Red Hill resident Paul McGlew wanted one thing from the ACT budget: funding certainty for Woden Seniors.
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But while the Phillip organisation did not receive a mention in the budget papers released on Tuesday there were other measures that earned Mr McGlew's tick of approval.
More than $53.5 million has been budgeted over the next term of government to put together the business case and procure services to bring the tram from Civic to Woden.
Mr McGlew said he carried some reservations about how the project would be funded and said he was unsure how well utilised it would be by Canberra seniors.
"[But] that would be fantastic," he said.
"The worrying thing is that what they're doing for Civic to Gungahlin is really sensible - the difference with bringing it through to Woden is there's not that level of urbanisation close to the main road that would be able to access it.
"It's kind of early days in the light rail."
The government will build a new bus depot at Phillip to accommodate up to 120 buses, off the back of plans to extend Canberra's bus network. As well, the government will introduce a new Green Rapid from Woden to city via Manuka, plus two months of free travel.
Seniors and concessional MyWay card holders can continue to enjoy free travel in off-peak periods for an extra six months.
"That would be of real benefit to us given our highly mobile Canberra community like to park their cars in our carpark and there's always a bit of congestion," Mr McGlew said.
Weston Creek will receive a share in $500,000 to design a new nurse-led walk-in centre. Mr McGlew said medical services were "always useful".
However, the Woden Seniors president will continue to push for funding certainty for his organisation.
"My main concern would be to have some ongoing minimum contribution from the government to contribute to the running of our facilities of the seniors club [for] some certainty around planning," Mr McGlew said.
"We have to go cap in hand to clubs with poker machines and given the ageing demographics in Woden and surrounding areas I don't think it's a particularly sensible way of funding services for seniors."
- With Katie Burgess
