We have some national and international treasures in Canberra. The treasures are rare, if not unique.
Omen thing that is neither treasure nor rare is the freeway. A freeway is a strip of black asphalt or cement four, six or eight or more lanes wide down which cars and trucks hurtle down. They appear in cities throughout the world. There are only two types: left-hand drive and right-hand drive.
Among many treasures in Canberra are two. One is ninety years old this year and the other is a young adult of just 21 years, but a treasure nonetheless.
The first is the national open space system which was originally laid down by Walter Burley Griffin in the 1912 version of his plan for Canberra. Essentially it meant that the ridges would not be built upon, so the people in the city would not feel hemmed in by unrelenting built area, as they do in so many cities. It is why Canberra is the bush capital.
The second is the Australian Institute of Sport (and its parent body the Australian Sports Commission). Like Canberra itself, the AIS is a creature of jealously. Canberra was built because Victoria and NSW were jealous of each other so preferred a new capital rather than cede to the other colony. The AIS was built because Australia in 1976 was trounced at the Montreal Olympics – allowing nations like New Zealand to get more gold medals than us.
But out of jealousy excellence was born. People flock to Canberra to see world’s best practice in town planning and sports medicine, coaching, training, team-building and so on.
But we blinked. Since the birth of the AIS, in Canberra, the satellite town of Gungahlin has been built. The land was flogged off with a devil-take-tomorrow view of the public infrastructure needed to service the people who lived there – shops, schools and more importantly transport.
The other satellite town – Tuggeranong — got its freeway. The denizens of Gungahlin only got half a freeway. Gungahlin Drive ends at the Barton Highway and bottlenecks into Northbourne Avenue. Gungahlin Drive – the denizens have argued – must be extended. It must link to Ginninderra Drive, Belconnen Way and the Glenloch Interchange to the Tuggeranong Parkway. But down that route lies the two treasures: the Canberra Open Space System and the Australian Institute of Sport.
Slowly a sort of compromise was reached between two of these pressing demands: no building in the open-space system on O’Connor Ridge and its buffer to the west and transport infrastructure for the people of Gungahlin. When Labor came to power in the ACT it moved to this compromise. It meant building the freeway to the west of the AIS, along the red line on the adjacent map – even if it merely meant the bottleneck at Barton Highway got moved a few kilometres south. And even if it meant that a large (and arguably equally precious) part of the Canberra Nature Park and the Open Space System would be wrecked, but a part with fewer abutting residences with occupying voters.
A solution was at hand. Until the other national treasure the AIS pointed out that the western route meant that its athletes would be affected by the noise (especially the noise at night) and the pollution of particles and ozone.
Canberrans need to sit bolt upright at this argument. You could argue that it is a bit precious. The World Cup was held in Yohohama for God’s sake – with bucketloads of ozone and pollution. But that is competition not training. Canberra at present offers athletes the best training atmosphere in the world that is within cooee of the other necessary urban infrastructure for a sports institute to exist. If a freeway compromises that the choice for sports bodies changes. Before the freeway it was do we go to atmospherically perfect Canberra or do we go to Homebush or the Gold Coast which both have road pollution. After the freeway it is a choice between two venues equally affected by road pollution but one is Canberra which everyone is otherwise biased against and the others are the ones that are music to people’s ears: Sydney and the Gold Coast. To keep the competitive edge Canberra must have something extra – utter perfection in air quality.
Westerly winds mean ozone and other pollution and noise from a western alignment will affect the AIS. It gets worse. Recent studies show that what was hitherto the AIS’s preference as the better of two evils – the eastern option – is just as bad. The eastern option does not impinge on O’Connor ridge as such but it does degrade the open space system (in about the same degree as the western option does).
The Australian Sports Commission ordered an independent scientific study to assess the validity of its internal research into the harmful effects of the western option. It did confirm that research, but unexpectedly it came to an additional conclusion: that the eastern option was – at least potentially — equally dangerous to the well-being of elite athletic training as the western option.
To quote the research of the Eldamar associates – experts in transport and sports psychology and physiology, “”The likelihood of a negative impact on local air quality from the eastern option could possibly be at least equal to that of the western option.
All sides say they are not playing politics.
But ACT Labor is dicing with inner north voters who object to any road anywhere near O’Connor ridge – even on its western flank and Gungahlin voters who want a road now – even if it means just shifting the bottleneck a little further south. It must also consider that the AIS has up to 200 athletes in residence and up to 2000 visiting athletes a year for intensive training and sports medicine courses, usually just before big comps. It is a big input into the ACT economy.
The AIS now is likely to oppose both eastern and western routes. It has power on its side. The commission’s deputy chair is Alan Jones who has the PM’s ear and the road must be approved by federal authorities.
Even a tunnel will be difficult. The cost at $100 million is prohibitive and it will still have to be ventilated in a way that deals with the pollutants.
We have argued for years over whether we need a red road or a green road. Maybe we should not have a road at all if we are to protect these two national treasures and the ACT and Federal Governments should look at a new route way over to the east, crossing the Federal Highway, joining Majura Road and dropping in at the Russell corner of the Parliamentary Triangle.
And what an entrance to Canberra that would make for all the other visitors to Canberra coming in on the Federal Highway.