ACT Labor has promised to spend $750,000 on a free bus service around the heart of Canberra for most of the centenary year if re-elected.
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It comes as Chief Minister Katy Gallagher confirmed she would continue the work of her predecessor Jon Stanhope and push her federal colleagues for paid parking in the Parliamentary Triangle.
''I just think it has to be paid parking in the Parliamentary Triangle, there is real parking pressure there,''' she said, adding work would continue to try to improve public transport for workers. If the free bus service during the centenary year proved popular with workers in the Triangle, there was every possibility it could be made permanent.
''If it works, why wouldn't we?''
The service is being billed as an opportunity to relieve parking pressure in the Parliamentary Triangle, particularly as more visitors are expected during the centenary year.
The 2013 Centenary Loop would provide half hourly services, 18 trips per day starting at 9am to 5.30pm, serviced by three buses. It would run from February 1 to December 31, 2013.
Labor would spend $340,000 this financial year and $410,000 next financial year to pay for the service. Ms Gallagher said the service was proposed to operate with specially branded Centenary of Canberra ACTION buses. It would be in addition to existing services. The route would run from Capital Hill across Commonwealth Avenue Bridge to Civic along Constitution Avenue to Russell, across Kings Avenue Bridge, through the Parliamentary Triangle and back to Capital Hill.
