Transport Planning in Canberra

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Canberra’s transport future

PTCBR supports an integrated public transport network for Canberra, with high-capacity light rail connecting our town centres supported by frequent suburban feeder bus services. We believe such a network is best placed to serve the current and future transport needs of our nation’s capital, as it grows to a population of half a million and beyond in the years and decades ahead.

When the first stage of Canberra’s light rail network commenced operations in April 2019, over one million bus kilometres were made available from buses that previously serviced that corridor. As future stages of light rail are rolled out, more bus kilometres will be redirected towards providing frequent feeder services right across the city.

You can read more about PTCBR’s vision for Canberra’s public transport system here.

Current bus routes and timetables can be found at the Transport Canberra website.

Historical bus information can be found at the ACTBus website.

Canberra’s transport history

Since the days of the Griffin Plan for Canberra, corridors have been preserved in our city’s urban fabric for use by high-capacity, fixed-route public transport. From the 1970s onwards, these corridors have formed the inter-town public transport network which runs between each of Canberra’s town centres.

The Griffin Plan for Canberra
The Canberra "Y-Plan"
The Canberra “Y-Plan”

After a decade of lobbying by ACT Light Rail, the ACT Labor Government announced that if returned at the 2012 ACT Election, it would build the Capital Metro light rail along the inter-town public transport route between Gungahlin and Canberra’s City Centre. This policy was supported by the ACT Greens and strongly opposed by the Canberra Liberals.

Following the re-election the ACT Labor Government in 2012, and with support from the ACT Greens, rapid progress was made in preparing a business case, reconfiguring government transport agencies and signing contracts to construct and operate the first stage of light rail between the City and Gungahlin. This approach won endorsement from the community at the 2016 ACT Election, during which it was announced that the second stage of light rail would extend across Lake Burley Griffin to Woden.

In addition to planning and constructing the first stage of light rail, the ACT Government developed and released a Light Rail Network Plan in 2015. This plan built upon the 2012 Transport for Canberra strategy, which was itself informed by the 2009 ACT Strategic Public Transport Network Plan by MRCagney. Both reports derived their frequent routes from the inter-town public transport corridors that had been in place since the 1970s.

You can read more about Canberra’s transport strategies below.

Historical transport planning documents

Recent transport planning documents