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Category: States and Territories / State Parliament / Transport

Greens target light rail in $9.65b Perth transport vision

Thursday, 23 Jun 2016 17:39:21 | Alisha O'Flaherty

Rising costs have made MAX Light Rail unviable, according to the Government. (Supplied: PTA)

The WA Government's dumped MAX Light Rail project would be brought back to life to help form of a 65-kilometre Perth light rail network under a 15-year transport vision unveiled by the Greens.

The $9.65 billion blueprint comes just days after the Government confirmed its decision to axe MAX Light Rail, with no reference made to the proposal in a yet-to-be released transport blueprint.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said light rail was needed in Perth.

"Light rail is popular because it works and they've got it built in Adelaide, in the Gold Coast, they're building one in Sydney right at the moment, extensions in Melbourne, everywhere basically except Perth," he said.

The plan outlined by the Greens also includes 71 kilometres of new heavy rail and 283 kilometres of priority bus lanes.

"We think [funding] that should be a mix of State Government funding, including the funding that was promised for the MAX Light Rail and a Commonwealth contribution through Infrastructure Australia," he said.

"And also investigating value capture which has been done in Europe and the United States, as a way of taking some of it off the State Government's budget.

"Value capture basically says that if you put a new rail line in, land values go up which increases stamp duty, capital gains tax and so on.

"You can borrow against those future earnings to fund the project and that's been done very successfully in the United States."

Part of MAX Light Rail not needed: academic

The report was deemed to have some merit by Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute research fellow Jemma Green.

"This plan looks at how much it's going to cost and how it's going to be financed in contrast to the State Government's plan, which lacks any information on that," she said.

However while Ms Green welcomed the focus on light rail, she was not convinced the northern part of the MAX project was needed.

"The part of MAX that I supported was the route from the University of Western Australia to Curtin, but the northern part to Mirrabooka made no sense whatsoever," she said.

"There's very good public transport routings there already and there's very little by way of land redevelopment potential, and that's really what's going to be used to fund light rail.

"So I think part of MAX is still doable and another part really needs to be mothballed."

The Government blamed escalating costs for making the MAX project unviable, and said its transport blueprint would include other options to service the north eastern suburbs.

That plan is expected to be released publicly next month.

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