2019-03-18
The ACT Greens today urged the National Capital Authority (NCA) to reverse their decision to leave Monash Drive on the National Capital Plan.
“The National Capital Authority has again reneged on its commitment to Canberra by refusing to take this last century ‘ghost road’ off the map,” Greens Member for Kurrajong Shane Rattenbury said today.
“The Greens have argued for the abandonment of Monash Drive for many years. Following the 2008 election, we required Labor to abandon this road through our Parliamentary Agreement.
“The Greens’ vision for Canberra’s future is as a sustainable, people-focused ‘Bush Capital’. You don’t achieve that by building big new roads in spite the views of your community, and taking out the nature reserves that locals value.
“The NCA needs to get with the times. We simply don’t need a new major road built through North Canberra’s suburbs. This is not the time to build last century’s roads to meet this century’s needs.
“In the past ten years, we’ve spent over a billion dollars building a four-lane parkway and light rail from Gungahlin to Civic. For the NCA to say this isn’t enough, when light rail stage one is just about to start, isn’t good enough.
“The Greens have spent a decade in the balance of power working to improve sustainable transport options. We’ve achieved the realisation of a high quality public transport option in the first stage of light rail, as well as significant improvement in walking and cycling.
“In fact Canberra residents would be served much better if we instead built a high quality cycling and walking route on the general alignment proposed for Monash Drive,” Mr Rattenbury added.
In 2009, Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur outlined concerns from the Greens that Monash Drive had remained on the National Capital Plan. Ms Le Couteur then described the road corridor as an “outdated concept for today’s sustainability planning”, and that “more public transport is a much better option than bulldozing nature reserves to build highways.”
At the 2016 election, the ACT Greens’ committed to making Canberra the Active Travel Capital.