Canberra's bus fleet has shrunk over the last three decades despite the population growing by more than 60 per cent, showing the government has not done enough to invest in public transport, a Greens backbencher says.
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Jo Clay, the Greens spokeswoman on transport, told the Legislative Assembly on Thursday there were 479 buses in the ACTION fleet in 1990, when Canberra was around 282,000 people.
The latest Transport Canberra and City Services annual report shows there are 456 buses, 23 fewer than in 1990, despite a population of more than 456,000 people.
"This is why we need to choose which services to run during our disruptions. We do not have enough buses. How can we deliver improved services to all these new suburbs and new people, and maintain our existing suburb routes, if we are running fewer buses than we had over 30 years ago?" Ms Clay said.
Ms Clay said the government needed to invest more in the bus network - alongside an extension to the light rail network.
"We need more bus lanes and bus priority measures, more bus shelters and better footpaths connecting them. Without this investment, next year's bus network will be no better than this year. That will be the same story every year until we plan properly and invest sufficiently. We won't have a better bus network until we have more buses and improved bus infrastructure," she said.
MORE A.C.T. POLITICS NEWS:
Transport Minister Chris Steel tabled a performance report for Canberra's public transport network, which showed patronage was 16 per cent lower than forecast in the last six months of 2022.
There were 8.38 million boardings across public transport in the six months to December 31, 2022, compared to a target of 9.95 million.
The government expects 19.9 million boardings on public transport in 2022-23. In 1985, there were 24 million boardings on public transport in the ACT.
The performance report tabled on Thursday revealed 77 per cent of bus services ran on time in that period, up from a target of 75 per cent. Ninety-nine per cent of light rail services ran on time in the same period, better than the 98 per cent target.
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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.
