MORE than $132 million of federal funding has been committed to getting the light rail from Civic to Commonwealth Park.
The federal government made the announcement this morning (February 24), with Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Michael McCormack saying the Australian government’s $132.5 million commitment for Stage 2A of light rail will help make the project a reality.
“Extending the light rail will also create jobs and bust congestion in the ACT by improving public transport and pedestrian and cyclist safety,” he said.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr welcomed the announcement, emphasising the importance of the project for the territory.
Construction of Stage 2A is expected to start in 2022 and will add 1.7km of “wire free” tracks from Alinga Street through to Commonwealth Park.
Following Stage 2A, the ACT government have said it’s committed to extending the light rail track to Woden.
This contribution amounts to less than 1 per cent of the total light rail expected cost of $18 billion.
Lol Chris – get your point but its a bit disingenuous to be fair – that I assume includes a wide variety of assumptions about future legs. Given how long it’ll take them to ever build them, I hope it includes a pretty strong discount rate to take account of the time value of money haha!
Something from the C/W is better than nothing, and at least this time the ACT didn’t have to flog off a bunch of assets to get the contribution. None of that is to say 2A or 2 makes any sense at all