BCC Media Release: Belconnen Promised Better Public Transport. Instead, Services Are Being Cut.
The ACT Government made clear promises to Belconnen before the last election: more bus services, a new rapid route to Ginninderry, and Stage 1 of the Belconnen Transitway. These commitments reflected years of advocacy and acknowledged what residents already knew: the ACT’s largest district needed better public transport, not less.
The ACT Government’s proposed 2026 bus timetable seeks to break these promises.
Under the new timetable, the R2 and R3 rapid services will no longer run beyond Belconnen Interchange. Residents of Belconnen’s outer suburbs will lose their direct rapid connections to the city. In their place: local routes running less often. For these residents, catching a bus will become harder, slower, and less convenient.
“Belconnen was promised more. Instead, we’re getting less,” said Belconnen Community Council Chair Lachlan Butler. “On the information provided, these cuts won’t just inconvenience people, they will penalise those who have the fewest alternatives living on the edges of the network.”
The Government has indicated that the cuts respond to upcoming roadworks on Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, which will disrupt travel across Canberra for the coming years. However, Belconnen residents look set to disproportionately bear the brunt of this disruption. Rather than strengthening public transport to help people through this period, the Government has chosen to weaken it for Belconnen.
These changes will hit some of Belconnen’s most vulnerable residents hardest. For Canberrans who cannot use private transport, a less frequent and less direct bus network is not just an inconvenience. It is a barrier to participating in daily life.
Meanwhile, the Belconnen Transitway remains unfunded, and responding to the feasibility study looks to have slipped from 2025 to 2026. Despite the election promise, five weeks ago the Minister for Transport Chris Steel refused to commit to delivering it this term.
“The Government was elected on these commitments,” said Mr Butler. “A year later, the gap between promise and delivery of improved public transport options is widening and Belconnen residents have every right to be asking why.”
The Belconnen Community Council calls on the ACT Government to reverse the cuts to rapid services in Belconnen and deliver the new rapid service and Belconnen Transitway as promised.
Belconnen residents deserve a public transport system that connects them to opportunity, not one that leaves them behind.