Canberra needs more accessible buses

Unfortunately, I have on multiple occasions experienced waiting for a scheduled accessible bus only to find the arrival of one of the outdated non-accessible.

My experience on Tuesday prompted me to write this letter. I once again waited for a bus that was listed on the online schedule as accessible and it arrived to be not so. I asked the bus driver about this and his response was a rude, "it's always been this way, mate".

I called Transport Canberra and lodged a concern about this. I was assured the next bus would be accessible (as the schedule showed). The bus arrived after 30 minutes of waiting and was still not accessible. I contacted Transport Canberra again, and was told that this is not what should have happened.

I find it unacceptable in a modern society to not have complete accessibility for our public system.

Maybe it is time for a class action lawsuit.

Tom Eckart, Macquarie

There are so many whingers out there in letters-land. They are complaining about the price of the splendid new tram system, the uninteresting scenery along the route, the dullness of the destination, the air conditioning and the hardness of the seats. Really?

I traveled from the Alinga Street terminus to the Gungahlin terminus on Monday and found the whole experience very pleasant.

There was hardly any wait for each tram, they rolled along smoothly and quietly, the large windows gave an excellent view of the passing city and bush scapes, and the interior was stylish and clean.

I had picked out a destination in Gungahlin beforehand and soon found my way to the local library. I found a pleasant cafe for a healthy lunch, and returned home, having made a very pleasant outing.

The whole journey was accomplished faster than I could have driven there, and much faster than the two buses I would otherwise have had to take.

Well done Canberra.

Laura Hakkinen, Lyons

Walter Burley Griffin included trams in his plan for Canberra because cars were all-but non-existent at the time.

When he came to Canberra as director of design, his wife initially stayed in the U.S. as the architect for Henry Ford's new house, built on the profits from the Model T Ford.

To say that it has taken more than a century to build Griffin's vision for trams in Canberra is utter tosh. ("With the beginning of light rail, Canberra is forever changed", canberratimes.com.au, April 20.)

Griffin did not envisage the use of personal motor cars for the masses. If you doubt it, just look at his suburban road system in inner Canberra.

Nor could he have envisaged such car use on the information available at the time.

Nor did he envisage Gungahlin, or Woden or Belconnen or Tuggeranong.

The ACT Government needs to stop pretending its 19th Century technology is the fulfillment of the Griffin Plan.

Bruce Wright, Latham

War Memorial Director Dr Brendan Nelson is a master of emotive rhetoric ("A home for the stories that heal," April 20, p.28) but he still fails to address three crucial questions.

Why should the AWM continue to expand when most cultural institutions around the world only have the space to display a small proportion of their total collection?

How is what he calls a "therapeutic milieu" at the AWM better for veterans than direct expenditure on them and their families?

Why does the memorial fare better in the funding game than other institutions?

Dr Nelson says "the memorial is like no other cultural institution".'

This is true but not in the way Dr Nelson means. It has been granted an inside track to extravagant expenditure.

The AWM should be incorporated into the arts portfolio where it would have to compete with other cultural institutions for funding.

David Stephens, Heritage

Guardians, Bruce

A sleeper issue for the election is the highly deficient fibre to the node NBN rollout.

I have to convert to the NBN by the end of June 2019 but the notion of higher speeds is irrelevant as the NBN comes from the node via 40 year old degraded cooper telephone lines here in Evatt which go down every time it rains for a sustained period.

The most recent episode took seven weeks and a complaint to the Telecommunications Ombudsman to get Telstra through our ISP to restore the landline connection.

I have lost count of the number of times the copper landline has failed.

The NBN is just another blue sky project delivered via a brown fields, last century, infrastructure.

Both parties appear to be keeping quiet on the single largest infrastructure challenge facing the next government.

Rohan Goyne, Evatt

What a complete piece of communications network garbage has been foisted on us by the Coalition in the form of the NBN. It's obsolete while still being built.

We were just transferred over to the NBN and although the monthly cost of the connection has increased by 60 per cent compared to our previous ADSL connection, the maximum attainable line speed has only increased by 25 per cent. It is less than half the 50 Mbps that's supposed to be delivered.

I raised a support ticket with my ISP, and they told me NBN report a line speed of 20 Mbps, about the maximum we will see.

I was in Switzerland last year, and noticed that 10 Gbps symmetrical fibre, including 4k Apple TV, about 250 TV channels, and unlimited calls to Swiss numbers, was being advertised for 50 Swiss francs a month.

That's less than we're paying here for a connection that is at least 200 times slower.

Nick Payne, Griffith

So during this parliament, Senator Seselja has campaigned against same sex marriage and then abstained on the vote to legalise same sex marriage, supported coal power and undermined renewable energy, failed to effectively fight for the ACT (the APVMA debacle), knifed the elected Prime Minister and been part of an incompetent, fractured government.

