The ACT Government will invest more than $26 million in active travel in the 2023–24 Budget to encourage more people to ride and walk around the city, ministers announced today.
“Every journey that Canberrans take on foot, by bike, skateboard or scooter helps make our city cleaner, healthier, and less congested,” Chris Steel, ACT Minister for Transport and City Services, said.
The biggest item is $10.4 million to fund stage 1 of the Garden City Cycle Route, which the government says will better connect inner north suburbs on the eastern side of Northbourne Avenue to Canberra’s main cycling network.
The new route will run through Watson, Downer, Hackett, Dickson, Ainslie, and Braddon through to the city cycle loop on Bunda and Allara Streets, Civic.
The project is jointly funded with the Commonwealth. The government will consult the community on the design of the route in July.
- Labor pledges $5 million for northside bicycle paths (16 May 2022)
“One of the major barriers that we’ve heard from the community to take up active travel is the lack of safe infrastructure for walking and cycling,” Mr Steel said. “And so, what we’re attempting to do with these new cycle path connections is to provide safe separated or protected cycle ways for Canberrans to use.”
Most of the paths will be on streets where there is little traffic, and they will built on the verge, so the roadway will not be reduced.
“We don’t expect that the active travel infrastructure will cause too much disruption to traffic,” Mr Steel said. “But this will help to remove cars off the road, provide a much better street environment for pedestrians, and improve Canberrans’ wellbeing.”
More than $5 million will be spent to maintain the ACT’s 3,190 km of path and cycle network and fix safety hotspots: a 46 per cent increase on the existing path maintenance budget, Mr Steel said.
“It will address many of those higher risks defects across the path network to make sure that it’s safe and accessible for people to use in the future,” Mr Steel said.
The government will spend a further $3 million to upgrade paths around Lake Ginninderra, and improve connections to playgrounds, picnic areas, and parks around the lake. Paths will be widened, drainage improved, and more lights and seats installed.
Mr Steel said this would “support recreational activity in an incredibly popular spot for Canberrans, particularly on the weekend”.
$2.6 million will be spent to upgrade the shared path between Cunningham Street, Kingston, and Bowen Park, Barton. The government says this will improve safety for walkers and cyclists between Civic and Queanbeyan, including along Eastlake Parade, Kingston, and at the intersections with Printers Way and Cunningham Street.
$2.4 million will be spent on making roads and paths around schools safer and easier. Three pedestrian crossings will be installed near Canberra High School, Macquarie; two raised pedestrian crossings will be installed at St Mary McKillop College, Isabella Plains; and one raised pedestrian crossing near Gold Creek High School, Nicholls.
The government will prepare a feasibility study for a controlled pedestrian crossing on Canberra Avenue, Griffith, near St Edmund’s and St Clare’s Colleges. The enhanced school crossing supervisor program will continue at Canberra Grammar, Duffy Primary, Good Shepherd Primary, St Francis of Assisi Primary, and Torrens Primary.
To plan more active travel paths, the government will spend $2.1 million to fund feasibility and design studies to upgrade Gungahlin Town Centre active travel; the Marcus Clark Street / Rudd Street missing link C8 (principal) City Loop; the Lake Burley Griffin principal route; C5 (principal) from Cotter Road to Mulley Street; Melrose Drive main community route; priority crossings on Athllon Drive / Parramatta Street and on Miller Street, O’Connor; and pop-up cycleways.
More than $1 million will be spent on fixing missing links and gaps in the community path network, including more street lighting so people can walk safely during all hours of the day.
The government will spend $785,000 on communications activities and campaigns to encourage active travel.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said: “This package represents a very significant investment by the Territory government. It picks up on a lot of small projects that have been identified by the government as either missing links in our existing active travel network or opportunities to make a significant modal shift to encourage people to actively travel to work or to recreation.”
