The document analyzes Canberra's transport system over the past century and discusses the potential for a transition towards more robust public transit options. It highlights the early vision of urban planner Walter Burley Griffin and the challenges faced due to historical factors, including automobile dependence and fluctuating transit policies. The paper outlines potential strategies for future transport planning, stressing the need for a demand-driven bus service, transit-oriented development, and investments in active transport infrastructure to reduce reliance on cars.

1. Canberra’s transport
system since Griffin,
and its future in the
next hundred years
Cameron Gordon
Associate Professor of Economics
University of Canberra
Faculty of Business Government and Law
Senior Visiting Fellow
University of New South Wales – Canberra
Principal Investigator
UTRC Region 2 (New York)

2. Basic Motivation
What is the critical mass of population size
and density, economic activity and financial
base to allow for (1) robust transit and (2)
‘mode shift’ to make transit a significantly
used or even greater used mode than
automobiles?
l This paper examines transport provision
Canberra over the past 100 years and
considers what we may have learned then
which can determine whether the city can
achieve (1) and (2) above and how it might
do it over the next hundred years.
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3. A vision
The Australian government sponsored an
international competition for design of the new
city in 1911.
l The winner of that competition was an
American architect named Walter Burley
Griffin, a former collaborator of Frank Lloyd
Wright, who came up with a design with
streets organized along radial arterials and an
artificial lake separating north and south sides
of the city.
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5. Often overlooked are Griffin’s implicit and
explicit thoughts about transport.
l Unlike many urban paradigms, even those of
his mentor Wright, Griffin considered how
transport in the new city should evolve along
with urban expansion and growth.
l The modular approach of building 'suburbs’,
designed to be relatively self-sustaining, with
residents supplied by a set of local 'shops' for
essentials, is an extraordinary example of
organic limitation of ‘trip generation’ which, in
turns, controls demands for transport.
l As the city expanded, these suburbs would be
connected by a tram which Griffin laid out
rights-of-way and even a service yard.
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6. A car capital from its inception?
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Griffin’s original plans were modified and
upended in many ways during Canberra’s first
decades.
In terms of transport elements, the Great
Depression marked the end of the building of
the tram which Griffin had planned for.
The privations of the Depression, the War and
the initially small scale of the city put the role of
the automobile on the backburner for the first
half of Canberra’s first century.
So where did the notion of the ACT as a carcentred burg come from and is it true?

7. Canberra population 1933-1961
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Year
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Males
Females
Total
1933 3,839
3,486
7,325
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1947 8,121
7,035
15,156
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1954 15,076
13,201
28,277
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1957 18,949
16,878
35,273
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1961 29,463
26,296
56,449

8. The ACT in 1961
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56,500 people
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19,000 motor vehicles
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Much of the workforce still housed in hostels
and government housing close to workplaces.
No tram yet but a population and workforce
clearly mostly non-car dependent.
But rapid growth (from a small base) in the past
and anticipated rapid growth going forward.
This is a clear crossroads for the role of the car
in the ACT (no pun intended)

9. Canberra: 1962
Source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/canberrahouse/2546716061/sizes/o/in/set-72157605402510546/

10. Cars or transit?
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It is clear that in 1961 transport planning and
investment was going to be a major issue.
One could see two sets of transport policy choices.
(1) How much car versus non-car (walking,
bicycling, transit) – the ‘modal split’
(2) For transit what kind? Bus or rail?
The Canberra City Omnibus Service, operated by
the Federal Capital Commission, began in 1923 to
transport workers building the city and later on
operated four buses in ‘Inner Canberra’ (Cooper
1982). The experience local thus far was with bus
not rail.

11. The initial winner – the auto
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The NCDC’s first plan for urban growth
projected population of 500,000, with a
downtown surrounded by new towns and
served by freeways.
To lessen traffic congestion in the centre, these
freeways would bypass downtown.
Rail was not considered (although rights of way
for it along roads were proposed) and transit
would be provided by bus.
Other plans and studies would arise during the
1960s and the first half of the 1970s but this
basic model would hold in transport thinking.

12. Buses: growth and decline at the
same time
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Even with this automobile bias, total number
bus trips grew throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
However bus trips per capita fell by close to
30% between 1960 and 1973 as population
growth outstripped bus provision.
When the ABS asked about mode of trip for
Journey to Work (JTW) for the first time in
1976, Canberra was at the bottom (top) for
transit (auto) share across the seven capital
cities.

13. A (bus) transit renaissance 1975-90
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For a variety of reasons the bus transit picture improved
considerably for around 15 years between 1975 and 1990.
Partly this was spurred by a brief pro-transit interregnum
of transit subsidy and investment by the Whitlam
government.
Partly, at the margins, investments in cycle and pedestrian
ways encouraged active transport choices (probably
locally facilitated by Griffin’s suburb-shops paradigm).
But a big reason was substantial increases in bus
coverage and frequency and other service improvements
in the ACT. Per capita usage doubled between 1973 and
1985 and JTW transit share rose from 8.9% to 9.9%
between 1976 and 1981.

