News - Transport

At the GCC June meeting, we had ACTION General Manager Tom Elliott, accompanied by Tim Swift (Network Planning) and Liz Clarke (Stakeholder Relationships).

A very constructive discussion covered most of topics that we raised in our submission (65.54 KB) to the ACT Government's Inquiry into ACTION, and Mr Elliott was able to add valuable explanations and clarification.

Points covered by Mr Elliott and discussions around those topics follow.

ACT Budget:

ACTION comes under the Office of Transport. It has to make submissions for its needs like any other department. In the 2007-08 budget it has $8 million to purchase 16 new gas-fuelled buses. There are 379 now in the fleet, of which only 54 so far are the new gas-fuelled (green and white) ones. With an average life of 20 years and at a replacement rate of just 16 per year, this equates to 20 years before they are all updated. Mr Elliott did concede that 'diesel is killing us', from which we have to ask whether a cost-benefit analysis has been done on ramping up the speed of conversion to the new buses? One thing is for sure - the old buses are very uncomfortable, particularly on longer runs like from Gungahlin. The sooner they're gone the better!

Annual operating costs for ACTION are around $85M against ticketing revenue of $20M. The government's own Sustainable Transport Plan pointed out that public transport is an investment rather that a cost, with a benefit to cost ration of between 2.0 and 3.0 for every dollar spent on public transport improvements.

Budget funds were also allocated for a new ticketing system, at a cost of $8M. We questioned whether this would be necessary if bus services were free - off-set by reduced road construction costs. Mr Elliott advised that it would be needed regardless, as they need a system to give them accurate passenger data for route and service planning.

Gungahlin Specific:

Mr Elliott spoke on the problem of land allocation where there is no land planned for a Gungahlin Bus Interchange, but there will clearly need to be some sort of facility in the future. This is something on which we are going to have to press ACTPLA and the LDA - before all the land has gone under more townhouses...

Express services to Civic and Belconnen will be required, with feeder services coming to a central point from surrounding areas.

A depot move from Belconnen to Mitchell would be too expensive, but ACTION would be keen to secure the old TotalCare site on Sandford Street Mitchell, which would be ideal for a satellite depot. It has a gas main running at the front and is good, flat land. The gas supply would be critical to securing services using the new gas-fuelled (and comfortable!) buses, and the current refuelling station is at Tuggeranong. This explains why we don't currently get any of the new buses up our way.

Mr Elliott agreed that Park-n-Ride is a good concept and ACTION will shortly have an enquiry about this, but believes Mitchell a better site than EPIC. Ian Ruecroft and I argued in favour of EPIC, as it would pick up commuters coming in from the north along Federal Highway, plus could use the existing car parking areas at little additional costs - mainly lighting, security cameras and signage. Mr Elliott agreed that a pilot of the idea could be worth investigating.

Northbourne Avenue:

We discussed the concept of a 'tidal flow' bus lane down the middle of Northbourne Avenue. Tidal flow means a single lane only, with express buses using it inbound in the mornings and outbound during the afternoons. Return services would just use the usual traffic lanes, as would local pick-up services. We pointed out that this would eliminate express services from Gungahlin getting caught in the 'conga line' of buses running nose to tail down Northbourne in the mornings. ACTION believed it would have crossroads problems and bus priority measures would be needed. However we were able to point out that in actual fact no traffic crosses over the middle during a significant part of the traffic light cycle, meaning a quick run for buses that don't need to pick anyone up.

Service Planning:

ACTION advised that the present route plan was developed in 1998, and has many long, meandering routes. A major research project will commence soon, using bus stop surveys, is to be conducted to determine commuter use. There will be further community consultation later this year, perhaps August to October, to obtain feedback on planning. New schedules will be planned early in 2008, with implementation at the commencement of school Term 2, 2008.

Jenny Daly from the Gungahlin Regional Community Service raised the question of ACTION and community transport, and if it was possible to have transport to integrate the various Community Service Centres across Canberra. ACTION, with some contracts, does have a limited role. Jenny was asked to make further contact with ACTION about community transport issues.

Roma Hosking made the point that while there will always be many people who need to use their car because of things like school drop-offs, but the aim of ACTION planning should be to allow people to do away with the second car.

I raised the success of the 'Downtowner' service in the Brisbane CBD. They said that it had been tried before but as more of a tourist service with a mock tram instead of a proper bus service. The idea would be considered as part of the planning process.

Majura Road service:

I raised the issue of a bus service down Majura Road to the airport and Brindabella Park, and explained the very strong support we had from Gungahlin residents for the idea. The initial response from Mr Elliott was dead against it, given the way the development at the airport has ridden roughshod over ACT planning. But we argued that like it or not the development is there now, and the people who have to work there don't have a choice, but do have a right to expect equivalent services from their government that everyone else receives.

We pointed out that the government is planning to spend some $150M upgrading Majura Road when it doesn't even have a single bus service. ACTION argued further that it would be hard to provide a timely bus service given the traffic problems, but we countered that we had around 70 people respond to just one small survey - around two bus fulls each way a day. It wouldn't take too much more patronage of buses to start making a serious dint in those traffic problems. Eventually Mr Elliott agreed we had some points and they would investigate the issue. However I feel we still have a way to go with this argument, and you the potential users of the service will need to make your feelings known. Make sure you complete their new survey here .

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