Govt considered building bridge from Acton for light rail to Woden

The Barr government looked at building another bridge across Lake Burley Griffin from the Acton Peninsula to Lennox Gardens.

The so-called Western Alignment would have travelled down Edinburgh Avenue through New Acton, around West Basin, past the National Museum of Australia before crossing the lake and joining Commonwealth Avenue on the southern side of the lake.

It provided an alternative to the contentious Commonwealth Bridge crossing, which is the ACT government's chosen route.

However the New Acton option was discounted early, and detailed costings were never done.

A Transport Canberra spokeswoman said the option had been dropped because it bypassed current and future employment and residential hubs in City West and West Basin.

She said the technical and engineering challenges of building the new bridge proved too much, and a similar pedestrian bridge investigated a decade ago was canned because of heritage and safety concerns.

"A range of crossings were considered because crossing the lake is complex and the government wanted to ensure all options were considered," the spokeswoman said.

"Other than its ability to serve locations directly serviced by that route, benefits were judged to be minimal compared to the Commonwealth Avenue option."

The route would have also taken an extra five to seven minutes, which would have worked against taking the light rail through Parkes and Barton because the overall journey time would have blown out further.

Already, the trip from Civic to Woden will take around 25 minutes, five minutes longer than a proposed route past Parliament House.

"Overwhelming community feedback has been for the alignment to travel through Parkes and Barton," she said.

"We estimate 39,000 passengers would use the preferred light rail route each day by 2036. The Parliamentary Zone currently attracts 3.4 million people to national institutions and experiences every year, while supporting current employment for 16,000 people which is expected to increase by 50 per cent by 2041.

"The preferred light rail route will service both West Basin and the ANU from the east, while a future east-west light rail alignment from Belconnen to the City and Airport will further service the ANU from the north.

"As such, the Acton route would on a net basis service appreciably fewer areas of employment than the Commonwealth Avenue route."

However another body has taken aim at the Barton detour.

The Planning Institute of Australia wrote to a federal parliamentary inquiry into stage two of light rail, saying the Barton diversion was not "fully consistent" with the spine of public transport set out in the light rail network master plan.

"The Planning Institute of Australia acknowledge that servicing the Barton precinct has merit in terms of patronage, access to employment and living opportunities in Barton as well as a potentially earlier stage two project rate of return," they wrote.

"It is also apparent that parts of the corridor on Adelaide Avenue are likely to have more limited patronage growth and redevelopment opportunities.

"However, it is not clear that the opportunities arising from the Barton deviation should be part of the stage two north-south corridor project - or part of a planned future light rail spur towards the south west.

"It is also not clear what the implications of the deviation would be on the future extent, staging and role of elements of the light rail network masterplan."

The institute said there were other options to serve the employment hubs of Barton while "maintaining the integrity" of the master plan.

It suggested a direct route on the eastern side of Capital Circle, with stops for Parliament House and the Barton office precinct.

That route would be 1.32 kilometres shorter than the government's preferred route.

They raised the prospect of branches of rail line shooting off to Manuka Oval and to Kingston from this streamlined spine.