Fortunately, someone in the federal bureaucracy understands that spending $42m, or $2.8m per kilometre, of public money destroying a multi-billion-dollar rail line between Crabbes Creek and Mullumbimby for a rail trail/bike track-is not good value for taxpayers.
$2.8m is four times the cost of restoring the rail line for trains in Byron. The trail is not a massive opportunity for anyone, let alone thousands of locals who’ve been campaigning and signing petitions for trains for decades.
Rail trails are for recreation. They were never meant to replace critical public train services in fast growing regions with millions of tourists, such as Byron and the North Coast. The Tweed trail has not reduced traffic or parking problems in Murwillumbah. It does not provide transport or safely connect communities in all weather, certainly not at night when people need to get to social events.
Trains must be the spine of any integrated public transport system. Trains run on renewable energy reduce emissions and save taxpayers’ money on road building, maintenance and multi-storey car parks. They are accessible for all.
Repairing the line for commuter trains will cost less than a bike track, and will enable locals and tourists to travel to and around the region in a safe, sustainable, cost effective way in all weather, especially when the twenty-two kilometres of line is built to connect to the Queensland rail system at Coolangatta.
Records show 130,000 people per year paid to use one daily train service. The Tweed bike track has little use, certainly not in the constant wet weather, nor has it provided any economic benefits. More businesses have closed along the Tweed trail than have opened.
More people and families are cycling in Brunswick Heads and eating and drinking in cafes than on the Tweed trail or in adjacent cafes – those still open.
The Byron mayor laments the gross underfunding of councils and finds it ‘horrific in this day and age we don’t have the basic services that are needed’ but supports a ‘horrific’ $2.8m per kilometre being spent on destroying critical transport infrastructure for a bike track for a few cyclists that’s turning into an expensive white elephant.
It’s appalling that towns with train stations in, or close to the centre, are gridlocked with gas guzzlers and no longer safe for pedestrians or cyclists, and finding a parking space is a nightmare. The mayor’s idea of ‘basic services’ is out of kilter with most residents and ratepayers. Spending $2.8m per kilometre on a bike track that is subject to frequent flooding and wash aways in downpours, will add to costs for 16,000 ratepayers forced to foot the bill for services and infrastructure for over two million tourists, and do nothing for those disadvantaged.
People still suffering from climate disasters expect a Green council to do more to reduce emissions, not spend horrific amounts of public money increasing them.
Then we’re told rates are increasing and residents will pay for parking.
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. 
