Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Shane Rattenbury, has invited the community to provide feedback on proposed changes to ACTION’s bus service.
“A number of improvements have been identified in the ACTION bus network for 2014 and we are now calling on the community to provide feedback,” Mr. Rattenbury said.

Highlights of the proposed new network for 2014 include:

• a new service linking Molonglo to Woden and Cooleman Court with a peak hour Xpresso to the City – these services will support increased residential development in the Molonglo Valley
• a new Rapid service between Gungahlin and Belconnen
• a new service for Hume
• improved services between Erindale and Woden
• improved services to the airport and surrounding business park precinct
• increased Xpresso services between Weston Creek and the City, including an Xpresso direct to the City from Cooleman Court.
• improved services into the Parliamentary Triangle, including two new dedicated morning peak services from Woden and services from Gungahlin which now extend into the Triangle rather than terminate in Civic.

“To allow for increased frequency and more direct routes there does need to be some trade-offs. For example, to make services more direct, the walking distance for some people to get to a bus stop might be increased. The new network still meets the minimum requirement in the Transport for Canberra policy with 95% of residences being within 500 metres of a bus stop ‘as the crow flies’.” Mr. Rattenbury commented.
Mr. Rattenbury explained that proposed changes to the bus service build on other investments such as bus priority measures, bus station and stop upgrades, new buses, NXTBUS – the real time passenger information system – and light rail. Mr. Rattenbury added that increasing the frequency of bus services will encourage more Canberrans to get out of their private vehicles and on to public transport. This in turn will contribute to the ACT Government’s goals of reducing carbon emissions and assist the ACT Government to reach its mode share target for public transport by 2026 (16 percent).