“If the absurd light rail network is not stopped, how will we answer the next generation when they ask: “Why did you permit the government to shoulder us with great debt for a slow, outdated transport system?” writes BEATRICE BODART-BAILEY.

Can someone please explain to me why we should be embedding magnetic nails into our roads and rip them up to fortify them for the weight of trackless trams?

Especially when the latest buses, such as those in Brisbane, look like light rail and trackless trams and provide all the comforts of the latter two.

The big advantage of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is that – as our Rapid buses already do today – they service not only the main lines, such as Civic to Woden, but also take passengers further to where they live without having to get up from their seats.

For instance, the R4 bus continues from Woden on to Tuggeranong at one end and from Civic to Belconnen at the other and could go to further outlying suburbs if required.

With only the modest expense of providing “bus only” priority lanes throughout, this service would be even more rapid and certainly preferable to the government’s documented plan of turning the R4 into a local bus between Lanyon and Woden, forcing commuters from Tuggeranong to change to a slow tram at Woden, trackless or not, winding its way around the parliamentary triangle to Civic.

Am I the only person who is amused when those supervising the endless trucking of soil for the new 1.7 kilometres of tramline justify the cost, the traffic problems and pollution the work is causing with the claim that they are laying the foundations for the transport of the next one hundred years? 

A claim made in an age where one’s car is out of date in 10 years, one’s laptop in five and one’s phone even earlier, and robotaxis are already providing efficient transport in several US cities.

By the time the government promises the first rides on the Civic-to-Woden tram, robotaxis and robo-buses of all sizes are likely to provide efficient door-to-door transport for the decreasing numbers of commuters elsewhere and the only long-enduring item left in Canberra is the debt created by the present government.

As to the criticism of developers and those investing in luxury accommodation that BRT does not give the assurance that there will be permanent stops to justify investment in housing construction, one might ask whether such concerns should have priority over efficient transport for the rest of the public not plagued by such thoughts.

Moreover, the government could provide assurance for continued operation by furnishing stops and buses with the new Chinese fast-charging battery system that can add 400 kilometres of range in just five minutes, eliminating the cost for new bus depots and for having to keep buses out of circulation for charging.

Further, more elaborate bus stops where small convenience shops are combined with seated waiting areas protecting passengers from the increasingly bad weather of climate change would contribute to the convenience of public transport and the feeling that the stop is there to stay.

Then there is the erroneous claim that decades of Labor rule indicates that the public loves the tram.

Certainly, those who can afford to live next to a stop love it, but that is at most 10 per cent of Canberra’s population. The rest must pay for it and is motivated to vote Labor by the opposition’s threat to abolish public service jobs rather than a tram, which is of no use to the majority.

The loss of the Greens at the last election, as initiator of the tram, does not support the assumption that the tram is a vote-winner, especially now that the financial cost is becoming apparent.

In fact, the construction of the tram is unlikely to have been tolerated if in 2012 the government had not deceived the public by keeping secret the comparison of light rail with BRT, which was documenting that the latter would cost half and bring twice the income plus the same development of the area.

Did the then chief minister, our present federal minister for finance, fail to understand that accepting to pay twice the amount for light rail than BRT for the initial line, the comprehensive Canberra transport network crossing the lake planned by the Greens would cost at least double the amount of an equivalent BRT network?

Has the present chief minister any idea how to finance the next step of this grandiose plan when the government debt per person of the ACT’s population is already a multiple of the similar per person debt of the rest of Australia’s population?

I’m not a fan of Elon Musk, but his recent statement that supporting the outdated endangers the future contains a kernel of truth. 

For Canberrans it means that if the absurd plan of covering the ACT with a light rail network multiple the cost of BRT is not stopped now, how will we answer the next generation when they are old enough to ask “why did you permit the government to shoulder us with great debt for a slow, outdated transport system, downgrading the environment and sacrificing trees of our bush capital?” 

Historian Beatrice Bodart-Bailey is an honorary professor at the ANU School of Culture, History and Language and an emeritus professor of the Department of Comparative Culture, Otsuma Women’s University, Tokyo.

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