Tuesday 19 May 2015

North-South Link - faster, faster....

no traffic lights for a very long distance will make your journey faster and easier.
The Downunder city I live in is built along a narrow strip of coastal plain. It makes the city long and thin. People cover considerable distances to get to work each day. They move in and out of the CBD. Most public transport "interchanges" still take place in the CBD too. There are some in the outlying areas but they tend to relate to reaching transport that will get you to the CBD. 
Most people drive cars. Many families own more than one car.
We don't have a car. It makes us a little strange but the Senior Cat stopped driving some years ago. I never managed to learn. It would not be safe. 
Pedalling out in the rain I sometimes think it would be nice to be in a car. Waiting for public transport I think it would be nice. I long ago organised my life around taxis at night.
So the coverage in this morning's paper of the planned "link" between north and south with the idea of being able to travel a very long distance without encountering a traffic light did not impress me. Parts of this link have already been built. It will make the city's residents even more car dependent. 
There are other things wrong with it too. They still don't have the main railway line, the one which carries goods, in the right place. It still comes through the hills behind us. It runs next to the suburban line (a different gauge). The government has been warned many times about the need to change the route. It is simply unacceptable to have many wagons of dangerous goods travelling through bushfire prone country. It will take a disaster before they listen though - and they may not listen even then. 
But, people apparently need to get from north to south and from south to north - and they need to do it fast. 
There is a need for speed - or so they tell me. Oh yes, a few people might live at one end and work at the other. 
But could somebody please tell me what everyone else is going to do with all that extra time?

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