of bus we say public transport.

What I do claim though is that it is a plan to make it harder for me to park my car. That’s what I like to do with it when I am not driving it. They are not offering incentives for me to use these other options beyond a disincentive to drive.

It’s the same old story, if you stack a board with the people who give the right answers, then you can be confident of getting the right answers.