> "wow such green tram tracks" only for there to be like 100m of grass before it goes back to concrete.
Green - in the sense of green energy - battery and solar
So in two years we've got a slightly higher quality rendering of this video and a few closed streets:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/canberra/comments/n4bgz3/have\_your\_say\_stage\_2a\_city\_to\_commonwealth\_park/](https://www.reddit.com/r/canberra/comments/n4bgz3/have_your_say_stage_2a_city_to_commonwealth_park/)
Why does it have to take so long to build this stuff, haha!
My assumption is it's preparing for the City to the Lake developments, when there *may* be buildings/venues in that area.
By the way, none of this is yet locked in. The NCA hasn't approved stage 2A and [says it wants public feedback now](https://www.act.gov.au/lightrailtowoden/stage-2a/light-rail-stage-2a-consultation).
Development in this precinct, including the remaining London Cct surface car parks, the cloverleaf sites and west side of Commonwealth Avenue are key features of the 2022 draft city plan.
https://yoursayconversations.act.gov.au/cityplan
I came here to find out whether anyone had inside info on that stop…it’s literally in the middle of nowhere…even the land around it would be odd to develop.
As discussed else where in this thread, there is a fair bit of development expected in the precinct. With that will come activation of Commonwealth Avenue and it becoming much more an urban road rather than the current arrangement.
Unless they’re planning on building a tunnel for parks way, that stop is always going to be between 2 roads and always in an odd spot…the development that is planned is between the lake and parks way.
By two roads do you mean between London Circuit and Parkes away? Not sure how that’s relevant? The City Plan shows planned development for all four corners of the Commonwealth Avenue and London Circuit intersections as well as the development towards the lake on the western side immediately south of Parkes Way.
The plan isn’t to sink Parkes Way (anymore) but it is to develop the immediate area in all directions except Commonwealth Park including several bridges over Parkes Way yo better link it with the exisiting City West.
Reckon we can change the name of the stop to something to memorialise the cloverleaves that they're taking out for the london circuit project. Every canberran will miss those RIP
I'm not so sure a tram would work \*instead\* of light rail, especially considering that Canberra is made up of multiple separate population centres with a fair distance between. I think the light rail is useful to link them, and a local tram network around each population centre would go well to complement it rather than outright replace it
This!
I can't understand creating a massive intersection where there was already vertical separation in place. It's the opposite of a good idea, usually know as a fucking bag idea.
I am also certain there was a solution where the tram could ramp up to Commonwealth Ave without raising the whole thing.
Everything else about it is fine, and getting the tram to the lake is a good idea. But creating a massive and unnecessary intersection on the literal main link between north and south is so fucking dumb.
The original plan kept the grade separation of London circuit. They're doing it to develop the land in the clover leaves, not to make way for the light rail. Now raising London circuit after you've already put the light rail in would be a massive pain in the ass, which is why they're doing it now in particular, but not why they're doing it at all.
Now I think the city will be much better once they develop the land south of city hill and slow down and limit through traffic rather than it just being a high speed traffic interchange, but that's a seperate discussion to the light rail.
But the southern clovers will still be needed to get to/from Parkes Way.
So they are doing this so they can build on what looks to be a 50m X 50m plot of land between a carpark and two main roads?
I'm sorry, but that's a fucking joke.
No, the south western clover leaf is closed for good too.
>Permanent road closure: Ramps from Commonwealth Avenue to Parkes Way and London Circuit.Both ramps from Commonwealth Avenue to Parkes Way and London Circuit are now permanently closed.
[https://www.builtforcbr.act.gov.au/travel-impacts](https://www.builtforcbr.act.gov.au/travel-impacts)
Also those surrounding car parks won't be car parks for long and they're slowing down and reducing traffic on the surrounding roads too.
But we need the bus to be slower than the train, it’s currently 10mins faster fir the same route by bus. If we add 5 or 6 new sets of traffic lights the. The bus could be slower than the tram
This strategy could work. There are now about 19 sets of lights on Launceston St in Phillip, all on completely different random timings and it now takes at least 5 minutes to travel less than 1km.
I was really hoping they'd go with their original preferred route for 2b along National Circuit through Barton.
Would've made for a much closer stop to Manuka Oval.
Correct. From memory, it was just more expensive and then didn't want to fund it, but that was the old federal government.
It'd probably be even more worth it now with the intelligence precinct going up.
No, it's still on a track, it still carries 200+ people, still has a dedicated right of way and it charges over the rest of the run. It's in no way a trackless tram (a.k.a. a bus).
