Canberra needs better bus, tram and and bike routes if it's to end its love affair with the internal combustion engine.
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"We need public transport," the ACT's Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, Kate Auty, told The Canberra Times in a wide-ranging interview as she prepares to step down as the territory's environmental watchdog on Friday.
"We've done well in reducing our ecological footprint but we still need to do something about public transport," she said.
She thinks the car will survive in Canberra - but powered by electricity.
"It's going to be an electric vehicle city."
She thinks that this would help the environment if the electricity for car batteries came from solar, hydro and wind, rather than coal-fired power stations.
She spoke of the need for enforcement of laws banning cars from bus lanes: "There's no point in having regulation if you don't enforce it."
Professor Auty said she is proud of what she has achieved in the nearly four years she's been doing the job.
She was particularly pleased with an analysis of the way sport and climate change will interact, with rising temperatures hurting athletes through heat stress.
She was pleased with the way information had been presented in her reports so that it was easy to understand by non-experts and usable in schools.
But she deplored the way that - in her opinion - Canberrans don't cycle and walk enough. Women, in particular, do not get on bikes enough, she said - and she is a cyclist herself.
Part of the problem is that people don't themselves suffer the results of damaging the environment.
"Canberra is a wealthy city so we've got the fact that we are able to use resources with few consequences. Everybody's got to pull their weight."
She praised people who recycle, rather than throwing out waste unnecessarily, but thought more options for different types of bins for different products should be considered.
Canberra is a wealthy city so we've got the fact that we are able to use resources with few consequences.
- Professor Kate Auty, Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment
Individuals might not make much difference to the overall level of global warming emissions, but it was still important to do the right thing.
"Doing small things is not necessarily transformative," she said.
"But doing small things can produce momentum and a changed mindset."
She praised the army of volunteers in the ACT who help the environment - the "people doing the weeding, the people doing the planting".
As she prepares to leave the Canberra job and move back to Victoria, she said: "I think the government has stepped up and assumed some of the responsibility for what needs to be done."
The ACT Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Shane Rattenbury, paid tribute to her.
"She has worked tirelessly to build the public profile of the office, connecting local and federal government arms with academic institutions and community organisations while acting as an independent voice for the environment and sustainability in the ACT."
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
