How tiresome. The dogmatism that characterised the anti-bypass campaigns has reappeared unchanged for changes around the Basin Reserve.
If the anti-flyover people are to be believed it’s being proposed because road planners are stupid and engaged in a conspiracy to build more roads. It’s like reading SOLO on climate change, a plot by climate scientists to feather their nests.
If building more and better roads is so harmful why aren’t they recommending reducing capacity on the existing network? That seems to be the logic to their arguments. Funny they’re not using the bypass as an example of things going wrong.
5 responses so far ↓
StephenR // 7 December, 2008 at 5:08 pm |
The first link is broken. I would’ve thought some of the ‘logic of their arguments’ would’ve been it would wreck the atmosphere at the Basin Reserve somewhat, but since it’s already the world’s biggest traffic island, maybe it can’t get much worse?
Che Tibby // 7 December, 2008 at 8:04 pm |
i think the flyover is a bad idea just because… it is.
the regional plans don’t seem to adequately integrate this idea with the much-vaulted “urban development corridor” for starters.
the flyover is intended to ensure that commuters can get from the eastern suburbs to the motorway, or vice versa, and requires that a very expensive tunnel is built, as we head into a possible depression.
it’s a fkcing dog’s breakfast.
Richard // 7 December, 2008 at 9:40 pm |
StephenR: Link fixed – thanks for that.
That it’ll wreck the Basin is their claim, although you’ve put itmuch less breathlessly than the flyer they thought my no junk mail sign didn’t apply to. Indeed they claim the Basin will be clouds of diesel across the pitch and car noise, from boy racers (in hoodies no doubt), will drown out the sounds on the field. These claims make a logical leap in that somehow it’ll be worse than the current situation where a wooden fence seems to save those white clothed heroes of test cricket from the hoodied boy racers on P already going round the world’s biggest traffic island.
Che: First, building infrastructure is just the sort of thing you want to keep doing if there’s a possibility of a depression – that’s pretty much the main thing we learnt from the 30s.
So what should they be doing? It’s a mess on the North/East side of the Basin (restricting the south-nontunnel bound traffic) at the moment which is where the flyover would be, where’s the non-integration with the ud corridor?
Che Tibby // 9 December, 2008 at 10:40 am |
yeah, the city council building infrastructure though?
the trouble with the plan is that they’re wanting to allow more passenger vehicles through the tunnel, instead of building along the much vaulted “growth corridor” (which would carry traffic along adelaide road).
this means they need an extra tunnel.
but it’s incredibly limited thinking. the population of the eastern suburbs is growing, but is restricted by the amount of space they have to develop out there. my opinion is that they’re just pandering to wealthier rate-payers who refuse to use public transport, and want a smooth ride to the city via the hataitai road.
but in comparable situations, such as the extremely wealthy suburbs near to central melbourne, people do use the public transport, because it’s reliable and *clean*.
so, you can minimise people clogging up the north-eastern corner of the basin by properly dividing the two streams of traffic, and not encouraging south-north traffic from crossing the flow to head through the tunnels (which they’ll do if increased access is provided, drawing them away from constable street, another notorious bottleneck).
how to divide the traffic? easy. knock down those crappy old buildings i think the council owns, put in priority bus (and maybe tram) lanes to draw them out of the traffic, and create flows further back from the basin.
limit the ability of cars to cross west-east (effectively only allowing them to travel south-north), by making them double-back from ghuznee st (a major disincentive).
and put in some flashy public transport for those snobs in seatoun who want to drive.
Richard // 10 December, 2008 at 9:30 pm |
So building roads equals pandering to the rich? Do only the rich drive and only the poor take the bus? Have a look at who rides the buses to and from Seatoun and I think that theory will be shot to pieces, likewise where car ownership and use is high at virtually all income levels makes that theory incredibly suspect. Oh, and that Seatoun makes up a relatively small proportion of the eastern suburbs population relative to bits like Rongotai, Kilbirnie and Strathmore.
Also, I don’t recall Melbourne’s trams or trains being any cleaner than Wellington’s buses. Perhaps I didn’t notice that on my last visit as I was often being driven around (by someone who must have been rich cos they owned a car) .
As for the changes at the Basin what you’ve suggested doesn’t address vehicles needing to shuffle lanes, particularly if you move the Nth/Sth bus traffic further to the left. Whether or not you have more traffic through the tunnel this should improve the current mess around the Basin. If there is no tunnel that means either more traffic going around the bays or via Newtown to Kilbirnie, which would require significant roadworks as it’s a jammed at the moment.
As for limiting the ability of cars to travel east/west I just have to ask why? Why make getting around the city worse, are you suggesting that we make people better off by preventing them from doing what they demonstrably prefer? Why not put judder bars and a 20km speed limit throughout the city then.