Come to Canberra, they said. There'll be no traffic, they said.
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Well, they did until Infrastructure Australia released its 2019 audit this week.
The audit tipped that with population growth and without big ticket investment, drivers using the Canberra region's worst affected routes at peak time would spend more than half of their trips bumper-to-bumper by 2031.
The worst corridors of congestion were expected to be between Canberra Airport and Civic, and Canberra Avenue, both for motorists travelling west.
So, what do we need to do to prevent these predictions becoming a reality?
There is no shortage of opinions, with experts, politicians, interest groups and commuters themselves advocating for a range of solutions including better active travel infrastructure and targets and an increased role for public transport.
One thing is for sure, according to Dr Robert Care, who was the National Capital Development Commission's last chief engineer before the National Capital Authority replaced the commission in 1989.
"If you think you can cure congestion by building more roads, then you must think you can cure obesity by letting your belt out," he said.
"It just unleashes more latent demand. The more roads you provide, the more people will want to use and drive on them."
In Dr Care's chief engineer days, the vision was that Canberra would be "the garden city" and cars were the way to get around.
He said some people would always want to live on a quarter-acre block, but there now needed to be a focus on densification to make it easier for people to walk, cycle or use public transport.
If you think you can cure congestion by building more roads, then you must think you can cure obesity by letting your belt out.
- Dr Robert Care
Canberra Town Planning director Kip Tanner said the push for urban infill in the ACT was helping achieve this.
He pointed to the Woden town centre, where about 2000 dwellings were either under construction or at the development application stage.
Light rail has provided another link between Gungahlin and the city, and will expand to Woden with stage two.
There were also well-connected areas like Braddon, which already had a low rate of car ownership. On Census night in 2016, 17 per cent of Braddon households did not have a registered vehicle and a further 55.5 per cent only had one.
"In well-located areas, car ownership doesn't meet the stereotypical two cars per dwelling idea that people have about Canberra," Mr Tanner said.
"If you provide people with good places to live, they can already survive in Canberra without a car.
"Just because our population is growing, that doesn't mean there'll be a proportionate increase in the number of cars on the road."
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Mr Tanner said transport was "ripe for disruption" and he expected it to change significantly in the next 10 years.
He said the ACT had great access to cycling infrastructure, but we had to be conscious of maintaining it, filling in the missing links in the network and educating people of its existence.
This view has been backed by active travel groups Pedal Power, the Conservation Council and Living Streets Canberra, which have jointly called for the ACT government to take a range of steps to encourage people to ditch their cars in favour of active travel or public transport.
They have started a petition that will be presented to the Legislative Assembly in November.
Conservation Council ACT executive director Helen Oakey said she was concerned that while nearly $170 million had been budgeted for roads in the next four years, only $24 million was slated for active travel infrastructure.
"To cut emissions, and to maintain a liveable city in the fact of increasing urban density and population growth, the ACT must also set clear legislated targets to increase the number of journeys taken by active travel and public transport," she said.
Pedal Power chief executive Ian Ross agreed that if the ACT was to reach its 2045 zero emissions target, the territory government needed to shift its priorities.
He called for the creation of an ACT active travel commissioner role to oversee the implementation of policies that would help achieve the target.
ACT Greens transport spokeswoman Caroline Le Couteur said the group's calls were "exactly the type of changes" the party had been pushing for.
"We'll be pushing the government to adopt further sustainable transport improvements as we approach the next election," she said.
Transport Minister Chris Steel said the ACT government was considering the best approach to setting transport targets.
He said the government was finalising an integrated transport strategy and already had a strong focus on active travel, with the active travel office helping co-ordinate initiatives.
Mr Steel said the government built cycling and walking infrastructure as part of major road projects, including 17.5 kilometres of on- and off-road cycling paths as part of the Horse Park Drive duplication.
The three active travel groups also called for the 84 Transport Canberra buses budgeted for purchase in 2019-20 to be zero-emissions electric buses.
Mr Steel said the government supported a move away from diesel buses and was considering the requirements for "a large-scale transition" to a zero-emissions bus fleet.
Australian National University physics professor Jodie Bradby cycles about seven kilometres to work from her home in Macquarie and said Canberra was a great place for active travel.
Professor Bradby said she had a knee injury that had forced her to stop riding until she bought an electric bike. In the past year, she had only driven a car to work three or four times, saving her several hundred dollars on parking and even more on petrol.
"I ride around Black Mountain and the Aranda bushland area, so I see all the bushland, I see kangaroos, I see birds," she said.
"Then I ride down around the lake and I look across at Parliament House, and I feel very connected to the landscape.
"It's kind of like if I lived in a really expensive house with a gorgeous view. I look at the bike ride as my view every day, and it helps me deal with my stress levels."