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Canberra Today 25°/28° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Total lack of planning for Capital Metro funding exposed

Bordeaux light rail

THE Property Council has taken to social media alarmed by Andrew Barr flying kites in the Canberra Times over just where he’s going to find the hundreds of millions of dollars needed for the planned light rail network.

“Any proposal to introduce a levy for property owners along the Capital Metro light rail corridor will be strongly opposed by the Property Council,” said Property Council supremo Catherine Carter.

Perhaps more significantly the non-existence funding model has been sharply exposed for a project that, after cost overruns, seems certain to cost north of a billion dollars.

With very expensive people already engaged to work on the Capital Metro project it’s one hell of a way to run a railroad.

(It is instructive to remember this 12km line from Civic to Gungahlin is (optimistically) projected to cost around half the price of the 1,400km Alice Springs to Darwin line which also involved bridging the Katherine, Elizabeth, Adelaide, Cullen, Fergusson and Edith rivers.)

Andrew Barr is reportedly off to Hong Kong seeking to borrow money for his grand designs.

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

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