ACT Greens: “Welcome news”
Jo Clay MLA, ACT Greens spokesperson for transport and active travel, welcomed the Transport Minister’s announcement for more funding for footpaths and bike paths.
“This takes our active travel infrastructure spend up to $12 million, much higher than the average $5 million in previous years,” she said.
“I have been calling for at least $20 million for paths and footpaths since I was elected, and advocates like Pedal Power and Public Transport Canberra have also called for much more funding.
“At the start of June, the Assembly passed my motion to support more funding for footpaths and bike paths, and establish a maintenance indicator to keep them in good repair. Today’s announcement is welcome news.”
“I’m also delighted to see that three pedestrian crossings will be installed near Canberra High at Jamison shops. We’ve been calling for this since 2021, and I’m really happy to see it go ahead. It will make walking and riding much easier and safer for the high school students and everyone who uses shops at Jamo.”
Pedal Power
Cycle advocacy group Pedal Power welcomed the active travel project funding, but said more money was needed.
“The funding announced today is welcome,” Simon Copland, Pedal Power’s executive director, said. “All of the projects are integral to improving active travel infrastructure in Canberra.
“In particular, we welcome increased investment into path maintenance, as funding is currently too low. Construction of Lake Ginninderra path upgrades, the first section of the Garden City Cycle Route, and a new link in Kingston will also encourage more people to get on their bikes.
“However, while welcome, this money is simply not enough. Due to lack of proper funding, Canberra is now falling behind other cities in Australia and around the world when it comes to active travel.”
Mr Copland said the Government was failing to meet its own stated goals for active travel.
“The ACT Government has a goal of increasing bicycle commute rates to 7 per cent of all trips by 2026. However, in 2021, cyclists only made up 2.7 per cent of all commuters.
“Research shows that safe and convenient infrastructure is the largest barrier to people using active travel for transport. While Canberra has historically had some of the best infrastructure in Australia, this network is poorly maintained and has large gaps. We are far behind the stated goals of this Government, and lack of adequate funding is largely to blame.”
Mr Copland called on the Government to release the finalised Active Travel Plan and to implement it within the next five years.
“The ACT’s draft Active Travel Plan is a good broad document with great goals for active travel in Canberra. However, the Plan still has no timeline, nor any realistic budget to see it implemented.
“Active travel funding is still done in an ad hoc, hodge podge manner, with the Government funding individual projects with no sense of the overarching network.
“The Active Travel Plan presents an extensive network of future links for construction. However, only three of these are being funded as part of this budget. At this rate, this network would take decades to complete. This is simply not fast enough. This is why Pedal Power is calling for the ACT Government to speed up investment, committing to build this network in the next five years.”
Mr Copland argued that investment of this kind was possible, and that all that was lacking was the political will.
“Cities around Australia are taking a more systematic approach and seeing great results,” he said. “Since 2007, the city of Sydney, for example, has built 25 km of safe, separated cycleways, including pop-ups, 60 km of shared paths, and 40 km of other cycling infrastructure. Today, bike trips in some locations have increased by up to six times than in 2010.
“Last year, the ACT Government found an extra $150 million in funding to fix potholes on our roads. If it can find that sort of money for roads, it should be able to do so for our active travel network. While the projects announced today are welcome, they do not go anywhere near far enough to reinstating Canberra’s position as a worldclass cycling city.”
Mr Steel responded that the $26 million announced was “a very significant investment in active travel”, and would provide safe active travel infrastructure.
“This type of infrastructure costs less than a road does, but we hope that it will be used just as much as some of our major roadways in Canberra,” Mr Steel said. “That’s why we’re doubling some of our cycleways ‘cycle highways’, because we really do think that in places like the inner north that are close to the city, we will see large numbers of people using them, once the infrastructure is there.
“At the moment, safety infrastructure is not there in the inner north on this side of Northbourne Avenue. And so we want to make sure that it’s available for all members of the community to use, whether it’s students going to school, whether it’s the elderly walking around our community.”
