I drove on the new GDE

I will usually speak about how bad Canberra can be. In this post, I want to mention something that Canberra finally have fixed. And in fixing it, they have slightly improved the region.

Previously on this blog (here and here), I have mentioned that the Gungahlin Drive Extension (GDE) caused more problems that it fixed. After 7 years, it is finally complete. Well done to all involved!!

Pity it took so long, was done incorrectly the first time, and injured people with a collapse of a section of it in 2010, and cost over $200 million. Seeing how it is around 9 kilometers long, it works out to over $10 million per kilometer. Not the best allocation of funds, but seeing how Canberra was designed for the car, and public transport is an after thought, this may be seen as a huge cost savings in the future.

While driving around Canberra in the weekend just past was improved, and there seems to be a better connection between the north part of the city and the rest of it, it is still a very sparse and sterile city. I hope the region improves more, but I doubt it.

Summernats in Canberra for another 25 years

Summernats is something that needs to be experienced at least once in your life if you are into cars / being a rev head. It is a festival centered around cars - mainly Australian and American V8 cars. It is one of the best known car festivals in Australia, and it generates interest and revenue in Canberra - a dull city for most parts of the year. It also brings in a somewhat drunken exhibitionist type of person to the city, but this is a small disadvantage of the festival.

The Canberra Times recently published an article about how Summernats could be hosted in Canberra for another 25 years. It is also interesting to read some of the shallow and narrow mindedness of some of the commenters, who claim to live around Canberra when Summernats is on. They have said they do not want Summernats in Canberra - "Too much bad behaviour. Not good for the environment. Bad, noisy, bad..."

As mentioned, Summernats, for all its bad points, actually gives Canberra something to look forward to for the year. I will admit there are some other festivals as well, like Floriade, but nothing is to the same scale as Summernats. If Canberrians do not like Summernats, then I suggest they move away from Canberra. Try Karumba - population < 1000, on the beach, but then again they would find something to complain about that. Stop making Canberra duller!

Things Canberra got right #1

I have been accused of "Canberra bashing" - apparently, this is where you only see the bad side of Canberra, but neglect to see the good side. So, in an attempt to be fair, I'm trying hard to find the good bits of Canberra, as opposed to only the bits that need to be fixed.

So here is my first observation of things Canberra got right: ACT Shopfronts. This is a one stop shop where people can change their license details, look up bus information and buy tickets, register moving their homes when it comes to services, and get pre-paid parking permits. The list does include other services, and I'm sure they do more things, but those are the ones that come to mind. I think this is great, but was only achieved with Canberra's low population, as well as the fact that the whole ACT is governed as a single council. The physical shopfronts themselves are located in each other the major satellite city areas in the ACT.

It would be good to see this type of consolidated service offered by cities like Melbourne, but the fear I have in the nature of people is that this will means some services have to be monopolized for this to work, and this will lead to price hikes in the cost of services.