If there is one thing that would get Canberra's voters to finally pay attention to the election, it's probably roads and transport.
The ACT's roads are a source of constant complaint among motorists and cyclists alike, while long-suffering bus users must wait for infrequent buses which don't always connect to other infrequent buses.
The city is built around major roads and large roundabouts, making it almost impossible to walk through.
And a vocal group of Canberrans is keen to see other transport solutions such as a light-rail network or a high-speed train linking the capital to Sydney or Melbourne.
Both parties offer transport policies made up of a few large projects and smaller scale works such as improvements to the cycle path network.
Labor has made very few new announcements in the field, preferring to stick to its existing ''integrated transport plan'' of bus upgrades and roadworks announced in this year's budget. It has offered $102million in extra bus services, cycle paths and widening the GDE.
The Liberals have produced a $148million plan which is similar but names several specific roads and projects that they would fix or widen, such as widening Erindale Drive and Tharwa Drive.
The ACT's other policymakers on roads and transport come from different ends of the political spectrum the left-wing Greens and the conservative Australian Motorist Party.
The Motorist Party, formed by disaffected motor sport enthusiasts angry with Labor's failure to build a promised dragway, advocates compulsory driver's education and wants to take direct control of road infrastructure to bring forward more road construction.
The Greens, on the other hand, want more ''walkability'' in Canberra and are pushing for lower speed limits around shopping centres, better lighting and improvements for footpaths and cycle paths. However most of the Motorist Party and the Greens' policies are uncosted.
Labor and the Liberals are offering nearly identical promises to fix Canberra's most contentious transport issue the Gungahlin Drive Extension. Both parties will spend $90-odd million to widen the road to two lanes in each direction, a move that will not so much win new votes as prevent popular uprisings.
Australian National University transport expert Professor Patrick Troy said both parties' plans for transport lacked big-picture vision.
''There's no imagination on either side. I think both parties should be having a larger vision of the connection of the city to the other capitals,'' he said. ''The big issues in transport which are not addressed is that it is time to get off their backsides and do something about improving the rail connection between Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.''
Labor has promised to spend more than $10million on bus transport, including a lunchtime service and a tourist bus around the Parliamentary Triangle and Civic. The Liberals want to spend $4.9million on extra bus routes and an expansion of the Park and Ride system.
''Both parties are signalling that they want to improve the bus system, which is the best way of improving the public transport system in this city,'' Professor Troy said. Neither of them had addressed the central problem: that Northbourne Avenue bisected Civic. ''We now end up with both parts of the city being separated from one another which is not congenial for development.''
The Liberals are also offering to spend $8million on a four-year comprehensive study of light rail, including a $4million engineering study and $3million on a survey of potential rail users. Labor has already budgeted $200,000 on a feasibility study, and is looking for Commonwealth funding for a light rail project.
Professor Troy described the Liberal plan as populist and decried the ''silliness of going yet again for a four year light rail study''. ''What the Liberals are essentially saying is we'll waste another four years,'' he said.
University of Canberra lecturer Cameron Gordon said there was little substantive difference between the two policies and described them as incremental plans which ''tinkered'' about the edges of transport issues.
''The Liberals have quite a few more roads specifically that they want to fix but they're strictly from a traffic engineering perspective,'' he said. ''They both do ignore also the land planning aspects, they're really separating transport from development policy and that from a transport planning point of view is a big mistake.''
Cyclist lobby group Pedal Power said it was reasonably happy with both parties' commitment to cycling. In its ACT election scorecard, both parties received a ''B+'' on cycling policies.
Executive officer Leon Arundell said the two parties' commitment to cycle path improvements and extensions of the network was ''exactly what we had asked for'' but noted the Greens probably had the edge over the other parties.
''But what we need [from all parties] is a fully integrated strategy for cycling so people who are thinking of going by car will find it just as easy to go by bike.''
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