They still can't get the roads right in Canberra (or Things they could fix in Canberra #9)

It has been a while since I last wrote about what needed to be fixed in Canberra. This actual topic I initially wrote about back in November 2009 - the poorly constructed Gungahlin Drive Extension (GDE). It comes as no surprise that it is still under construction.

It makes me furious, as an Australia tax payer, that funds are made to build something like the GDE, only to dismantle it, and to rebuild it. And make no mistake, the whole of Canberra is funded by taxpayers. It is not private enterprise. It is not "local government". The "local government" get money from the locals and from the federal government, who themselves are allocated from, yep - you guessed it, the Australian taxpayers.

Why they could not have the vision to get it right in the first place is just symptomatic of the stupidity and short-sightedness of Canberra. And, if you think I have no proof, here are some images I took a few weeks ago, when I last visited Canberra, heading from north to south:












It makes me wonder how much rigging was involved to make Canberra - Australia's second most livable city - according to the Property Council of Australia's recent survey. Either that occurred or the criteria did not really take into account what actually makes a city livable. Stating that, I challenge the survey's results - if Canberra is very livable, why are people not permanently relocating there in the millions?

Canberra - continuing to be a waste of the rest of Australia's money, because they can!