Missing in inaction

Where's the Central Station bus stop?

The EIS for the Sydney City Centre Bus Infrastructure showed the existing bus stops on the northern side of Eddy Avenue and in Pitt Street and Chalmers Street but the very highly used stop on the southern side of Eddy Avenue adjacent to the pedestrian crossing from Belmore Park to the concourse of Central Station is conspicuous by its absence. The pedestrian crossing is shown dog-legged, inexplicably.

This stop sets down passengers from the Bronte via Oxford Street route (378), the Kings Cross/Elizabeth Bay route (311) and the Mascot via Chalmers Street route (305) as well as the south-eastern suburbs bus services to Railway Square via Chalmers Street (372, 393 and 395). Are these services to be obliterated as collateral damage in order to force passengers from public buses and onto the privately operated trams?

Passengers set down at Central Station

This mainly set down only stop would be the busiest stop for the Bronte bus service. The stop would also be crucial if Clovelly (339) and north Coogee (374) bus services were squeezed out of Elizabeth Street. The stop was seen to be under dire threat when Sydney Council inadvertently released Worksite figures after the exhibition period which did not show the pedestrian crossing and the threat was compounded when the traffic lane giving access to the stop was converted into a bicycle path in the never-exhibited EIS.

The reason Baird is hell bent on crippling the south-eastern suburbs bus services to the Devonshire Street tunnel entrance to Central Station is obvious. The bus services run the pants off the privately operated trams, and most passengers have a seat. Buses forcibly terminated at the Kingsford tram terminus have to travel to Todman Avenue Kensington at least in order to physically turn around. They have then travelled a third of the distance they would travel to Devonshire Street. What is the point?

It should be pointed out that if the Pitt/Castlereagh Streets tram loop was restored this stop would allow more bus services from the south-eastern suburbs as well as from Clovelly and north Coogee to terminate at the Lee Street layover using the under-utilised Foveaux Street bus lane as well as Chalmers Street. Passengers would transfer to the trams in complete safety. Restoring the tram loop would cost less than a quarter of what the George Street trams will cost.

Notley-Smith & friend

It should also be noted that the Member for Coogee Bruce Notley-Smith was in on it from the get go. He was listed as one of the members of the Round Table in the Dec 2012 brochure. On March 1, 2013 he posted comments on his taxpayer funded web site: "Just in time for Mardi Gras, NSW Labor has finally come out of the closet with their position on one of the NSW Government's key transport projects. In a speech on Thursday, the Labor Leader John Robertson told a rail conference the NSW Government's light rail from the Sydney CBD had 'dubious public benefit' and Labor would prioritise the Hunter and Western  Sydney over parts of the city that are comparatively well served".

There were no people or authorities with expertise transport planning or town planning consulted by the "Round Tables" or present at meetings. There were just minor politicians and their public servants. From the very beginning the project was set up for party-political point scoring.

Notley-Smith has never shown any concern for his constituents:

• He has never questioned what was planned for the Bronte bus services.
• He has never objected to the only arterial road into Coogee being reduced to one lane with an inescapable right turn at the end.
• He has never objected to buses being run down by now-nine-segment trams in High Street.
• He has never given out any information on how buses will physically turn round after being forcibly terminated at High Cross park.

He has been in on all the decisions that will create traffic congestion on access roads into Coogee and cripple bus services from Bronte, Bondi and Clovelly that run along Elizabeth Street.

Fortunately residents in the Coogee electorate will be able on 28 March 2015 to correct the mistake they made four years ago when he was elected.