Canberra has two months to get its act together on a business case for light rail, an Infrastructure Australia Advisory Council spokesman said yesterday.
Professor Peter Newman turned on its head the notion that Canberra could not afford light rail, saying entrepreneurs around the world were driving cities' economic development by building light rail networks.
The ACT Government revealed yesterday that it had committed $500,000 for an independent business case to be presented to Infrastructure Australia, but a spokeswoman for Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said no date was set for the study's completion.
Canberra Business Council and the Conservation Council ACT Region are working to increase community support for light rail and invited Professor Newman, director of Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, to speak on the issue.
He said Canberra was at a turning point and needed partnerships between business and community groups.
The Federal Government's infrastructure agenda was not about funds dropping from heaven, but about creating a city for a more sustainable, less car-dependent future.
''You've got a couple of months to get your act together,'' he said.
''Some cities' business cases are a little more advanced, but not by much.''
The Gold Coast, Newcastle, Hobart, Darwin, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne either had light rail on the agenda or were expanding existing light rail networks.
Australian Institute of Architects ACT Chapter president David Flannery said a Civic-to- Canberra Airport link had been proposed but he thought a route linking Civic and Watson's residential area was preferable.
Early industrial cities ran on iron and water power, then steam and rail, then electricity and trams, followed by the chemical era and cars.
Canberra was developed in the chemical and car era, even though it was designed for trains.
In 1991, Professor Newman wrote a report titled ''Towards A More Sustainable Canberra'' proposing light rail and said it came very close to being implemented.
Any way it was viewed, from productivity, health, economic or sustainability, light rail came out as a desirable solution.
In cities in the United States, people who had moved to outlying area and depended on their cars to drive to work could no longer afford their mortgages, and their suburbs were being boarded up and closed.
''There is no way we'll do that in Australia. If we do it would be a complete failure of our planning,'' Professor Newman said.
He showed a graphic of Sydney suburbs, indicated in red, which were vulnerable for the same reason, but the good news was green belts among the red indicated rail routes, which fully used could halve dependence on cars.
A new era in sustainability in which peak oil production could see petrol rise to $8 a litre required serious adjustment in transport.
People were saying it would be great to see oil come back to $US110 a barrel, but last year it was only $US40 a barrel.
Economists in general said that when demand rose, supply would be found, but he thought a bigger transition was a more likely scenario.
''The big question is, is this going to ruin our economy, or is it an opportunity?
''From my perspective, it is an opportunity.''