Thursday, 2 November 2023

Western suburbs buses

David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (17:43): (576) My adjournment matter is for the Treasurer, and it relates to public transport in Melbourne’s west. As of June 2023, the growth areas infrastructure contribution scheme had close to half a billion dollars in unallocated funds. No funds have been expended from the scheme over the last two state budgets. May I suggest that we could use some of those funds to start to address the abysmal state of public transport in Melbourne’s west.

I have spoken before about the transformational benefits that an updated bus network would bring to communities in the west, particularly in those under-serviced newer areas, such as, for example, the Kororoit and Werribee regions. I have also mentioned in a previous adjournment that CDC Victoria run most of the west’s bus routes and that their routes could be transformed into a fast, direct and connected network linking new suburbs to the rest of the city without significantly altering existing contracts. This would provide decent bus access to more than a million people in the west who do not currently enjoy that.

Here is where some funding from the growth areas infrastructure contribution scheme would come in handy. Money from the scheme could be used to fund a pilot in reforming CDC’s bus network in the west to a simple grid network, with buses running every 10 minutes all day every day. It is all laid out in Melbourne University’s Better Buses for Melbourne’s West research paper. So my question is: will the Treasurer consider allocating funding from the growth areas infrastructure contribution scheme towards a pilot for reform of CDC Victoria’s bus routes in the west?