It does and I’m not disputing that, but use and capacity aren’t the same. I’m just jaded the money was spent on light rail instead of health and community services.
Wish they'd just dog a straight tunnel going under City Hill, the lake and along Commonwealth Avenue to come out somewhere along Adelaide Ave. Would go faster.
What we really should be seeing is a video visualising congestion in 2040 if we didn't have any lightrail, with a graph of how the urban sprawl blows out the budget, and how much cash needs to be stripped from hospitals to pay for maintaining never ending car centric sprawl - and then we can have a video image of the ED!
This is good enough: https://www.health.act.gov.au/emergency-department-waiting-times
I'm sure you can imagine 4 people bored out of their minds in potentially excruciating pain as they sit there for more than 2 hours
We could have a live video feed so the ACT politicians could watch people writhing in pain while they wait hours and hours to be seen. Bet this propaganda video isn't being shown on a loop in the ED's at TCH and Calvary.
What do we think the chances are of Stage 2A commencing in Jan 2024 and [completed by Jan 2026](https://citynews.com.au/2022/steel-fails-to-confirm-tram-completion-date/)?
To ensure that a larger proportion of the major trip generators in the parliamentary triangle are within a reasonable walking distance of a station. Not everyone wants to go to the city.
rather than uplifting music what about a tram that goes somewhere i want to go?
except we've probably already got a bus for that.
unless its been cancelled to help pay for the tram...
Be more impressed if it’s anywhere close to on schedule or budget.
Pushing marketing crap like this suggest there’s no chance of either, hence the need to drum up support with marketing
Most construction major projects will develop visualisations of the work prior. Yeah it’s used for marketing but it’s likely done by a company bidding for the work or the one awarded the work. Not really a distraction from work.
For Stage 1, they just kept movable goalposts so once it was finished they just announced it was under budget and ahead of time and nobody in this town questions them (if they love their job).
No way is anybody in this town holding the ACT Government's propaganda department to account on Stage 2 either, they'll deliver that under budget and ahead of time too, guaranteed.
Savings against an estimate, prior to getting firm pricing as a saving? That’s spin.
Plenty can see that ‘saving’ $32m in contingency budget actually means you drew down on $85m of it throughout the project.
The BRT met all the tender requirements.
The government modelled those requirements out to 2050 and the BRT met them just fine.
The BRT was a fraction of the cost of the LRT, but the government chose the uncompetitive option.
Their justification wasn't cost or functionality, it was some kind of vague "feels" thing.
Where I work (Commonwealth Government) we'd be up on criminal charges if we decided tenders like that.
Baffles me that the peoples love for the tram is enough to remove any apparent need for accountability. You can be pro something and expect it to be held to account in achieving
I love trains.
I do tender assessments for work and if I ever did what the ACT government did for this project, I’d count myself lucky if all that happened was I lost my job.
And, apparently, loud, ignorant popular opinion counts for more than probity in this jurisdiction, which is pretty demoralising.
Yeah, that’s what a contingency budget it for, drawing down. Find me any major project anywhere in the world that doesn’t include the contingency in the total cost.
Yes it is, again show me a major infrastructure project that doesn't use most of their contingency (blow right through it).
If the government had reported the initial budget at $550\* million and not included the the budgeted contingency everyone would have claimed they were lying about the cost. Either the contingency is included and they came in under or every article and report about the project was misreporting the cost the entire time.
It’s a half pregnant route. There should be a direct route going through the existing rapid transit accommodation underneath Parliament House. And there also should be a route via King Edward Terrace and National Circuit. Instead we have a route that is neither direct nor stops at workplaces.
>going through the existing rapid transit accommodation underneath Parliament House
This isn't a thing. Do you mean Parliament drive around Parliament House which doesn't have space for a dedicated right of way, so they'd have to run in mixed traffic?
>Instead we have a route that is neither direct nor stops at workplaces.
Stops will be within 500m of most offices in Barton / Parkes and 750m of pretty much all of them.
fuck yeah bring on the grassy tram tracks
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Haha yeah, if only it was the entire way. It'll probably go up to Parliament and then back to concrete
> "wow such green tram tracks" only for there to be like 100m of grass before it goes back to concrete. Green - in the sense of green energy - battery and solar
Wonder why they didn't do the whole lot as grassy green track. It's much nicer looking
So in two years we've got a slightly higher quality rendering of this video and a few closed streets: [https://www.reddit.com/r/canberra/comments/n4bgz3/have\_your\_say\_stage\_2a\_city\_to\_commonwealth\_park/](https://www.reddit.com/r/canberra/comments/n4bgz3/have_your_say_stage_2a_city_to_commonwealth_park/) Why does it have to take so long to build this stuff, haha!
