Shakespeare Hotel update

It was this computer generated artist-impression of a coupled juggernaut roaring through an intersection outside the Shakespeare Hotel in Devonshire Street published in the first brochure in December 2012 that most demonstrated the utter indifference of the North Shore Liberal Party rump to the lives and livelihoods of people living south of the Harbour. The tech guy I spoke to at the Information Session during the exhibition period was deeply embarrassed by it. Clover Moore embraced the picture and included it in countless ratepayer funded letter drops.

Now the Final Secretary's Environmental Assessment Report has published gratuitously an updated version of the infamous picture. The picture does not relate to anything in the text of the document - it is just a random illustration in a report that contains very few illustrations.

The length of the approaching vehicle does not appear to have changed but the sign on the front indicates that it cannot be a coupled tram. The existing trees have been removed and replaced by fully grown trees and the reason for this is shown - the poles supporting the overhead wires.

The picture has been widened to show a vehicular traffic light that can only be seen by westbound tram drivers. The light is red to indicate that the eastbound tram is in fact stopped even though there are no pedestrians crossing and no pedestrian crossing lights or buttons. This is deliberately deceptive since TfNSW has said that trams and juggernauts will race through Surry Hills at 60 kph with priority signalling.

This crossing is about 50 metres from a crossing at Little Riley Street that gives access to the platform of the tram stop and none of the pedestrian crossings planned for Devonshire Street are close to the main pedestrian arteries which are along Riley Street and Clisdell Street.

This picture was not included in the EIS that Planning and Infrastructure were supposed to be assessing. The public servants in Planning and Infrastructure who prepared the Assessment were even more deceptive than the consultants that wrote the EIS.

The Minister for Planning and Environment Pru Goward has joined the sisterhood. Is there no minister in the Baird Government that is not systemically dishonest?