"Increases in Civic car park fees, paid parking in inner suburban streets, and park-and-ride bus services are part of the push by the ACT Government for greater public transport use in the ACT," the front page said on this day in 1989.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Yes the lever of parking fees to increase public transport use is one governments have been pulling for decades and still do to this day. Thirty years ago it was Rosemary Follett as chief minister trying to use a bit of stick to get people on the under-populated ACTION buses.
This was also a time that Gungahlin was on the planning agenda in a big way and so servicing it with reliable buses was a new stretch for the territory budget.
"Canberra has a low rate of public-transport use and a high rate of single-car occupancy in commuter traffic. In Civic, the priority area in the strategy, only 4400 people used public transport out of the 25,000 travelling to the city each day,'' the chief minister said.
So parking prices would increase by 50c per day, and suburbs such as Reid, Turner and Braddon would no longer be a haven for free parking with increasing restrictions imposed. A three-for-free car park would be started to encourage carpooling.
Accompanying that article was one questioning the government over where its Civic bus interchange would end up. For decades, the bus interchange (on its current site) was considered temporary and plans had been canvased for it to be relocated to near the Casino or to the southern side of London Avenue.
On this day in 1989, the government seemed thoroughly confused about other options and perhaps that's why the bus interchange stayed put.