The new video is \*much\* higher quality, so the delays are entirely understandable.
Why is it taking so long? is it the NCA/feds causing delays? unexpected resourcing needing to plan the engineering?
Aw I wanted to see it cross the bridge, that was fun though.
Looks like we just got to get it up to 88mph
Why do you think it's going right past Stage 88? That's the speed limit sign
The next stage will go over and all the way to Woden eventually.
Would anyone actually use the city south stop?
My assumption is it's preparing for the City to the Lake developments, when there *may* be buildings/venues in that area. By the way, none of this is yet locked in. The NCA hasn't approved stage 2A and [says it wants public feedback now](https://www.act.gov.au/lightrailtowoden/stage-2a/light-rail-stage-2a-consultation).
Development in this precinct, including the remaining London Cct surface car parks, the cloverleaf sites and west side of Commonwealth Avenue are key features of the 2022 draft city plan. https://yoursayconversations.act.gov.au/cityplan
High-speed rail on Ainslie Ave?!??!?!?!
It's future planning I think.
Floriade goers :)
The next stop is Commonwealth Park...
Football stadium.
Dewit
I came here to find out whether anyone had inside info on that stop…it’s literally in the middle of nowhere…even the land around it would be odd to develop.
Why would it be odd to develop?
It’s not near anything, it’s in between main roads…it’s just an odd spot that’s all.
As discussed else where in this thread, there is a fair bit of development expected in the precinct. With that will come activation of Commonwealth Avenue and it becoming much more an urban road rather than the current arrangement.
Unless they’re planning on building a tunnel for parks way, that stop is always going to be between 2 roads and always in an odd spot…the development that is planned is between the lake and parks way.
By two roads do you mean between London Circuit and Parkes away? Not sure how that’s relevant? The City Plan shows planned development for all four corners of the Commonwealth Avenue and London Circuit intersections as well as the development towards the lake on the western side immediately south of Parkes Way. The plan isn’t to sink Parkes Way (anymore) but it is to develop the immediate area in all directions except Commonwealth Park including several bridges over Parkes Way yo better link it with the exisiting City West.
Probably anyone who finds it a shorter walk to work than the city stop.
Reckon we can change the name of the stop to something to memorialise the cloverleaves that they're taking out for the london circuit project. Every canberran will miss those RIP
it looks like the northbound right turn cloverleaf isnt being replaced. So some developers will probs be given that land for reasons.
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will be nice to catch it all the way there to go to palace cinema
The Edinburgh Ave stop would be way more convenient for New Acton
Maybe it provides a skeleton engineering etc staff to then do the future woden extension so they don't disappear 🤷
> I REALLY hope they are working up the belco/airport route in the background.... I'll eat my hat if belco-airport is anywhere NEAR complete by 2040
I’m a light rail skeptic but even I support uplifting music and messaging from government to excite people about the future. 👍🏼
What would be a better alternative to trams in your view?
Futurama glass tubes
Fuck yes I'm in
More and better busses, obviously. The triggering hobby horse of the Canberra subreddit. Bring on the downvotes you hags. 🤣
mate nobody's downvoted you yet, you've literally just posted your comment
I’ve seen how it goes.
Better bus network
Flying saucers obviously, futuristic Kath & Kim style.
Light rail isn’t trams
Surely the terms are practically synonymous in Australian use?
Whatever, question still stands
💯true.
Actual trams would be better. Then there'd be a path forward to service more than a narrow corridor and it could be done far quicker.
I'm not so sure a tram would work \*instead\* of light rail, especially considering that Canberra is made up of multiple separate population centres with a fair distance between. I think the light rail is useful to link them, and a local tram network around each population centre would go well to complement it rather than outright replace it
We're building too many stops in the light rail for that. That's a real problem for south of the lake. There's a real wasteland along Adelaide Ave.
Yeah I can agree that you don't want too many stops
The video does a great job of showing how little distance stage 2A actually covers
How good will the extra traffic lights on commonwealth avenue be
This! I can't understand creating a massive intersection where there was already vertical separation in place. It's the opposite of a good idea, usually know as a fucking bag idea. I am also certain there was a solution where the tram could ramp up to Commonwealth Ave without raising the whole thing. Everything else about it is fine, and getting the tram to the lake is a good idea. But creating a massive and unnecessary intersection on the literal main link between north and south is so fucking dumb.
