Canberra Times Letters to the Editor: More ride-sharing the goal

What is it about Uber that is different to a taxi when it comes to ride-sharing? Ride-sharing is not the difference, it is the cheaper fare on offer "most of the time" from Uber.

If, as you suggest, "it's time to think about how to build Australia's best ride-sharing market" in Canberra the key is ride-sharing by two or more parties.

Today's example is car-pooling to work, tomorrow it is a shared driverless electric vehicle.

It's time to discuss the transition to a Canberra where buses are replaced by driverless vehicles. One transition path would be to develop a city wide-car-pooling to work operation.

We could have 20,000 drivers offering ride-sharing while making their return journey to work each day.

Instead of the financial and dispatching elements of Canberra's taxi industry being liquidated within a few years, it could control this car-pooling operation and thereby grow into a public transport dispatching company for the driverless fleets of the future.

Meanwhile the ACT government could show a little initiative by offering parking discounts to participating drivers.

John L Smith, Farrer

I have just returned from a driving trip across Australia and back. The only place I paid more for fuel than in the ACT was in the middle of the Nullarbor Plain. Even Broken Hill and Esperance WA were cheaper, and they are two of the most isolated places in the country.

I ask the fuel companies to "please explain".

The first thing I noticed upon returning to the ACT was the unkempt condition of the sides of roadways, median strips , and parks and gardens compared with every town, city, and regional centre I drove through and stayed at.

Maybe the ACT government could explain this as well.

Paddy O'Keeffe, Palmerston

I have just learnt that the Bus Route 5 service will be cancelled in October. I have heard nothing about this from ACTION.

Have they informed the residents? I for one wasn't.

This will reduce the service for many in Narrabundah.

Bus route 5 is an 11.1 kilometres trip to Civic. The replacement service, route 5, increases the trip from Kootara Crescent to 15.5 kilometres.

Basically it is the old bus route 4, which was always a more tortuous route than 5.

I have a 400-metre walk to the bus stop at present, which is fine. The alternative is to walk to Canberra Avenue and catch the rapid service, increasing my walk to 1.3 kilometres.

If I want to catch a bus to Woden my walk will be roughly doubled from the present 400 metres for bus route 5, for the new bus route 6. Or I catch two buses, instead of the present one bus; waiting in between.

For many others it will be much worse. Bus route 5 is very handy for the elderly along Kootara Crescent in the retirement units.

When bus route 5 is cancelled, they will need to walk more than a kilometre to catch bus route 6 to Woden. For people more towards Canberra Avenue, the walk to the Woden bus will be even longer.

Julie Macklin, Narrabundah

Thumbs down to the bright spark at ACTION who deleted Bus Route 5 without checking the demographic for Narrabundah.

As an original suburb of Canberra, there are many older residents dependent upon public transport. In addition, with its flat-walking, ACT Housing has located many older persons units and units for people with disabilities in Narrabundah, also dependent upon public transport. ACT Housing will now find prospective tenants rejecting offers in Narrabundah. Deleting Route 5, for many residents, will mean no longer any access to Woden or Canberra Hospital unless they pay for a taxi.

The new route 6 and its nearest bus-stop in Goyder St at Narrabundah College is beyond walking distance for many people. For many people access to Manuka will also now be via taxis. And it is no use expecting ACTION Flexible to pick-up the slack — because they have a shortage of drivers; and one must book at least two days ahead and the service is sometimes booked out; and they only operate 9.30am to 1.30pm. It seems that little thought went into this change and its adverse effects on residents dependent upon public transport.

A. Donnelly, Narrabundah

When are the authorities going to catch and arrest that graffiti moron who is causing thousands of dollars damage to private property. They and their criminal types are spraying life-size tags, such as 'IRUN' and many others all over Canberra.

They are just laughing and getting away with it.

Parts of Canberra look like a Third World country daubed in graffiti. Even in Woden where it has been repainted they are starting again. Kingsford Smith Drive, West Belconnen is a disgraceful eyesore.

If the owners of these properties that have been vandalised are waiting for it to be cleaned up, they are in for a rude shock, I have been informed the government graffiti removal program doesn't include private property.

That is the responsibility of the owner ratepayer.

Looks like the people with fences etc that are covered in graffiti will need to clean the eyesores up themselves.

If those morons are ever apprehended, a slap on the wrist or a paltry fine is useless – they should be given weekend detention, cleaning up the messes they have made.

B. M. Cooke, Latham

Nicholas Stuart has rightly emphasised the importance of combat reconnaissance vehicles (CRV) currently being evaluated ("Will the army's costliest vehicles be useless?", September 27, p19).

It would be a sad day, however, if his criticism of the project was true. He states that decisions being made about relative priorities between mobility, firepower and protection, have created a "procurement disaster".

This is ill-informed. There is certainly a balance to be struck, but one doesn't have to be at expense of another. A CRV's protection is not only achieved through armour which might limit its mobility, but also through agility and high cross-country speed.

Operational flexibility can also be achieved with appliqué armour; which can be fitted when required.

Stuart failed to mention that the most likely "threat" against which armoured corps crews will employ the vehicle, dictates the weighting given to its design characteristics.

Enemy capability, terrain, vegetation, and infrastructure are primary considerations. So too is the ability to respond to differing threat scenarios.

In Vietnam, although we operated tanks designed for Europe, the flexibility inherent in their design meant that they were able to be used very successfully (not so with some US Army armoured vehicles).

