Lester Brien, Byron Bay
Every occasion in which I find myself in a traffic jam on Ewingsdale Road, I curse the incompetence of both the Byron Council and the business organisations of this town. They fiddle with arguments about tweaking of the existing road network whereas the solution is staring them in the face. None, apparently, has either the intellectual capacity to see it or they lack the political guts to embrace it.
The traffic causing the problem is coming in from the north and is going out to the north. It’s tourist traffic that is vital to the businesses of the town but it is choking the town.
We have a disused railway line running through the guts of town and out to the freeway, linking up just south of Grays Lane. The railway has acres of land right on the beach between First Sun Caravan Park and Belongil, ideal for pay-up beachside parking, meaning that most of the visitor traffic wouldn’t even need to come into the CBD.
Physical encouragement could be given for visitors to walk into the CBD from this site. Ewingsdale Road would be left to the locals.
Elsewhere within Byron the NSW railways have the capacity to completely transform the future of Byron town planning, but I leave that to others. I am only interested in getting to The Pass where, with my Tony Abbott endorsed Nazi style surfing helmet, my Julia Gillard brand self-interest focusing reflective surf goggles, my Christopher Pyne stainless steel knuckle dusters and my American brand telescopic truncheon with power head added (always down the front of the togs, baby, never down the rear) I can take my rightful place in the lineup as the self-appointed head of the Ageing Weak-Kneed Surfers Association.