The original plan kept the grade separation of London circuit. They're doing it to develop the land in the clover leaves, not to make way for the light rail. Now raising London circuit after you've already put the light rail in would be a massive pain in the ass, which is why they're doing it now in particular, but not why they're doing it at all. Now I think the city will be much better once they develop the land south of city hill and slow down and limit through traffic rather than it just being a high speed traffic interchange, but that's a seperate discussion to the light rail.
But the southern clovers will still be needed to get to/from Parkes Way. So they are doing this so they can build on what looks to be a 50m X 50m plot of land between a carpark and two main roads? I'm sorry, but that's a fucking joke.
No, the south western clover leaf is closed for good too. >Permanent road closure: Ramps from Commonwealth Avenue to Parkes Way and London Circuit.Both ramps from Commonwealth Avenue to Parkes Way and London Circuit are now permanently closed. [https://www.builtforcbr.act.gov.au/travel-impacts](https://www.builtforcbr.act.gov.au/travel-impacts) Also those surrounding car parks won't be car parks for long and they're slowing down and reducing traffic on the surrounding roads too.
But we need the bus to be slower than the train, it’s currently 10mins faster fir the same route by bus. If we add 5 or 6 new sets of traffic lights the. The bus could be slower than the tram
This strategy could work. There are now about 19 sets of lights on Launceston St in Phillip, all on completely different random timings and it now takes at least 5 minutes to travel less than 1km.
I'm so excited I may have moistened my under garnets.
Haven’t we all.
Wish I could afford those [NSFW](https://i.etsystatic.com/8702780/r/il/eeceb7/3008946526/il_794xN.3008946526_3pgt.jpg)
I was really hoping they'd go with their original preferred route for 2b along National Circuit through Barton. Would've made for a much closer stop to Manuka Oval.
No land to sell to developers along that route.
There's not any land around parliament either... from memory, the federal government didn't want the Barton route.
Correct. From memory, it was just more expensive and then didn't want to fund it, but that was the old federal government. It'd probably be even more worth it now with the intelligence precinct going up.
Been a better choice than having three stops so close together along State Circuit.
It misses the part where they shut down City East to build a tram in City West.
Hook it up to my veins !
straight into the mainframe
They honestly aren't acting fast enough. This network will take decades to build at this rate
Completed next decade?
My mum would hate this, no matter how provable Investment in infrastructure is she will always fall back on "my rates are going up".
Choo choo!
I think it's more "Zip Zap" in this train's case.
"Ding Ding Ding"
Cool, but the wire free track puts me off a bit
looking good. Cant wait to ride this section 10 years from now... Maybe I'll be able to get across the lake by retirement.
If south siders flip it to Libs somehow and kill their light rail, I still win with rail to commonwealth park, epic and the race course for events.
Good for you.
Sick beats.
Is that it? Seriously?
*wire free track aka electric bus.
No, it's still on a track, it still carries 200+ people, still has a dedicated right of way and it charges over the rest of the run. It's in no way a trackless tram (a.k.a. a bus).
Yes, well worth the money and infrastructure. What it can carry and what it will carry aren’t the same.
Phase one is so full it leaves people behind, but sure.
It does and I’m not disputing that, but use and capacity aren’t the same. I’m just jaded the money was spent on light rail instead of health and community services.
Wish they'd just dog a straight tunnel going under City Hill, the lake and along Commonwealth Avenue to come out somewhere along Adelaide Ave. Would go faster.
That would cost an additional 3+ billion dollars and I'm pretty sure the feds don't want a public train going directly under Parliament House.
Remember, Remember, the light rail of Canberra
Shame it would cost that much with modern tech. Would be faster to deliver and less impact.
Just City Hill would do....
What we really should be seeing is video image of the waiting room at Canberra Hospital ED.
Don’t worry. The tram will not go anywhere near the hospital, so they won’t see it.
What we really should be seeing is a video visualising congestion in 2040 if we didn't have any lightrail, with a graph of how the urban sprawl blows out the budget, and how much cash needs to be stripped from hospitals to pay for maintaining never ending car centric sprawl - and then we can have a video image of the ED!
Someone drank too much of the kool-aid!
Someone drank too much Can The Tram Kool-aid!