14. 1961-2011 bus boardings in
Canberra
(source: Mees 2012)

15. The bus breaks down
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As the previous data show, this brief
renaissance was not to last.
By 2011 bus boardings, both total and per
capita, were down substantially from their peaks
and, in per capita usage, even from prior lows.
JTW shares by transit fell substantially and
public subsidies for bus journeys, always
growing, grew more, but for less effective
service.
It must be noted that even the ‘renaissance’ has
transit usage providing a small minority of overall
trips.

16. l
Canberra 1985 Canberra 2011
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Population –
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250,000
365,000
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urban share -
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99%
99%
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urban density (per ha) –
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10.1
10.8
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PT patronage (million)
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24.0
16.7
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Trips per capita
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96
46
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PT share of work trips
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11%
7.9%
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Subsidy/trip ($Au, 2011)
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2.21
5.85
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Cost-recovery
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25%
17%
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(source: Mees, 2012)

17. Bus subsidies in the ACT 1961-2011

18. The next hundred years
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If we look at the last hundred years, we see a clear
inflection point around 50 years ago where a
relatively small and (compared to today) compact
city relied relatively little on the car had a choice
about dominant travel mode and chose the car.
Buses were (and are) the only transit alternative
but this did not automatically mean that therefore
transit usage was destined for permanent decline.
Indeed good and frequent service made a
relatively big positive difference in patterns over a
relatively short period.
So what now?

19. One view: a permanent car city
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Some say that Canberra is now largely past the
point of no return in terms of automobile
dependence.
Yes, current plans aim for large increases in transit
mode share but this still leaves around 75% of
JTW using automobiles twenty years from now.
The city is now a lot larger and its footprint is a lot
bigger than back in 1961 where a transit-oriented
city was much more feasible.
Densification and a planned light rail are hopeful
augurs but not yet systematic and transit, even by
bus, requires substantial public expenditure.

20. One alternative view: a mode shift
portfolio
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However the last hundred years also offers some
clues as to how to grow into a transit-oriented
city.
One important point: we may need that whole
century. This is NOT a short-term goal and
should not be treated as such.
Another important point: unless there is a radical
technological/environmental/political/economic
shift (all possible but not to be counted on), autos
will remain a significant mode of travel – but
hopefully not a majority mode.

21. But first a word about …density
In general the threshold for a viable light rail is
seen as 9 dwellings per acre (equivalent to
around 2223 people per square kilometre
assuming 4 people per dwelling).
l This is as compared to a 4 dwellings per acre
(988 people per square kilometre) threshold for
traditional bus service (Zhang 2009).
l A key argument against heavy investment in
transit is that Canberra is not now and never will
be ‘dense’ enough to support anything but bus
and even bus provision might be questionable.
l This is not, however, as self-evident as it seems.
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22. Density pitfalls?
Two very important points about density.
l 1. Density of what? These are population density
measures but as or more important might be
economic activity measures. As an extreme
example, a very dense population where all
leisure and work takes place at home would not
generate sufficient trips to support much transit.
l 2. Density of where? Often transit planning
studies take existing boundaries to measure
density. What is really important is density along
the proposed service area.
l The key concept: ridership density, not
population density.
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23. Is the ACT a good LRT candidate,
for example?
The official population of the ACT in 2006
was 333,940.
l Its average population density at the time
was 142.1 people per square kilometre?
l Does this 'stack up' for a light rail?
l Using average population density, Canberra
is clearly well below the minimum
benchmarks for light rail or even Bus Rapid
Transit (BRT).
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24. But take a closer look
According to ABS estimates for 2006, a majority
of Canberra suburbs have population densities
greater than 1,000 people per square kilometre
(the actual count is 58).
l More than a few, such as Braddon, Turner, Page,
Scullin, and Banks, have densities greater than
2,000, sometimes well above 2,000. (Kingston is
just short with 1975.3). Palmerston has the
highest population density in the ACT at 3038.3
(ABS 2008).
l This is not an argument for or against light rail but
simply a point that one must drill down into density
figures before drawing firm conclusions about
transit viability.
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25. Now…back to the future!
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So what should Canberra be doing to organise itself to be transit, rather than
auto-dependent? The ‘portfolio’ of change:
(1) demand-driven (customer-driven) bus service – design routes based on
frequent reliable service where people want to travel; amenities, stations,
timetabling that make it easy for people to use.
(2) true ‘transit-oriented’ development – not just buildings along Northbourne but
genuine transit hubs (the ‘shops’ as a Griffin precursor?)
(3) sensible active transport infrastructure and investment – cycle routes that don’t
end suddenly and that ferry people safely and quickly to where they want to go
and provide for needs at the destination, e.g. secure parking and shower facilities.
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(4) priced parking – everywhere
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(5) priced roads – with toll revenues plowed back into transit
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(6) PPPs – for ‘profitable’ segments and with appropriate development packages
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(7) transit and active transport marketing – auto manufacturers do it and so can
transit operators.
(8) structural transit – BRT at least in corridors. But consider the cost-benefit.