Fast Buck$, Coorabell
The Greens’ excuses for the proposed bypass show they aren’t the party that’s going to save the planet.
Councillor Lyon paints a picture of cars stuck in traffic emitting fumes. Solution? Typical rightwing engineering proposal: build a bypass.
Once the bypass is open there’ll be a perception the problem is resolved, leading to larger inflow – back to square one. Meanwhile the roundabout near the cop shop will further slow down the traffic exiting town over the railway line.
I didn’t move here to get caught in traffic jams, so there are situations that make a bypass inevitable if not desirable. The present proposal offers illusionary benefits that don’t justify the outlay.
There is a perception that state government grants are ‘money for jam’ to be grabbed for whatever reason, regardless of benefit.
When the bypass was proposed 20 years ago the only traffic problem was on Shirley Street at morning peak time. These days there are jams all over the place: traffic from Suffolk Park, traffic from the direction of the lighthouse, traffic exiting town after 3.30pm, and the 9am jam extending dangerously for at least one kilometre along the freeway itself.
None will be in any way improved by the bypass, and some may be made worse if the bypass generates extra traffic from the south.
The shit will likely hit the fan long after the current councillors are gone, especially if there’s a court challenge to Council’s negligent handling of the wetlands issue.
Spot on Fast Buck$. You only have to turn to Los Angeles and the LA turnpikes. It takes about 18 months to build a turnpike and when it is finished it is filled with cars within a month and it still is bumper to bumper traffic. The LA turnpikes look like a plate of spaghetti but each road has about 2000 cars on it.
The more bypasses you build the more cars are attracted to them.
I do not know why you would suggest the proposed solution is “right-wing”. What is proposed is a publically owned road built on publicly owned land, paid for by taxes. Except in as much as the work itself is contracted, it would appear to be a model of socialism, and as is the case generally for roads provision, none the worse for it.
And Messrs Fastbucks or Heggarty, can you explain to me why the bypasses built over the years around Ballina Shire, and the streets that they bypassed are not congested with traffic like LA – might it be that in country towns properly designed bypasses actually work as intended?
Ahh, a trick question. Just how is Butler Street a bypass when it does not bypass anything.
The road starts at the top of the CBD and is still in the CBD when it goes over the railway line and re-enters the CBD. Other writers have already said what this road will do. It will become part of the CBD and broaden it and make it bigger. The traffic jams are so bad now that some drivers with intelligence will continue on the highway and cut back into the Coast road travelling down the mountain thereby adding extra milage onto their route.
But this Bypass has attracted so much publicity they now will travel down Ewingsdale Road and put more traffic onto Ewingsdale Road when they don’t have a need to go anywhere near Byron Bay if they are going to Lennox Head.
A visionless bandaid and a third main street for Byron Bay. That’s all it is. And another example of the now middle-of-the-road party that the Greens have become.
Bring back Bob Brown and Ian Cohen and Jan Barham, QUICK !
Meanwhile I ask you to check out Sustainable Australia as an alternative. BETTER, NOT BIGGER !