Territory and Municipal Services Minister Shane Rattenbury considers it makes sense for the ACT government to spend more than half as much money on bicycle and bus transport as it does on roads even though just 10.5 per cent of the city's commuters use buses and bikes.
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The Dutch-bicycle riding Greens MP said Canberra's reliance on cars was unsustainable. The shift towards bicycles and public transport needed to be ramped up immediately.
Mr Rattenbury also said cyclists and motorists needed to end their war, get out of the trenches and adjust attitudes to make riding and driving safer and more enjoyable.
The 2011 census showed only 2.8 per cent of Canberra commuters rode bikes to work; about 5 per cent walked and 7.7 per cent caught a bus. The balance, or 141,666, people, travelled by car.
''They are the sorts of numbers we need to start working on now to change over a period of time,'' Mr Rattenbury said. ''Certainly we've seen in the last few years a significant increase in bike usage.''
This year the ACT government is spending $147 million on road-related projects - about $408 for every man, woman and child. While current-year figures cannot be calculated for bus and bike transport until ACTION's 2013-14 financial results are in, each ACT resident forked out $261 to subsidise these in 2010-11.
The latest BiXE (Bike Expenditure) report says the ACT spent $26 per person on bicycle projects in that period. The Canberra Times has previously reported ACT residents underwrote the cost of ACTION Buses to the tune of $84 million, or $235 per person, in 2010-11.
''We need to provide people with a good alternative to the private vehicle so that they do see it as an attractive option,'' the minister said. ''There are plenty of people who just go to work and back and for whom, if we can provide a good public transport system, we don't need to keep building ever larger roads.''
He said the car-driven transport culture developed with the growth of decentralised villages around the city hub was not appropriate in an era of rising costs and anticipated fuel and materials shortages.
A car-dependent city would face worse problems to come, Mr Rattenbury said, with congestion, pollution and issues around fuel prices putting pressures on households.
That was why light rail, with its ability to transform Canberra and reinvent the way in which the city comes to work, made sense, he said. ''The traditional benefit cost ratio for light rail is 2.34. For every dollar you spend the economic return to the territory is $2.34.''
Cost estimates for a light rail project have ranged between $700 million and $860 million. ''Similar amounts have been spent on roads in and out of Gungahlin in the last decade. If you add up the cost of the [Gungahlin Drive Extension] and the Majura Parkway they come to about $600 million, and nobody has really batted an eyelid.''
Mr Rattenbury said antagonism between cyclists and drivers was keeping many people, especially women, from riding to work. ''The cycling promotion fund released a study earlier this year that looked at why women didn't ride,'' he said. ''It wasn't helmet hair, which is the joke people often make, but issues around safety. Women want to see more separation of cyclists from vehicles.
''I'd like people to get out of the trenches; it is not a war - it can't be - and that requires change from both sides. There are some car drivers who are very unfair to cyclists and there are some cyclists who do dangerous things on the roads.''
