'Haven't been putting our orders in on time', Greens say about buses

The party released its transport policy on buses ahead of the October election with a key promise to increase the frequency of buses to every 20 minutes during weekdays and 30 minutes during weekends.

One-hundred extra electric buses would be needed to help them achieve this, the party has said. The buses are expected to cost $100 million.

The Greens have also promised to hire an extra 200 bus drivers which would cost $50 million a year.

The costings were revealed on Thursday after not being included in an original policy document.

The territory government has ordered 106 electric buses but only 16 have arrived. There have been delays with the buses due to supply chain issues and commissioning processes.

But Greens backbencher and the party's transport spokeswoman, Jo Clay, said the government had not planned ahead and not put their orders in on time.

"What we've seen is we're having really slow procurement, we are not starting our projects early enough, we are not planning ahead," she said.

"We will be ordering these buses from the best value place that already knows how to build them. Part of the delays with our buses is that we haven't been putting our orders in on time. That's why we've got a fully costed plan. We know exactly how many buses we need to buy and we will set about procuring those as soon as possible."

The Greens, who are in government with Labor, have also pitched new bus lanes in Belconnen, Molonglo and Civic; free public transport for pension and concession care holders and under-18s and new bus depots in Mitchell and west Belconnen.

Transport Minister Chris Steel, from Labor, said the Greens' policy was light on detail.

"The Greens public transport ideas misses the mark in some areas," he said.

"For example, the Greens' policy would not expand any rapid bus services to growth areas of our city."

The Canberra Liberals announced their public transport policy last month, which includes a promise to run local buses every 30 minutes during the day, seven days a week, while rapid services would run at least every 15 minutes between 7am and 7pm all week. A continuous bus lane would be built between Woden and the city, with the opposition promising to abandon the second stage of light rail. The opposition has estimated its policy will cost $450 million.

Liberals opposition spokesman Mark Parton said the opposition was "genuinely flattered" by the Greens transport policy, saying it was a copy of the policy released by his party. He questioned why the Greens had not delivered extra bus services despite being in government.

"The big questions for Canberrans to ask are, given that the Greens have been in government for more than a decade, why haven't they managed to deliver any of this to date," he said.

"In the 12 years that members of the ACT Greens have sat around the cabinet table, ACTION and Transport Canberra have seen continual service degradation and a bus fleet that fails to keep pace with Canberra's growing population."

The Public Transport Association of Canberra welcomed the Greens' policy, saying it represented a growing political consensus on providing better bus services. The association's chair, Ryan Hemsley, said Labor should match the commitments.

"For many years, Canberrans have been asking for more frequent and reliable bus services to deliver a city-wide, integrated public transport network," he said.

"By announcing this policy, the ACT Greens have joined the Canberra Liberals in promising better public transport, no matter where you live in the nation's capital."

Mr Steel said: "ACT Labor will deliver a comprehensive integrated transport plan for Canberra future that is progressive, practical and proven".

The ACT Greens transport was mostly focused on buses but the party has said it believed light rail could be built faster.

"There is absolutely no reason why we need to deliver this project so slowly," Ms Clay said.

"We're looking around at other jurisdictions, we can see that they're taking four or five years to do their stages of light rail, there is no reason that we need to take so long to do one short stage of light rail."

However, Mr Steel said he was concerned about this view from the Greens, saying it was unrealistic.

"This comes at the same time they also argue that the environmental and planning process should be even tougher, which is the key barrier to work getting underway. Setting unrealistic demands on light rail delivery just plays into the hands of the people that want to see the project scrapped," he said.