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Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

NEWS RELEASE: Big Picture Approach Needed for Victoria Road

posted Saturday 9 December 2006
The Roads & Traffic Authority's bid to build a second Iron Cove Bridge is a nineteen fifties solution to a twenty-first century problem, and transport planning for the Victoria Road corridor should be done by transport planners outside the influence of the Roads &Traffic Authority, according to transport watchers.

Action for Public Transport also warns that the RTA's parallel bridge proposal could be a disguised 'Trojan Horse' for undisclosed plans for road tunnels under Balmain and Drummoyne.

"As soon as you build a second bridge, traffic will increase to fill the new lanes", says APT spokesman Kevin Eadie, a resident of Drummoyne. "Then the merchant banks and the RTA will unveil their 'obvious' solution to the inevitable congestion - tunnels under Balmain and Drummoyne, to obtain so-called 'free' traffic flow between Gladesville Bridge and Anzac Bridge", Mr Eadie said.

"The RTA is heading for another Cross City, Lane Cove, tunnels-and-road-closures debacle", he said.

He said the RTA' s proposal for improving bus services along Victoria road was half-hearted. "There is no guarantee that bus travel times will be competitive with car use, and no infrastructure to encourage car-to-bus 'park and ride'", he said.

APT said the answers to the Victoria Road corridor problems would come from a PEKER study, an acronym for Peter, Ken, Ed and Ron. These acknowledged experts are Peter Newman, the Perth transport academic, Ken Dobinson, the former RTA chief, now with Sydney University's Warren Centre, Ed Blakeley, recently engaged, then sacked, as a planning adviser to the state government, and Ron Christie, transport guru for the Sydney Olympics and author of the rail-based "Christie Report".

"Any one of them would walk all over the RTA in transport planning", Mr Eadie said. "The Roads and Traffic Authority is part of Sydney's traffic problem, not part of the solution", Mr Eadie said. "Sooner or later, someone in government is going to have the guts to break it up, and use transport planners, not road builders, to design Sydney's transport future", Mr Eadie said.

He challenged both major political parties to commit to such a policy before the March 2007 election.

Contact:
Kevin Eadie9819-6052
Jim Donovan0428-609-208




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