This is a welcome development but comes 10 years after Talgo train company manager Mr Guillermo Martinez and I met in 2016 with the ACT, NSW and Federal Government transport representatives. At that time, Mr Martinez offered to provide a fast tilt train complete with carriages AND upgrade the line from Canberra to Sydney – to provide a two-and-a-half-hour service between Canberra and Sydney – for $100 million. This looks rather like déjà vu less the fast train set.

Does nobody else consider it absurd that the Federal Budget provides a mere $50 Million to upgrade a rail service between Sydney and Canberra where daily some 3.000 people travel by either coach or air plus tens of thousands more commute by car on the Federal Highway? A 2016 study for a fast (NOT very fast) train estimated that there would be demand from 10.68 million passengers per annum, or 29,273/day. With the population increase in the last decade that number would be considerably higher. Not just the CO2 but, more important, the lives saved by a fast train as an alternative to using the accident-prone highway would be significant.
Compare this sum with the approx. $6 Billion estimated to bring a non-climate-resilient tram from Civic across to Woden with the required bridges and tunnels, destroying the uniqueness of our parliamentary triangle. Passenger numbers will be low, regardless of whether the rapid bus (taking approx. half the time of the proposed tram extension) is continued or not. Few commuters will put up with doubling the time of their commute and the use of private, shared cars (in a few years’ time, driverless) will increase if the rapid bus is discontinued. If it is not who, except the few residing within an easy walk to a tram stop (even fewer during the extreme weather events of climate change) will want to daily ramble around parliament house? Moreover, buses around the parliamentary triangle are not well patronized with free parking for those working in parliament house and most others earning sufficient to not wanting to waste their precious time on public transport.
Of course, the required odd $6 Billion for the extension of the tram will have to come out of the ACT budget where, as Jon Stanhope and Khalid Ahmed have repeatedly shown, the debt has already mounted to crushing proportions. Any amounts from the Federal budget are later equalized, that is, are subtracted from the GST the ACT would otherwise receive; a fact a number of politicians seem to be blissfully unaware of.
A fraction of the money saved by not extending the tram to Woden could be used turning the Kingston Railway Station compound into a welcoming and convenient environment for tourists and business travelers alike with direct rapid bus connections to the airport, Woden, Tuggeranong, Gungahlin and beyond in addition to the existing ones.
The ACT’s quest for an increase in tourists would beyond doubt be far better served by not ruining the world-wide unique bush setting of parliament house and instead provide public transport to some of Canberra’s interesting locations, such as the Canberra Zoo and Aquarium, and the National Arboretum. The increase of tourists at Canberra’s innumerable festivals, sporting and cultural events plus visitors to national institutions might it even make it profitable for the ACT to offer more than the proposed $25 million to the project, funding the additional amount by soliciting donations from those who will profit from the increase in tourists and setting up state lotteries as an alternative for gambling elsewhere in the Territory.