In no way does he represent the ACT. We should not have him as our representative. Vote alphabetically. Put Zed last.

Rob Ey, Weston

David Walter (Letters, April 22) asks if getting trams represents the coming of age of a city then what does it say about the cities like Sydney that got rid of them? "Senile dementia?" Too right. History has indeed proved Sydney's misguided decision to rip up its tram network in the 1960s was, and still is, pretty demented.

Adam Kirk, Braddon

If the ABC's Patricia Karvelas directed the aggressive interviewing style towards Bill Shorten she used with Barnaby Joyce, she would be doing the nation a favour.

Joyce is accused (falsely it seems) of misspending $80 million, while Shorten will not admit to plans to spend almost $500 billion.

No one has been able to get Shorten to say what his climate policies will cost, or what good they will do. Karvelas could be the first to get these vital answers, and prove the "without bias or agenda" ABC claim is not some sort of in-house joke.

Doug Hurst, Chapman

Scomo, the used car salesman, is good. He has come out firing on all cylinders. His big happy smile, baseball cap and back slapping are all designed to win over buyers. His problem is the vehicle that he is trying to sell.

It was a respected make once but this one is different.

It keeps making strange noises and the rattles, dents and scratches clearly show that it's been on some rough roads with too many poor drivers.

It's comfortable enough for those in the front seat; not so much for those in the back.

But the biggest problem is the steering; it keeps pulling to the right.

We all know the dangers of drifting over the centre line. It's time for its six year service

Jeff Bishop, Belconnen

In February, Queensland LNP Senate candidate, Gerard Rennick, accused the Bureau of Meteorology of "fudging records to perpetuate global warming hysteria".

The BoM has simply updated old readings to conform with data gathered by modern equipment, and the original data are still publicly available.

And last month Mr Rennick was at it again.

He went on to write on Facebook that "our public servants are out of control".

Rennick should be made to answer two simple questions.

1/ What has the Bureau of Meteorology have to gain by "fudging" its figures?

2/ Does he really know more about global warming than thousands of scientists?

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

LOVE IT OR LET IT ALONE

"Roll over bush capital and tell the old guard the news" scream property developers and academics, but young and old still love the uniquely timeless and sustainable bush capital (along with Beethoven and Tchaikovsky).

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

TRAMMING IS PERILOUS

It is lucky the tram roll-out did not happen in January. If a stalled tram is a sweat box on a 24 degree day it would be a death box at 35 degrees.

M Davis, Charnwood

SCOMO ASKED FOR IT

The spiteful trolling over Morrison's "Nazi salute" is disgusting, but it serves him bloody well right for taking the cameras in to what is an essentially private occasion. If this is his idea of "good PR", it is no wonder he had to leave advertising.

Barbara Fisher, Cook

APATHEISM TRUMPS ATHEISM

As an atheist, Jevon Kinder asks if he should feel offended or scared by Israel Folau's warnings (Letters, April 23) ). As a militant apatheist (one who considers the existence or non existence of God irrelevant) I'm wondering why he should bother.

David Wilson, Braddon

KENNETT MISPOKE ON WORDS

Jeff Kennett claims to believe in the maxim "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me". As the founding chairman of Beyond Blue Kennett must surely be aware that this is just not so. Words do matter.

Keith Hill, Isaacs

LOVE AND HATE EXPLAINED

How might you show love for someone? By warning them of impending danger. How might you show hate for someone? By destroying their livelihood.

Mike Dallwitz, Giralang

BARNABY BEYOND BELIEF

Thank you ABC Radio National for enduring Barnaby's increasingly boorish behaviour on behalf of us taxpayers. His obfuscation and rudeness know no bounds. His suggestion his performance brought excitement to the interview process is an insult to both the interviewer and the RN audience.

Sue Dyer, Downer

QUICK, CALL A PLANNER

Following recent comment (Letters, April 23) on the cost of the tram vis-à-vis the ACT budget, if a household were managing its budget in a similar fashion, I would suggest that they consult a financial counselor urgently.

Murray May, Cook

AWM ALREADY A THEME PARK

What does spoilsport Murray Upton mean (Letters, April 23) in saying the AWM "should not become just another theme park?" That and the associated glorification of war are already astoundingly underway via the enthusiastic funding, gratefully received, of the AWM's activities from Lockheed Martin.

Alex Mattea, Sydney

DUMBER THAN EVER

Are we really more educated than ever? Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic table. Researchers, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn developed the basics of the internet. Most of us are more familiar with Kim Kardashian's butt than these facts. Am I wasting my breath in pleading for a little less trash in the media?

Linda Vij, Mascot, NSW

Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message field, not as an attachment. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.

Keep your letter to 250 or fewer words. References to Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).

To send a letter via the online form, click here.