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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-09-24 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Mr O'BRIEN (Napier) (15:45): In many cities around the world public transport within the city centre—the CBD and adjacent residential areas—is the responsibility of the local government authority. Movement of people into the city from the suburbs or countryside is the responsibility of state or national governments, but within the city the buses, trams or metros are run by city hall. London is a prime example where the underground is run by the City of London. San Francisco is another, where the bay area is serviced by the state of California's heavy rail BART system, but the cable cars, light rail and buses running in downtown San Francisco are managed by the Municipal Transport Authority.

In Portland, Oregon—a North American city of a scale more in keeping with that of Adelaide—the light rail and bus networks linking the suburbs of Portland are run by TriMet (a corporation of the state of Oregon), while light rail within downtown Portland—the Portland streetcar—is operated by the City of Portland.

The Portland Streetcar Project is an inspirational story and shows what a 'can do' local government administration is able to achieve when it sets its sights high. The Portland streetcar (or tram in our parlance) is a new project that opened in 2001. It runs on a 13 kilometre L-shaped loop that services most of downtown Portland, including several large areas that were formally run down warehousing and workshop precincts. It intentionally intersects the light rail lines from the suburbs at several points allowing suburban commuters to move then within downtown Portland to their places of employment or to the reinvigorated retail centre.

The central foci of the City of Portland in developing the Portland Streetcar Project were to promote investment at the city's core, encourage population growth within the core and support the urban amenities that, in their words, make great cities great. As of April this year $3.5 billion has been invested within two blocks of the streetcar alignment, which comprise 10,212 new housing units and 5.4 million square feet of office, institutional, retail and hotel construction. Prior to 1997 land located within one block of the yet to be built streetcar alignment captured just 19 per cent of all investment within the CBD.

Since the streetcar alignment was identified, 55 per cent of all new development has occurred within one block of the streetcar. Interestingly, developers are building new residential buildings with significantly lower parking ratios than anywhere else in the region, meaning that households are opting for one car or no car because of the convenience afforded by close proximity to the streetcar route. Ridership is nearly treble the projected ridership target of 3,500, hitting 9,000 riders each day in the fall of 2005. Total construction cost was $US103 million. How similar the strategic objectives of the City of Portland and the City of Adelaide.

In its Creating Our Future 2008-30 document, the City of Adelaide calls for an increase in the daily population of workers, students, visitors and residents by 50 per cent to 300,000 by the year 2030. The city also proposes a fleet of solar and green-powered buses and trams to carry people around the city. Adelaide City Council has unequivocally chosen a vision of a more vibrant, more populated city based on readily accessible public transport. I believe that Adelaide City Council has the financial wherewithal to realise this vision.

Its balance sheet is in excellent shape with total assets and, most importantly, total equity sitting at over $1 billion. Its borrowings sit at a very conservative $38.6 million (I am talking about long-term debt not overdraft). An eight kilometre track looping through the square mile using public work committee report figures for the cost of a tram line per kilometre would come in at around $100 million. This would be a 10 per cent growth in the council's asset base—ambitious, but, like the project undertaken by the City of Portland, manageable. A line to North Adelaide could come later.

Time expired.

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