Mr Rattenbury wants Canberrans to have easy options to get around Canberra. So do I and, at 85, the easiest, simplest and quickest option is via car.
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![The motor car is easily the best way to travel around Canberra given the distances involved. Picture by Keegan Carroll The motor car is easily the best way to travel around Canberra given the distances involved. Picture by Keegan Carroll](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/LLBstgPA4H8EG9DTTGcXBL/a3443f53-599a-4390-8841-83f73535ac7b.jpg/r0_256_5000_3078_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
If we wanted to visit a friend in Holder from Belconnen then by bus it is one hour and one minute with a long walk or one hour and 38 minutes with a shorter walk and multiple buses. The same trip is 25 minutes by car. It becomes impossible at night and in the dark to go via bus due to walking hazards.
Canberra was designed by NCDC as a car city. It is 60 kilometres north to south. Only Olympians would cycle that distance on a regular basis.
The Barr government is doing everything it can to penalise car users. The fantastic, safe, clover leaf intersection on the north side of the Commonwealth Bridge has been ripped up in favour of a traffic light intersection with the inevitable accidents and deaths from red-light runners.
When can we get rid of this awful government?
Dave Roberts, Belconnen
What about leg power?
Walking and cycling are zero emissions travel modes. They provide healthy exercise, 21 per cent of local trips, and eight per cent of Canberrans' journeys to work.
The 2017 Household Travel Survey reported that cycling is on average as quick as travelling by public transport.
Despite subsidies amounting to about $25 per passenger trip, Canberra's polluting public transport system provides only four per cent of local trips and seven per cent of Canberrans' journeys to work.
Public transport policy receives a lot of media attention.
In this election year, how much attention will the The Canberra Times and the ACT's political parties pay to walking and cycling policies?
Leon Arundell, Downer
Wood heaters kill
Anne O'Hara has usefully highlighted the huge health costs of air pollution to the community (Letters, April 8).
However, with winter not far away, she could have also mentioned the very large health costs of wood smoke from wood heaters.
In greater Sydney, residential wood heaters result in health costs of over $2 billion annually, created by a minority of the population (only one in 10 use wood heaters).
In the ACT, a 2023 article in The Medical Journal of Australia showed that the estimated annual number of deaths in the ACT attributable to wood heater PM2.5 pollution is similar to that attributed to the extreme smoke of the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires.
An estimated 43 to 63 deaths per year (colder years) and 26 to 36 deaths per year (milder years) were attributable to wood heater smoke, with the estimated annual equivalent cost of deaths being $57-136 million.
Many users of wood heaters may not realise that they are harming not just the people in the local community with wood smoke pollution, but increasing their own chances of getting lung cancer from the high level of fine particulates and other pollutants within the home.
Murray May, Cook
Nuclear for the ACT?
John Smith (Letters, April 6) has pointed out the clean energy credentials of nuclear energy. He, however, failed to tackle the highly contentious issue of where to locate nuclear power plants.
We in the ACT have a wonderful opportunity to reinforce our reputation for national leadership. We have hectares of Commonwealth land, so access is not an issue, and much of it borders on large bodies of water highly suitable for reactor cooling.
Also, if there should be any highly improbable nuclear accidents, we have a host of federal politicians, well-versed in the complexities of nuclear fission, to provide expert assistance.
Ian White, Cook
The garden city
Jackie French's ideas ("Let's get productive when designing Canberra's next suburb", April 6) would fix many of our urban problems, such as sustainability, supply, living cost and proximity to nature. Her suggestions seem aimed at detached houses on separate blocks.
With the proliferation of medium-density housing, it is also important to provide communal fruit and vegetable gardens for the residents of each block.
For this to work, there must be enough green space around each building for gardens as well as the shade trees we need.
But our government is intent on cramming as many buildings into the available space as possible, regardless of their liveability or sustainability. The urban garden is incompatible with their approach.
Dave Kelly, Aranda
Starvation in Gaza
Seven international aid workers are worth more than 33,000 Palestinians.
It took mindful targeting by Israel of vehicles carrying World Central Kitchen insignia and staff to get major Western players to scream "enough".
It wasn't enough that 1.1-million Gazans - nearly 50 per cent - face "catastrophic hunger" (people having so little food they're effectively starving) and human-made famine is imminent across Gaza.
It's not enough that 33,137 Palestinians have been killed, merely 12,000 of them Hamas combatants; it doesn't matter that more than 13,000 children and 9000 women have been killed, many dying from starvation and related diseases.
"Creating mass starvation is morally prohibited ... We [Israelis] are all complicit," former Israeli politician Yuli Tamir has said.
We outside Israel are also complicit, as our governments provide weapons, funds, equipment, intelligence, advocacy, propaganda and support for the Israeli government.
America demands that Israel ensures delivery of more food aid to Gazans being starved and decimated by Israeli use of American weapons and funds.
Bombing at one end and feeding simultaneously at the other end is intellectually, morally, ethically sick.
We're all complicit unless we demand an end to the war (including returning all the hostages taken in such horrifying and brutal circumstances on October 7 [by Hamas]).
