Kiss your path goodbye?

I have set up a website to act as a point of focus for people protesting the RMS plans to sever the cycle/pedestrian path at Jesmond.

http://kissyourpathgoodbye.com

Initially I was a little concerned that the site name was too negative, but on consideration I think it accurately reflects the sobering reality – with the way the RMS ignored all the complaints and submissions earlier this year, that’s exactly what they want us to do, and if we don’t make our voice heard now, that’s exactly what we will have to do.

cycle-protest

Cycleway protest

img_4817About 25 cyclists and pedestrians met in Jesmond Park this morning for a photo to protest against the current plans to remove the cycleway when the Rankin Park to Jesmond bypass is built.

Some things I learned today…

  • There were a lot of people who submitted responses to  the RMS earlier in the year, and who feel they’ve been ignored.
  • There are a lot of alternative solutions on how to maintain the cycleway, all of which are better than the two ridiculous ‘solutions’ investigated and dismissed by the RMS in the environmental impact statement (EIS).
  • The cycleway is an important part of the “Two City Circuit”, a 50km loop incorporating many off road cycle paths in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.
  • Somebody who attended the drop-in information session at Silver Ridge Community Cottage yesterday heard from an RMS representative that this issue of the cycleway being cut is the biggest source of complaints in the evaluation process.
  • Other people besides me were frustrated with how the EIS document is split up into 82 separate PDF downloads! Is it too cynical to think they’re deliberately making it hard for people to see and respond to the EIS??
  • There is one more drop-in information session to be held Thursday 1 December 2016 between 3pm-6pm at Silver Ridge Community Cottage, 13 Iranda Grove, Wallsend.

Probably the most important thing I learned this morning is that the submissions made earlier this year were to the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS), which they evaluated and then produced the current environmental impact statement (EIS). Submissions to this current EIS will be evaluated by the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE). i.e. it is a different department evaluating the EIS responses.

So it is vital that submissions be made again, in greater number, with greater detail, and with greater urgency.

Whereas the RMS seems to be only interested in roads, lets hope the DPE is actually interested in the environment.

img_4820

Cycle path ‘straw men’

In Section 4.5.4 of the November 2016 EIS for the Rankin Park to Jesmond bypass, the planners ‘investigated’ and ‘costed’ two alternatives for maintaining the cycleway between Jesmond Park and Jesmond. I just get the feeling that both these options were put forward simply as ‘straw men’ in order to be dismissed, and avert objections that had been submitted.

The first option is for a towering and twisting overhead bridge, like something out of a Dr Seuss book1, that would cost $30 million!!!! That’s surely a joke solution, like the obviously wrong answer examiners often put in a multiple choice question.

overAnd the second option proposed is for a subway that would cost $3 million, but is dismissed because (among other things) it would be subject to flooding.

underBut seriously, if you’re going to propose a subway route (purple dotted line) that is along the lowest point in the landscape and right next to a stormwater drain – of course its going to flood!

Why not route the subway 100m further south (red dotted line in the diagram below) where the land is 8 to 10 metres higher and not subject to flooding?  I get the impression they’re not really trying hard enough to find a solution, and that they don’t really want to try.

tryagain


  1. Refer to the Bunglebung Bridge, in “Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are”, by Dr Seuss, 1973.

Cycle snub on Jesmond bypass

Despite numerous people (myself included) submitting concerns about this to the planning authorities earlier this year, the ‘revised’ plan for the Rankin Park to Jesmond bypass still shows that the shared pedestrian/cycle path from Jesmond Park to Jesmond is going to be obliterated and replaced with not one, not two, but three separate traffic light crossings across eight lanes of traffic. (See section 4.5.4 of the EIS.)

triplebird

The government is about to spend 280 million dollars to facilitate the easy movement of environmentally unfriendly cars and trucks, but is giving a middle finger to cyclists and pedestrians in the process.

If this madness of the triple crossings is persisted with, can I suggest a more equitable situation would be for every other day to have the crossings default to green for the pedestrians/cyclists, and any car driver wishing to proceed must stop at the lights; hop out of their car; press a button; wait in the rain, hail or shine for 2 minutes; repeat this 3 times; and only then be allowed to proceed.

Fakebook

I’m not on Facebook. There are many reason’s why, but in an excellent article discussing the role of the media in the recent U.S. election Joshua Benton of NiemanLab expresses one of my misgivings very succinctly …

Facebook has become a sewer of misinformation … Facebook has built a platform for the active dispersal of these lies — in part because these lies travel really, really well.

Our world has rolled from “post-modern” to “post-factual”, and Facebook is one of the biggest wheels in the grubby machine that profits from lies and misinformation.

UPDATE

So it’s not just me imagining a void of veracity… less than 24 hours after posting this blog article, Oxford Dictionaries announce that their Word of the Year for 2016 is “post-truth”.