The Gungahlin Drive Extension and uncompleted Majura Parkway project should remind commuters every peak hour investing in new roads doesn't relieve traffic congestion. Both roads are designed to divert traffic from the middle of the city to avoid congestion even though, for many years, studies across the world have found instead of overcoming slower travel times, new roads make congestion worse, or shift the problem elsewhere.
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No sooner had the GDE been completed than pressure began to upgrade link roads into the city centre.
Transport planners say the Majura Parkway, which will extend the duplicated Monaro Highway from Molonglo River to the Federal Highway, will be at capacity by 2026. Its partial opening is already filling rapidly at peak-hour traffic times. After its completion next year, commuters should expect more pressure on Fairbairn and Pialligo Avenues, two major thoroughfares previously recommended for duplication, even though, as history has shown, any relief would be temporary.
While Canberra's road network is unsurpassed in Australian cities, with average commute times at least 10 minutes lower than those for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, that advantage is declining, according to the 2014-15 State of Australian Cities report. From 2002 to 2012 Canberra recorded the largest increase in average commuting times of major cities, with average commuting times rising by 7.9 minutes.
New roads reach capacity faster for several reasons, including that their funding is often at the expense of public transport. Canberrans are routinely confronted by a $100 million-a-year bus service that fails to hit key performance measurers of patronage and operating costs per kilometre. But we can only guess what the outcome would be if more investment over the years was made in dedicated bus routes, with traffic-light priority, comfortable, well-lit and maintained bus shelters and reliable services. Improvements like real time running information should be more widespread across the bus network.
If all these improvements were done instead of duplicating major commuter roads and increasing car parking spaces, the bus network's performance measurers would likely be much better.
Canberrans are weighing up whether light rail will return $1 billion worth of benefits to the traffic challenge, including relieving congestion. It is a defining issue for our major political parties and will intensify as the election looms in 2016. During this period, it is worth reflecting on how well our taxpayer dollars for transport have been spent over the past 50 years, as a pointer for the next 50 years.
As well as the bus network, consider what role heavy rail, a higher capacity and quicker but far more expensive option than light rail, might have played. Heavy rail was planned to run from Goulburn to Bungendore, Queanbeyan to Kingston, into the city and continue on to Yass, and to Cooma. It has surely missed its moment. But had this permanent spine of heavy rail been integrated into the transport network and guided Canberra's development from the beginning it is conceivable the commuter load into the city's centre from the north, south and east would be significantly lighter, today and for many years to come..