We owe Palestinian and Israeli civilians nothing less.
Judy Bamberger, O'Connor
Argument is flawed
For Mark Kenny, Hamas's misdeeds ended on October 7 ("Israel finally gets some plain talk", April 7). Thus, he condemns Israel hitting civilian buildings, like homes and hospitals, without mentioning Hamas renders these legitimate targets by illegally using them for military purposes.
By contrast, Israel must be condemned at every opportunity. Kenny ignores its efforts to minimise civilian casualties through evacuations and millions of warnings before attacking.
He accuses Israel of severely restricting aid access to Palestinians. Israel allows in all the aid supplied to Gaza. There are problems with distribution within Gaza, but the main issue is that Hamas steals 60 per cent of the aid. He accuses Israel of deliberately murdering the aid workers, even though it was a tragic case of mistaken identity.
He claims the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to cease its military operation. This is totally untrue. South Africa requested the ICJ to order a halt, but the ICJ very pointedly did not do so.
Jamie Hyams OAM, senior policy analyst, Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, Melbourne
Civilians not targeted
Clive Williams "New outrage won't alter Israel's warpath" (April 5) accuses Israel of an uncaring attitude about the loss of civilian lives in Gaza.
Yet West Point's Urban warfare expert John Spencer said that in this war Israel has "implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history".
It is true that the cars in the convoy Zomi Frankcom was in had the charity's logo on the roof, but it was night time, so it wasn't visible to the Israelis.
Williams compares Joe Biden's speed to label Putin a war criminal.
But unlike Israel, Putin launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
He isn't fighting against a terrorist group that carried out a massacre of civilians in his own country, that threatens to carry out many more similar attack and hides its military assets amongst civilians, using them as human shields.
The "moral position" he wants should be to support Israel in its war of self-defence against these genocidal Hamas terrorists.
Athol Morris, Forde
Give us a break
Owen Reid (Letters, April 6) tells us that "Israel is fighting for its very existence".
Give us a break. Israel is by far the most powerful nation state in the Middle East and the only one with nuclear weapons.
There is no way Israel could be eliminated - or even forced out of the occupied territories.
The greatest threat to Israel's national security is its own internal divisions.
C Williams, Forrest
TO THE POINT
MEDIA UNDER SCRUTINY
Given what has come out about the conduct of Channel 10 and Channel 7 in relation to the Lehrmann and Higgins interviews, isn't it about time for a Royal Commission into journalism? It seems that when it comes to getting the story anything goes.
M Moore, Bonython
LACK OF RESPECT
Benjamin Netanyahu's flippant approach to the war - World Central Kitchen staff were killed "unintentionally - this happens in wartime" - is reflected in the behaviour of the Israeli Defence Forces. if Netanyahu were a sounder and less arrogant person, Israel's behaviour generally would be different.
Michael McCarthy, Deakin
KILLINGS A WAR CRIME?
When at his press conference following the IDF strike which killed seven international humanitarian aid workers Israeli PM Netanyahu said in a war this events happen he meant those critical of the Israeli strike and killings shouldn't be jumping up and down about it because it was no big deal. But it is. It is a war crime.
Rajend Naidu, Glenfield, NSW
CLOUD CUCKOO LAND
One hundred percent correct on all counts Douglas Mackenzie ("On the road to bankruptcy" Letters, April 2). Barr and Rattenbury are living in a "Cloud Cuckoo Land" of their own making and we are paying the price for it.
Jeff Hart, Kingston
FROM THE HILL
I spent time on City Hill when studying at ANU. I don't remember anything like six avenues radiating from it. Is someone confusing it with Capital Hill? Even the two avenues I do recall make pedestrian access a risky activity even for the fit and able-bodied. This will have to be addressed, and by more than one or two pedestrian crossings.
S W Davey, Torrens
MORE ABSURDITY
I thought it was an April Fools joke but I was a week late - "Department of Health and Aged Care has begun a process to rename its Woden Office"(the Sirius Building) "after concerns were raised about its association with the First Fleet". (Informant, April 8). Lord save us. Secretary Comley, you have got to be joking?
Lesley Fisk, Barton
A DIFFERENT TACK
I suggest Ray Blackmore (Letters, April 8) bypass the "competitive advantage" nonsense regurgitated from US economics textbooks. Examine instead subsidies, education institute synergies, working conditions, exploitation and general government support of vehicle and other manufacturing across Korea and China.
Ronald Elliott, Sandringham, Vic
WASTED SPACE?
I think the best Albo and Dutton can do to solve our property crisis is that they both tender their resignations and leave the country alone. Any other candidate with just "common sense" would do a better job.
Mokhles Sidden, Strathfield, NSW
PALE IMITATION
Hyundai has produced an electric car that sounds and vibrates like an ICE vehicle. Someone said many years ago that the electric car would never catch on until they put a loud varoom into its "exhaust". There was I thinking that we would have quieter traffic. Silly me.
Stewart Bath, Isabella Plains
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