Fifteen months after the Canberra Liberals announced they would scrap light rail's stage 2B to Woden, their alternative public transport policy has been unveiled ahead of the 2024 ACT election.
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At the heart of this policy is a commitment to deliver better public transport services no matter where you live in Canberra, with buses running every 30 minutes or better, seven days a week.
This is a bold and commendable plan that addresses many of our association's recent suggestions for improving Canberra's bus network.
What the opposition are proposing is a significant improvement on the two-hourly local bus services currently seen on weekends, which began several years ago due to a shortage of available drivers.
The latest network change has improved this situation, but only on Saturdays before 6pm.
Another key plank of the opposition's policy is new and expanded bus priority measures along Canberra's key transport corridors.
Anyone who has experienced the joy of a crowded, late bus crawling through peak-hour traffic will no doubt welcome these improvements to the speed and reliability of our city's bus services.
Much has been made of the Canberra Liberals' proposal to set up a local bus manufacturing industry and replace light rail to Woden with a trial of double-deck electric buses.
It would of course be many years before Canberra saw any locally manufactured buses, and the suggestion that less accessible, lower capacity and less efficient double-deck buses represent a viable mass transit alternative to light rail is questionable to say the least.
However, it would be a mistake to place too much emphasis on the weakest links of an otherwise solid plan.
Critically, it gets the basics right. What the Canberra Liberals have presented is a comprehensive public transport package that, if implemented, would have a genuinely positive impact on the public transport user experience.
The basic elements of this policy are drawn from successful public transport systems in Australia and around the world, as well as Canberra's own bus network in the 1980s.
While many things have changed in the past four decades, the benefits of frequent and reliable public transport in the context of a climate and cost-of-living crisis are more important than ever.
No doubt the ACT government will make a big deal about the more out-there elements of the policy.
We'll see questions about how exactly the Canberra Liberals would overcome the staffing and supply chain barriers that have stymied Transport Canberra's efforts to buy new buses and deliver improved weekend bus frequencies.
The risk with this approach is that Canberrans may be sick of being told that better things aren't possible - better things like a frequent, seven-day bus network, or a fully DDA-compliant public transport fleet, or buses that run on time more than 77 per cent of the time.
When the bare minimum is treated as unreasonable, who could blame people for looking at alternatives?
Over the next six months, ACT Labor and the ACT Greens have a choice.
Either they propose equally ambitious policies for our bus network to match what the Canberra Liberals are offering, or run with the status quo and hope that a promise to deliver light rail to Woden by 2033 will be enough.
If they choose the latter, the two governing parties will be left vulnerable on a key election front.
A promise of buses every half hour or better, seven days a week, within walking distance of every home in Canberra has broad appeal. Waiting two hours for a bus on weekends does not.
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Instead, the government should go further. It has the chance to show that an extended light rail network and improved bus frequencies are not mutually exclusive, but rather, complementary aspects of an integrated public transport system.
It should show how expanded bus priority measures, such as those the government has committed to deliver between Belconnen and the city by 2028, can improve reliability and build patronage on our main public transport corridors as a stepping stone to light rail, rather than a direct replacement.
The government doesn't have to buy into the opposition's narrative that Canberrans must choose between buses and light rail.
However, it does require a greater commitment to improving the bus network than they've shown this term of government.
Great cities are built on rail, but buses are the workhorse of any great public transport system.
Ignore them at your peril.
- Ryan Hemsley is the chair of the Public Transport Association of Canberra, a public transport users group committed to improving public transport in the ACT and surrounding region.
