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Coe questions just how many of us will be able to catch the tram

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LESS than 10% of Canberra’s population will be within walking distance of a light rail stop according to the Liberals’ Alistair Coe.

“The data shows that if people are willing to walk 800 meters for light rail, 7% of Canberrans will be within walking distance,” Alistair said.

“If people are only prepared to walk 400 meters, as is the distance used by ACTION for their route planning, only 3% of Canberrans will be within walking distance.

“Further to this, approximately 5000 people who live in the notional catchment around the city will have no need to use the service.

“The Opposition is very concerned that the catchment area for light rail will not support a viable system,

“Given more than 90% of Canberra’s population will still need cars, buses or bicycles, the project will hardly be ‘transformational’ as over-promised by the Government.

“The ACT Government should present all the data used to underpin their decision to go ahead with light rail,” Alistair concluded.

These calculations, however, probably don’t account for planned high density re-development of the Northbourne corridor.

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3 Responses to Coe questions just how many of us will be able to catch the tram

Jen says: 10 July 2014 at 9:38 am

Completely agree with Alistair – his initial proposal of having the light rail travel to the parliamentary triangle, kingston, manuka, ANU, etc was much better. No-one will be using this, trust me. I’m so tired of this govt only looking after those living in the sticks – it just doesn’t make sense??

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ozfairtrade says: 10 July 2014 at 9:45 am

Why are politicians always cherry picking statistics? Opposition hasn’t taken into account the growth of the population or the number of people who would ride bike or park car and then catch the tram. Tram is a much better option than bus, and to any educated mind, it needs to be built before the population actually grows. Look what happened to George Street in Sydney? We should learn from the mistakes of others.

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Neil says: 11 July 2014 at 10:24 am

Why is a tram better than a bus? If a bus has a dedicated path and does not mix with traffic (just like a tram) I see the bus is a much better solution when compared with a very expensive tram. Use the plans for the tram track and replace the rails with a bus lane (similar to an O-Bahn) and Canberra could have an efficient and cost effective public transport solution delivered in stages well before any tram could be ready for passengers.

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