Stuart compounds the misinformation presented by saying that Australia has not been able to transport tanks to operational areas since Vietnam.

Tanks from 1st Armoured Regiment were on immediate stand-by to be transported to Timor and Afghanistan if needed.

Bruce Cameron, Campbell

The submission to the High Court filed on behalf of Attorney-General George Brandis says " ... where a person has no knowledge that they are, or ever were, a foreign citizen, the requirement to take 'all reasonable steps' to renounce that foreign citizenship does not require the person to take any steps.

"Taking no steps is reasonable in these circumstances."

Given that ignorance of the law excuses no one surely all politicians, including those who have been found to have had dual citizenship when elected, have no excuse for not fully checking their compliance with Section 44 of the Australian constitution.

The constitution states anyone who is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

When elected representatives subsequently discover that they were really not eligible, have they not failed in their responsibility to thoroughly check their backgrounds?

Adrian van Leest, Campbell

I fear the campaign targeting the Prince of Wales will increase as we near the deadline set by republicans, of 2020, to commence a process of removing the Crown from the Australian constitution.

Obviously, republicans want to move before Charles becomes king because they know that once he is on the throne he will be accepted and that people will be looking towards the next coronation.

They also know that when Charles is king, William will become Prince of Wales thus entrenching the monarchy for several generations to come.

The prospect of a president has no celebrity factor and no assurance of constitutional stability.

While people surveyed may agree with an Australian as head of state, there is no way that they will agree to the complexity of change to the constitution.

Besides, Australia already has an Australian as our executive head of state in the Governor-General who, once appointed, assumes the role of the monarch in this country and no one could call Peter Cosgrove not an Australian.

Philip Benwell, national chair, Australian Monarchist League, Sydney, NSW

War with North Korea will be neither quick nor cheap. Kim has more tanks than Trump and more artillery than China, mostly shielded in caves and hardened bunkers.

He also has between 12 and 60 potential nukes and while missile delivery to the continental US (or Australia) may be unfeasible as yet, delivery by fishing boat, campervan or light aircraft probably isn't.

However, a nuclear exchange even on this scale would likely take down civilisation via a worldwide famine resulting from a nuclear winter.

There is also the question of whether China will meekly accept another US-collapsed state like Iraq on its doorstep.

It may decide, as it did in 1950, that regime change is not in its own best interests and intervene on the side of the House of Kim, returning the final demarcation to its present position after a period of pointless slaughter.

This, incidentally, has been going on for around 3500 years, according to the Seoul Museum.

Meanwhile in Australia our politicians, husky-voiced with synthetic patriotism and baying for blood, are hoping the electorate will overlook the atrocious mess they have made of civil society, our climate, education, energy and science policies, the internet and human rights, and give them another go.

Just don't count the body-bags or war trauma casualties.

Julian Cribb, Franklin

Rod Matthews' letter (September 27) presumably opposes renewable energy and might have been written by the coal lobby.

First, he should be patient. It could once have been said that no country had ever put a man on the moon.

Second, there are three university departments, even in this country, which have demonstrated that a transition

to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050 is possible.

And third, while it would be feasible to "maintain modern living standards" we should be questioning their desirability, involving, as they do, excessive consumption, built-in obsolescence, status seeking, non-recyclability, waste and much else.

Dick Varley, Braidwood, NSW

CRISIS SMELLS FUNNY

Are there others who smell a beat-up behind the alleged gas shortage we face in the eastern states orchestrated by our own government?

It appears to me that Malcolm is desperate to have a win, and if he can succeed by creating a distraction, and resolving the issue he has created, then he hopes we'll all be happy.

W. Book, Hackett

CASH ON TAP

The tram isn't the only special treatment Gungahlin residents are getting. Now even their tap water has been turned to gold. ("Water colour cleared up", September 28, p.9).

P. Murray, Tuggeranong

TRUMP OFF THE SCALE

Is Donald Trump using the threat of nuclear war with North Korea to distract attention from his failure to "repeal and replace" Obamacare or is he using Obamacare to distract attention from his foreign policy failures?

David Smith, Ainslie

THE GRAND FINAL LOSER

Tony Abbott has railed against the "yes" campaign for SSM on just about every aspect of life including freedom of speech. Yet this same zealot, this champion of free speech, wants to stop freedom of speech when it doesn't suit his stance. The case in point is his latest attempt to silence the "yes" campaign by trying to ban a song at the NRL grand final.

L. Christie, Canberra

DRIVING CHANGE

Saudi Arabian females will be able to drive in 2018. This is better news than the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the whole world needs to celebrate that in style.

Mokhles K Sidden, South Strathfield, NSW

CLERICAL ERROR

The comments made by Archbishop Coleridge of Brisbane on the same-sex survey are regrettable, even disrespectful.

Fortunately, ACT Catholics are more likely to be guided by comments on the subject by Archbishop Prowse of Canberra.

Let us all consider the issue with understanding and respect.

Herman van de Brug, Kaleen

TRUMP'S IN A FIX

Donald Trump is going to "fix the mess" of North Korea. He was going to repeal Obamacare too. People differ in their tolerance of mess. But sometimes (conservatives would say "usually") it is better to leave things as they are, messy or not.

Michael McCarthy, Deakin

RATING THE REGION

An ABC gabfest the top-rating morning radio show. Only in the ACT!

M. Moore, Bonython

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