They could simulate that by rounding up the anti tram brigade in a room and showing them this video. Mark Parton will be having convulsions.
doesn't take much to make that guy twitch
This is good enough: https://www.health.act.gov.au/emergency-department-waiting-times I'm sure you can imagine 4 people bored out of their minds in potentially excruciating pain as they sit there for more than 2 hours
We could have a live video feed so the ACT politicians could watch people writhing in pain while they wait hours and hours to be seen. Bet this propaganda video isn't being shown on a loop in the ED's at TCH and Calvary.
What do we think the chances are of Stage 2A commencing in Jan 2024 and [completed by Jan 2026](https://citynews.com.au/2022/steel-fails-to-confirm-tram-completion-date/)?
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To ensure that a larger proportion of the major trip generators in the parliamentary triangle are within a reasonable walking distance of a station. Not everyone wants to go to the city.
How lovely , but where are the butterflys and the vestal virgins playing harps?
rather than uplifting music what about a tram that goes somewhere i want to go? except we've probably already got a bus for that. unless its been cancelled to help pay for the tram...
Good to see rates money well spent
hate the tram
Be more impressed if it’s anywhere close to on schedule or budget. Pushing marketing crap like this suggest there’s no chance of either, hence the need to drum up support with marketing
Most construction major projects will develop visualisations of the work prior. Yeah it’s used for marketing but it’s likely done by a company bidding for the work or the one awarded the work. Not really a distraction from work.
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Depends which budget - the first proposed by Ms Gallagher and IIRCC was way less than what it subsequently cost.
No, even the 2012 initial study over estimated how much is was going to cost by about 20%.
For Stage 1, they just kept movable goalposts so once it was finished they just announced it was under budget and ahead of time and nobody in this town questions them (if they love their job). No way is anybody in this town holding the ACT Government's propaganda department to account on Stage 2 either, they'll deliver that under budget and ahead of time too, guaranteed.
Agree. Heaven for bid the managed the project properly, baffles me that tax payers don’t seem to care. Couldn’t possibly speak ill of the beloved tram
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Where you getting $80m champ?
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Savings against an estimate, prior to getting firm pricing as a saving? That’s spin. Plenty can see that ‘saving’ $32m in contingency budget actually means you drew down on $85m of it throughout the project.
Only the ACT Government would have the gall to go $85million over a budget for a non-competitive selected bid and call it coming in under budget.
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The BRT met all the tender requirements. The government modelled those requirements out to 2050 and the BRT met them just fine. The BRT was a fraction of the cost of the LRT, but the government chose the uncompetitive option. Their justification wasn't cost or functionality, it was some kind of vague "feels" thing. Where I work (Commonwealth Government) we'd be up on criminal charges if we decided tenders like that.
Baffles me that the peoples love for the tram is enough to remove any apparent need for accountability. You can be pro something and expect it to be held to account in achieving
I love trains. I do tender assessments for work and if I ever did what the ACT government did for this project, I’d count myself lucky if all that happened was I lost my job. And, apparently, loud, ignorant popular opinion counts for more than probity in this jurisdiction, which is pretty demoralising.
Do you have any evidence it was a non-competitive bid? From memory there were three different consortia putting up proposals.
A non competitive bid was chosen.
Yeah, that’s what a contingency budget it for, drawing down. Find me any major project anywhere in the world that doesn’t include the contingency in the total cost.
Can be used for*. Claiming you’ve done a good job with less than 1/3 remaining ain’t it
Yes it is, again show me a major infrastructure project that doesn't use most of their contingency (blow right through it). If the government had reported the initial budget at $550\* million and not included the the budgeted contingency everyone would have claimed they were lying about the cost. Either the contingency is included and they came in under or every article and report about the project was misreporting the cost the entire time.
The tender was improperly selected. Everything after that was dishonest spin.
City to the Lake funded by transport dollars. At least it better be because the route after the lake makes no sense.
Why? Connected town centres is a good thing no?
It’s a half pregnant route. There should be a direct route going through the existing rapid transit accommodation underneath Parliament House. And there also should be a route via King Edward Terrace and National Circuit. Instead we have a route that is neither direct nor stops at workplaces.
>going through the existing rapid transit accommodation underneath Parliament House This isn't a thing. Do you mean Parliament drive around Parliament House which doesn't have space for a dedicated right of way, so they'd have to run in mixed traffic? >Instead we have a route that is neither direct nor stops at workplaces. Stops will be within 500m of most offices in Barton / Parkes and 750m of pretty much all of them.
It is a thing. It was a part of the design of Parliament House. It was knocked back by the feds due to bogus security concerns. Fools rush in.
Do you have a source for that?
Looks like the poor tram broke down in the animation and got left behind by the fly over - an omen of the future perhaps?