Darwin businessman Harry Maschke has called on the Northern Territory and Federal governments to fund a $5 million feasibility study into light rail between Darwin and Palmerston to avoid impending chaos.

The owner of Action Sheetmetal wants action.

“Chaos is coming if there is further development in McMinn St alone,” Mr Maschke said.

“Development will remove those carparks and the carparking congestion that already exists will only get worse.

“We need to take advantage of a railway system. It would be a much more environmentally sensible way to live. Less cars means we use less fuel means our cost of living reduces.”

A study by the University of Melbourne found those who had public transport access at work and home, or at their workplace only, were 16 and 11 times more likely to travel to work by public transport compared with those who had no access to public transport at either location.

The light rail system would service Darwin and Palmerston with a loop eventually taking in Royal Darwin Hospital. A light rail corridor has been set aside by the Henderson Labor Government and raised more recently in the Darwin Masterplan.

But Palmerston Mayor Ian Abbott believed a feasibility study was too early and more effort needed to be put into fixing the existing network.

“I’d say spend the money on what we’ve already got to get that working to capacity,” he said. “I would love to see light rail but our population base is not enough to make it economically viable.”

Mr Maschke, who has lived in Darwin since 1965, believed the $5 billion fund announced as part of the Federal Government’s Developing North Australia was industry focused but did not pay enough attention to infrastructure.

“Infrastructure is critical to the livability of the North,” he said. “We need to think outside of the Inpex loop.

“This type of infrastructure project is a contributor to growth. It needs to be built and serviced and these create jobs, generating new skill demand.

“The funds in that pool could be used to build this project,” he said.

Mr Maschke said the new Gateway Shopping Centre development at Palmerston was an example of an opportunity that had been missed.

“In a place like Singapore, a new shopping facility would see a public transport hub integrated into the bottom of that facility,” he said. “We don’t do that here. We are not efficient in the way we develop. We should learn from what other countries are doing.”

Mr Abbott agreed on the link between development, land use and transport.

“It would be nice to have a transport hub in the new Gateway Shopping Centre like they do in Singapore but we aren’t just at that stage population wise,” he said.