When Sydney Council installed yet another speed hump across the Crown Street bus route they placed planting strips at either end. The planting strip at one end was immediately removed as it was adjacent to outdoor seating of a cafe - Clover Moore spends rate-payers money like a drunken sailor. The other planting strip is crossed by well worn paths as you can see. The speed hump is close to the end of Reservoir Street which is the de facto preferred pedestrian path from Central to Taylor Square. I walk through this planting strip on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day.
It nearly proved the death of me this morning. Some motorists think the speed hump is a crossing and wave you through while traffic is not slowing down in the other direction. I ended up moving further down the road to cross where traffic does not slow down. Traffic is heavy in Crown Street on a Saturday morning. There is a signalised crossing in front of Crown Street Primary to the south but no one uses it.
The indicative plan for the Surry Hills stop shows a planting strip across the end of Riley Street. It even contains "existing trees", believe it or not. TfNSW insists this planting strip will force pedestrians along Riley Street to divert to signalised crossings at either end of platforms rather than walk directly across to the platforms and Ward Park. This will enable the coupled LRVs to pass through Surry Hills with priority signaling, at 50 kph or is that 60 kph, and nobody will get killed.
Other roads with pedestrian traffic such as Little Riley Street featured in the infamous artist's impression of the Shakespeare Hotel have no planting strips to dissuade pedestrians from crossing the at grade tram rails.
The EIS does not contain any data on what kind of emergency braking, if any, will be used on the LRVs, or the stopping distances that the LRVs will need.
What planet are the engineers at TfNSW living on?
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