The Molonglo Valley Active Travel Masterplan was awarded to SMEC Australia by the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate (EPSDD) – known to most as ACT Planning. canberra.bike established by FOI back in 2021 that Molonglo Valley Active Travel Masterplan did not exist back then.
The contract is relative small as ACT Government contracts go, $69,873.00. The completion date is 22 May 2022. This is something we can look forward to. In particular, where the river crossings lie should warrant discussion. Lack of crossing over the Molonglo River, reinforce of the Canberra Great North/South Divide.
Our enquires last year via a FOI request revealed that the there was nothing on paper at that time. A few tenders mentioned the Molonglo Valley Active Travel Masterplan during 2021 as a reference document but it turns out EPSDD did not have one at the time. This is now being rectified.
Further, Molonglo Group Centre Concept Plan Draft is very weak on active travel. The document is long but only a single page is dedicated to active travel. If you look at the active travel map in this document and overlay it on an aerial photo of the Molonglo Valley, you will notice that the shared paths align with existing dirt tracks across the pampas. In other words, the future shared paths have far more to do with heritage values than good active travel planning.
Heritage is an interesting topic. It is the reason that wire stock fences are kept in The Pinnacle Offset Area and ACT Environment even goes to the expensive of building steps over this fence when wire cutters would have done the job. The logic that it was a farm once that we should commemorate that fact seem compelling. Any farmer can build a fence and 60 years later it will be celebrated as a historic artefact.
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