At last Thursday’s Byron Council meeting a long and dedicated campaign to save rail tracks and restore trains in the Byron Shire was defeated by one vote. This campaign initially started by TOOTs was not an ‘either or’ campaign. It saw the possibility of maintaining vital train services by designing bike tracks besides the mobile trains. This single vote has quelled the possibility of $3 million to repair train tracks.
Underlying this vision was the question of equity. Ratepayers and tourists who required transport, in particular mothers with children, students, workers, disabled persons, aged persons who enjoy train travel had the equal advantages to relax on transport to required destinations. One could only deeply wonder why such a generous solution became a ‘future big problem’!
Denial of above can now be viewed as a ‘political sleepwalker’ decision. A decision that culls future options of safety in times of climate-change crisis. The North Coast floods of 2022 have heralded a new consciousness in the community still struggling to address the deep social trauma that exists in the community.
It must be acknowledged that mobility is essential to the development of an evacuation plan as these floods destroyed many roads and landslides added to greater safety fears. Corporate ‘pleasure tourism’ should never precede safety and right to life planning decisions. The request for a co-ordinated evacuation plan is now imperative and the demand to create alternative means to escape floods/fire due to climate crises. I have discovered much denial of the phrase ‘climate crisis’ amongst people with power to make meaningful changes to sentient trauma and suffering. This must not be tolerated. Please review this decision and accept an appeal addressing the need for a co-ordinated evacuation plan. Pleasure tourism and danger can be remedied but climate denial is soul destroying. Long term resident Rusty Miller wrote a brilliant letter addressing the above to The Echo. The original vision as stated is still possible with evacuation vision… a bonus. Trains save lives.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
