Light rail stage 2B approval to take 'many years': National Capital Authority

The National Capital Authority appeared before the joint standing committee on the national capital and external territories at Parliament House on Thursday for its biannual review.

The authority's chief executive, Sally Barnes, was questioned about the progress of stage 2A of the light rail and said the team had "presented the final bit of work to get light rail from all the way around to Commonwealth Park" on Tuesday.

"So they presented the final landscaping, they presented the final look and feel of the stations, the urban design factors. But to date they haven't put in a works approval application and we're expecting that next week," Ms Barnes said.

Ms Barnes said the authority does not expect stage 2B of the light rail, from Commonwealth Park to Woden, to have works approval "for many years" and ongoing work needed to be done to strengthen Commonwealth Bridge.

"Then there'll need to be work on finalising the route and what the impacts would be on Commonwealth Avenue, on the trees, a whole range of things that really haven't progressed to a stage yet where the light rail can be presented to the board or even to us," she said.

Ms Barnes said the authority expected the large works approval application for stage 2A to be signed off next week as "a pre-Christmas present".

"It will include everything around light rail stage two. It'll be where it'll go, how it will run, and each of the stations is slightly different," she said.

Ms Barnes said Canberrans could expect to hear the full details by February, with public consultation to begin in late March or early April: "One of the things we're trying to get better at is being clear with the community when we're consulting what we're consulting."

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However, Ms Barnes said the authority would not be consulting on "whether light rail is a good idea or not, because that decision [has] been made. We won't be consulting around whether it's coming to Commonwealth Park, because that's the decision of the ACT government that we support from a public transport perspective".

"We won't be really looking at whether it's a waste of money that people can have their views on that but that's got nothing to do with the with us," she told the parliamentary committee.

"We are interested to make sure that what gets built is something that's of quality and design that's fitting to a national capital."

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