Over the past decade, the ACT population has grown from around 370,000 to 460,000. Canberra is now on track to be home to 500,000 people by 2027.
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We are no longer Australia's best kept secret - more and more people are choosing to call Canberra home.
If we want to maintain our status as one of the world's most liveable cities, we are going to need transport solutions fit for a city that is home to more than half a million people in the next decade.
You don't have to look far to see what happens in cities in Australia and around the world that don't make the right investments, at the right time, into mass transport solutions.
To move more people more efficiently in the future, we need to prepare our transport system now. And that's exactly what the ACT government is doing.
Despite the success of stage one of our city-wide light rail network and the start of construction on the next stage, the Canberra Liberals want to drag the community back to the same old tired debates of the last decade.
They are treating Canberra like a country town, not the growing city that it is.
ACT Labor will remain focused on the future and our plan is to continue extending light rail as part of an integrated public transport system across our city.
This is not a debate about buses or light rail.
A growing city needs both.
That means delivering on our plans to move more people on public transport by building mass-transit lines between the town centres integrated with electric buses servicing the suburbs.
Stage 2 of light rail will create a north-south mass transit spine from Gungahlin to Woden.
The service will deliver more people to major employment hubs north and south including the Parliamentary Triangle, Dickson, Deakin and Woden as well as key tourist attractions.
Increased frequency and capacity of the network will match our population growth. Our light rail vehicles can comfortably hold 207 passengers and are designed with a maximum capacity of up to 276 passengers.
This is around four times the number of passengers that can be carried on a standard bus, and nearly three times the capacity of articulated buses, which can hold around 109 passengers.
Mass transport connections are also essential to providing greater housing options, supporting density along transport corridors as our city grows.
Light rail is only part of the solution. While we have more light rail vehicles being delivered and construction on the next stages of the project gets underway, we are also growing our electric bus fleet.
Transport Canberra's 12 new electric buses are hitting the road, we are in the process of buying 90 more, and work is under way at the Tuggeranong and Woden bus depots to charge more than 300 electric buses, with the new Woden bus depot providing additional capacity to further expand our bus fleet.
Providing a world class transport system also means we need to continue to make important investments across our road network.
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Major upgrades are already progressing on Gundaroo Drive, Athllon Drive, Monaro Highway and William Hovell Drive.
Then there is the construction of the Molonglo River Bridge - the largest bridge project the ACT government has ever undertaken. Contracts have been awarded and work is progressing to improve transport connections for our city's largest growth areas over the coming decades with further road improvements planned.
These road investments connect areas of population growth and will see improvements to Canberra's path, cycling and public transport networks at the same time.
Light rail dominates the public debate, and rightly so.
It's one of the government's major infrastructure projects. However, there are a number of pieces to the infrastructure puzzle that we have to tackle at the same time so that Canberra stays a connected, sustainable and vibrant city into the future.
We need to look at the whole system, all modes of travel, and make important decisions for future generations, as well as ourselves. We can't become a city of three-quarters of a million people with nowhere to go due to crippling congestion.
The time to build transport infrastructure, including mass-transit, is now, and I look forward to delivering Labor's comprehensive plan for Canberra's future in the months and years ahead.
- Chris Steel is the ACT Transport Minister and a Labor MLA for Murrumbidgee.
