The Barr government deserves to be congratulated on its achievement in completing the first stage of the light rail, from Gungahlin to Civic, in a relatively timely and well-organised manner.
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One only has to look up the road at what is happening with Sydney's project to see just how badly wrong integrating major infrastructure of this sort into existing communities and transport networks can go.
It has come on the back of a number of successful major project roll-outs over the past 15 years which include the Gungahlin Drive Extension, the Majura Parkway project and the major upgrade of the Cotter Dam.
This government has shown that despite being one of the smallest jurisdictions in terms of area, population and revenue in the nation, it has the capability to take on some very big challenges.
The inauguration of the new service over the past week has, in the main, apparently been well received, with many positive comments being posted on social media; including from people who had approached their first tram journey with a certain degree of scepticism.
Photographs have shown long queues of patrons waiting to hop on board. Twitter posts and Facebook comments such as "Smooth, enjoyable experience", and "Looks like Canberra loves the tram" were common.
While it remains to be seen what the level of patronage will be once the free rides end in a few weeks' time, the fact remains an impressive estimated 64,000 trips were taken on the system in the first five days; about 29,000 of which were on day one.
That said, the diehard critics who have always argued the project was never anything more than a sop to the Greens and that it was an extravagant and unwarranted waste of taxpayer funds remain unconvinced.
While the reality of the new service, which now gives the government something to point to as a result of all the money that has been spent, probably exceeds their expectations, they do have a point.
The biggest weakness of the light rail project continues to be whether or not it delivers value for money.
Diehard critics, who argued the project was never anything more than a sop to the Greens and a waste of taxpayer funds, remain unconvinced.
While Mr Barr has been trying to talk this up by claiming it has come in well under budget, at just $707 million compared to the $783 million estimated in the business case, and only four months late, his case contains significant flaws.
The $707 million he is claiming is still well above the initial construction cost estimates released at the project's inception by the then ACT chief minister, Katy Gallagher.
And, more significantly, that figure falls well short of the cost estimates prepared by former ACT auditor-general Maxine Cooper of $1.78 billion over the life of the project in today's dollars.
The official "life of the project" estimate is currently running at about $939 million in 2016 dollars.
It would make sense for the ACT government to closely monitor the operation of stage one, which coincides with a major revamp of bus timetables that took effect on Monday, for an extended period before locking itself in to starting work on the even more ambitious and difficult Woden leg.
That additional cost has to be balanced against a likely lower level of patronage for the southside link.
It also needs to monitor the public response to its revised bus timetables and, where necessary, make adjustments based on feedback for the users of the system.