Speedrail Survey Results

["David Bennetts" <davibenn@pcug.org.au>]

Today's Canberra Times carries two articles on Speedrail.  A new survey
shows that six million trips are made between Sydney and Canberra each year,
a figure which Speedrail claims will easily achieve the number of passengers
to make a fast rail service viable.
If you include trips to Goulburn and the Southern Highlands there are
currently 12 million one-way journeys between locations in those areas.  The
consortium claims it needs just over a quarter of the people travelling to
make it viable.  The biggest problem faced by the consortium is convincing
travellers that they will be able to get around easily once they arrive at
their destination.  For Canberra, this would create new possibilities for
jobs and services in the capital.

An Internet site would soon be set up at www.speedrail.net.au   This would
also have information for small businesses that wanted the chance to be
involved in the construction phase.

The second article in the Times gives a background to the VFT project,  and
discusses future extensions, under the heading Speedrail still confident -
Some people doubt whether the Canberra-Sydney VFT will ever run, but
Nicholas Stuart says the issue is not whether it will be built, but how far
it will go.

Hopefully the Canberra Times will include some of this on its website -
www.canberratimes.com.au , but as I write this posting it's only yesterday's
news on their site.

Regards

David Bennetts
Canberra