On Friday, Minister for Transport and Employment Jacinta Allan is expected to reveal the next steps in delivering a cohesive public transport network within the city.

The minister will speak at an urban planning event that aims at “continuing the conversation” for building on the city’s capabilities, organisers said. 

Economist and sustainability expert Professor Ross Garnaut will also speak at the Urban Development Institute of Australia’s event, Bendigo - A  City of Innovation, that will highlight developments in liveability.

“Bendigo is a unique city,” said Damien Tangey, UDIA Victoria vice president. “It is a vibrant city, close to vital networks. In this planning for the future there has been a whole of Bendigo approach, with many organisations involved. Now we have to get the strategy bedded down and look at how Bendigo can lead the state and the nation in terms of innovation.”

The event was the next step in bringing together City of Greater Bendigo strategies that focused on education, transport, sustainability, housing and the use of open spaces, Mr Tangey said.

Greater Bendigo mayor councillor Peter Cox said council’s strategy work covered issues that were vital to planning growth in the coming 30 years. 

The UDIA was one of many organisations involved in planning, as well as representatives from state government, Bendigo Health, Coliban Water, Bendigo Adelaide Bank, transport and community groups.

“These strategies combined is a complete vision for the city’s future. Many groups are involved to ensure we have a cohesive approach to building on the city’s capabilities, existing services and highlight needs,” Cr Cox said. 

In particular, ensuring the existing rail infrastructure was better utilised as Bendigo expanded, he said.

Council is finalising work on its Integrated Transport & Land Use Strategy (ITLUS), which will plan for how people and goods will move within the city in the future.

“We have a rail line that runs into the city from Melbourne that could be used as a light rail network to regularly transport people from Eaglehawk all the way through to the other side of the city; and out to Epsom and, hopefully, in the future Huntly. But to make that work effectively we need to have buses connecting at those stations. The whole idea is to not only have people using public transport but to utilise it in an ongoing basis. To make it viable we need to have adequate population, which is where our strategy work into residential and industrial planning, sustainability and other work comes in.

“We need to be looking at the future, and to make successful decisions that will work takes a lot of planning and information gathering.”

Cr Cox said the future-proofing would also consider industry growth and establishing a distribution port in Marong to minimise the need for trucks to enter the city.

“Large trucks would unload cargo into smaller vehicles for ongoing transfer into the city. This will minimise the need to have large vehicles in the city.,” he said.

Mr Tangey said Friday’s event would “maintain the conversation” on delivering innovation as part of Bendigo’s growth.

“We need to not rest on our laurels after this strategy work is completed, so there is opportunity to experiment with infrastructure, pilot programs in sustainability and delivering effective transport. We need to innovate to deliver on these future plans.”