Elements management has thought outside the box by reactivating the old train line from Sunrise to Byron town.
However, residents of Belongil are inconvenienced and put at some risk by this venture.
It would therefore seem appropriate to compensate Belongilers by installing a train stop at Kendall Street.
Maybe we would visit Elements? It would also encourage Belongil residents to more conveniently visit the many businesses in the industrial estate and those in Byron proper. We and they are rate payers too.
What about it?
Wendy McTavish, Belongil
To have a railway station at Kendal Street could be a way to avoid paid-parking in Byron Bay if at Kendal Street all the Henry’s and Henretta’s got on the train to travel to Byron. It would be poetic justice in reducing traffic in Byron Bay. That is my say.
What about we demand the state government provides the train service for the whole Northern Rivers region which they promised for eight years and is needed for locals and the 5 million tourists who visit the region every year?
They seem to have plenty of money to pull down and replace almost new sports stadiums in Sydney.
Maybe we should not “demand” that the NSW Government waste money on a train service that certainly would not serve the whole Northern Rivers. How is it train buffs can suggest the 40% of the people who live along the corridor are the “whole Northern Rivers” ? How would trains service the three quarters of non-car owning households that are nowhere near the corridor? How would a rail service that does not go near any of the campuses, current and proposed hospitals, aged care complexes and most of the other key destinations serve the “whole Northern Rivers” ? How will it help people from Ballina, the statistical area with the largest number of elderly non-car owning people – to meet their medical, shopping or recreational needs? How will it help most low socio economic people, including many indigenous people, 90% of whom live away from the line? How would their proposed eight a day commuter service – that is once every two hours – get more than a small number of commuters to work or study, particularly as it does not serve the busiest corridors like Ballina – Alstonville -Lismore, Ballina – Byron Bay and the Tweed Coast? How would it serve the 5 million tourists when it does not go near the airports, would not connect the growing tourist accommodation centres on the Ballina Coast with Byron Bay or take them to any of the tourists destinations in hinterland villages awya from the line?
Perhaps instead of demanding wasteful largess from the NSW Government for a transport system that will only serve a small number of patrons mainly in Lismore and Byron LGAs – where households are statistically younger and more likely to own and use cars – we should ask for our share of the thousands of new bus services such as those that it funded in the budget and later in the year. For the hundreds of millions it would cost to restore the line, purchase trains and pay for the heavy recurrent costs that government rail incurs – and remember the Greens who support this idea argued in Mullum for government owned transport – we could have regualr bus services that would really serve the whole Northern Rivers. Is it not time the train buffs stopped ignoring all of the transport and demographic data and started advocating for transport that actually meets the needs of people?
Yes, just let them dig up Sydney and put a train service in down there when the Sydney people don’t want it.