The ACT government can find a way to release a cost estimate for the light rail route connecting the city and Woden before the next election, experts say.
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Professor Robert Breunig, director of the tax and transfer policy institute at the Australian National University's Crawford school, said grouping cost estimates could help preserve commercial-in-confidence negotiations.
"If you group the information up a bit, you can preserve confidentiality but you can still communicate the important information that people should have," Professor Breunig said.
"I think there's a responsibility for governments to do that. We're being asked to pay our tax dollars for projects and we should kind of know what they cost."
Professor Breunig said a larger fleet of electric buses would have been a better idea than light rail, but the government went ahead.
"So I think it's important for these numbers to be out there so that people can have a debate about which direction policy should go," he said.
READ MORE: Canberra's light rail faces its next test
Dr Michael De Percy, a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Canberra, said telling the public the price ahead of negotiations would lock the government into a price.
"But I'm a bit worried about it not being announced - I would have thought there would have been some sort of quotation or an [request for tender] process that they could then use that as the costing," Dr De Percy said.
"But if they're not going to announce it until after the election, it seems like a poor policy approach in my view - and unnecessary."
Dr De Percy said the Canberra Liberals' policy risked devaluing light rail.
"The big issue with that is that once you've already invested in the network, the network increases in value as you increase the size of the network and the number of users," he said.
"This is just a fact of network technology and infrastructure. To cut it off is sort of a backwards step.
"If they'd knocked it off at the beginning, before it was deployed, it would have been a different story."
The ACT government has committed to publishing estimated costs for light rail after contracts were signed and release business cases and contract details when possible.
Meanwhile, Transport Minister Chris Steel did not reject the National Capital Authority's view that it would take "many years" before the route between Commonwealth Park and Woden was granted works approval.
"Once stage 2A is underway our technical design partners will shift focus to the planning and design of stage 2B from Commonwealth Park to Woden, which will include the development of an environment impact statement," Mr Steel said.
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National Capital Authority chief executive Sally Barnes told a federal parliamentary committee on Thursday it was unlikely stage 2B would be approved for many years.
"There'll need to be work on finalising the route and what the impacts would be on Commonwealth Avenue, on the trees, a whole range of things that really haven't progressed to a stage yet where the light rail can be presented to the board or even to us," Ms Barnes said.
Mr Steel said the government had done preliminary work with the National Capital Authority to get stage 2B - between Commonwealth Park and Woden - approved.
"The ACT government has done preliminary work with the NCA on light rail stage 2B including early landscape design of Commonwealth Avenue and heritage studies on Commonwealth Bridge," he said.
"However, the ACT government's current focus is on stage 2A from the city to Commonwealth Park."
Construction of stage 2A and the raising London Circuit works are expected to take around four years.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
