Back in June, the ACT Auditor-General released a damning assessment of ACT Light Rail Project – the $710 million project to build a 12-kilometre light rail line connecting Gungahlin in the north and Civic – claiming that the cost-benefit analysis used to support the Project was chock full of erroneous assumptions and spurious benefit inclusions, and is unlikely to provide net benefits to Canberra residents.
This followed damning assessments by the Productivity Commission and the Grattan Institute, which both found that investing in bus rapid transit could have delivered the same benefits but at around half the taxpayer cost.
It also came to light this week that an internal report delivered to the Government in 2013 conceded that the Light Rail Project does not stack up against rapid buses.
Now, despite these damning assessments, Labor has committed to extending light rail to Woden if it wins the upcoming Territory Election. From The Canberra Times:
The planned 11-kilometre route will see trams cross the lake over the Commonwealth Avenue bridge, travel through the Parliamentary Triangle, and down Adelaide Avenue to the Woden town centre…
Building from the City to Woden is expected to cost roughly the same as the Gungahlin to the city, given both travel similar distances, although no detailed costing work has yet been done and a business case is not yet complete…
Cabinet agreed to the Woden route this week, and ACT Labor and the Greens will on Friday make election pledges to sign the contracts during the next term of government…
It remains unclear whether work would start immediately following the completion of stage one in 2018-19, although the government is keen to ensure there is minimal delay between the stages to ensure its employment pipeline continues.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said in a statement that ACT Labor would immediately start work developing this route, “with construction contracts signed in the next term of government”.
Righto. So there been no detailed costing or business case, and yet Labor has already committed to the project with The Greens’ blessing. You cannot make this stuff up.
Territory voters should not forget that the Light Rail Project only came to fruition because Labor lacked the numbers to form government and needed to gain support from the Greens sole MLA, Shane Rattenbury, who held the balance of power. And Light Rail was the ‘price paid’ for the Greens’ support.
Hopefully, the ACT voters will remember this waste and mis-management when they vote in the upcoming October Territory election.
