Victory on Public Transport
On Thursday 10th March at Woodridge State High School, hundreds of Logan people came together to do something remarkable.
Eight months ago it was considered political insanity to suggest Logan City Council should put money into public transport services. We knew it was a key cause for our broken system. But experts told us not to bother because it would never happen.
Yet last night the four leading Mayoral candidates all committed at least $1 million per year in Council funds.
This means our next Mayor will be committed to fixing public transport and they'll be putting money on the table!
We also secured commitments through the Transport Working Group set up at our last Assembly.
Hon Mick De Brenni, Linus Power, Cr Don Petersen and Cr Luke Smith all committed last July to develop so
A flexible, on-demand transport service to be trialled in Logan starting early 2017.lutions by February and report to us on 10th March. Last night they they came back and delivered solutions that will make a real impact in all our lives:
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A historic first Integrated Local Transport Plan, to be jointly developed and equally funded by Council and State Government.
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A joint statement on the need for M1 upgrade to include bus priority measures.
These Working Group members each deserve a lot of credit for putting aside their differences and putting the community first. We all want to see politicians being accountable like this!
And local leaders deserve credit most of all. Hundreds of them in our churches, unions and community organisations that kept up the pressure and got results. Conversations at workplaces and community halls, actions at bus stops, people showing up last night and at meetings right across Logan to demonstrate the importance of this issue. That's what made the difference!
We also launched the next stage of our Logan Kids organising around better outcomes for kids 0-8.
A powerful story from Kiara showed why we need to be doing this. Partner organisations then committed to co-host three forums in April to kick-start our organising process. Next time we want decision-makers who set the policies that affect kids lives to be the ones on stage committing to solutions.
Geoff, Natalie and Patricia
Logan Assembly Co-Chairs