A former ACT Labor treasurer says light rail in Canberra is "inevitable", but the territory's top economists aren't so sure the multi-million dollar project is viable.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
One of them described the Capital Metro project as "silly".
Former deputy ACT Labor leader Ted Quinlan, who was treasurer from 2001 to 2006, said he had always considered a light rail system in Canberra was always on the cards due to the slow breakdown of the territory's separate town centres.
"I think we are getting towards a more conventional city and I always thought that we would," he said.
"I used to drive to work along Cotter Road and look at the vast expanses of vacant land between suburbs and I thought, 'That's not going to last'."
Mr Quinlan said while he wasn't familiar enough with the current proposal to assess it, the decision to go ahead with it was "courageous", but could bring down a governmentif done wrong.
"You do something bold like that, there's a lot of people sitting back waiting for it to be over budget or behind time and make political capital. "
Canberra's economists are waiting to be convinced.
ANU Crawford School of Public Policy adjunct associate professor Leo Dobes said he wanted to see the government's calculations before he made a judgement about the light rail project.
"[We need to know] how they estimated travel time savings, how they estimated reductions in congestion, how they estimated patronage, the number of people who would take the tram," he said.
"We don't have all the data [so] we don't know what's going on. The government may well have it. I don't oppose or support it, I just want to see that analysis."
Professor Dobes said there were some examples of double counting in the cost-benefit analysis as it stands, pointing in particular to land prices and travel time.
"Past studies don't seem to have shown this was a worthwhile project and I think it's incumbent on the government to show that it is," he said.
University of Canberra head of economics Phil Lewis said that at a time of high government deficit in the ACT, there were serious questions over whether it was sensible to spend more money.
"From a purely economic point of view, it's silly," he said.
"If anyone was advising them sensibly this is one of the last projects they should put on the list.
"It's a lot of money and most of the estimates from people in the know say it will be about a billion dollars.
"For a small place like the ACT, which already has a debt problem, it's going to be a huge burden to add to it."
