I've teamed up with local residents and businesses to protect important bus stops in the Balmain-Leichhardt area.
After a concerted campaign by Mr Parker and local residents, the government backed down in August on several proposed bus stop closures in the area including three on Norton Street and stops at Glover Street Lilyfield and Parramatta Road near University Avenue Camperdown.
However the government will still remove bus stops at Darling Street near Victoria Road, Darling Street near Denison Road, Balmain Road near The Boulevard, Norton Street near Carlisle Street, Norton Street near Norton Plaza, Parramatta Road near Larkin Street and Parramatta Road near Mallett Street. These changes have left many travellers with long distances to walk to their nearest stop.
Local businesses on Darling Street Rozelle have been particularly vocal in objecting to the loss of their customers’ parking spaces and less accessible bus stops.
Mr Parker and local residents have launched a Parliamentary petition and Mr Parker has written to the Transport Minister seeking an urgent review.
Mr Parker said:
“These changes have a particularly big impact on people with disabilities, parents with young children as well as the frail or elderly.
One of the bus stops that the State government has removed serviced Rozelle Neighbourhood Centre, a key provider of services to vulnerable people in our community. Others serviced important community hubs like Norton Street shopping centre and Orange Grove Public School as well as parks and childcare facilities.
It's totally counterproductive to remove bus stops to improve on time running when it makes catching the bus more inconvenient.
The government is engaging in the worst sort of Orwellian doublespeak by claiming that deleting bus stops is some kind of ‘improvement’.
Accessible bus services are the cornerstone of any sensible public transport policy. The government should be making it easier, not harder to catch public transport. Instead, this government seems determined to push people out of public transport.
Removing bus stops to ‘improve’ bus services is nonsensical – if the government was serious about making buses run on time, they’d abandon their planned sell off and invest in priority lanes, additional services and priority bus signalling.
What’s needed to improve our bus services is proper investment in smarter timetables, provision for back-up vehicles and drivers, and improvements to bus priorities at traffic lights and in bus lanes.
I urge the state government to review these changes and invest in genuine improvements to our Inner West bus services, rather than unhelpful measures like removing bus stops.”
If you would like a copy of the Parliamentary paper petition to print out, you can download it here.
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Making buses run faster by reducing people’s ability to get use them is NOT a good idea.
In fact, it’s ludicrous.
Try being elderly and getting your heavy shopping home on a hot day before the fish starts to smell.
The worst example I have seen of what occurred with the removal of bus stops by dear Gladys is in Newtown. A very handy stop on King Street just past Enmore Road was removed, with the next stop well over two long blocks up the road. I was travelling on a bus each afternoon from UNSW to Leichhardt the week this stop was removed – the drivers HAD NOT BEEN TOLD in advance of the change so they were very bemused, and the passengers (especially those who were elderly or infirm) were very distressed. The drivers I ask are still angry at its removal.
And then there are the two stops removed on Broadway between Railway Square and the Broadway shopping centre (one used to be handily opposite UTS and the next one on the corner of Wattle and Broadway). To add insult to injury, the then existing stop at Broadway which was located under a wide awning on a wide footpath outside the old Broadway post office, so could keep dozens of commuters dry while they waited for their buses, was suddenly moved.
Could this have been something to do with a certain Catholic uni purchasing those buildings and wanted a clear access to their publicity-laden windows and offices? Whatever the reason, commuters were suddenly forced to squeeze onto a much smaller footpath space with (for some time) no shelter provided whatsoever, and the bus shelters which were provided giving nothing like the amount of shelter available in the old location. Grrrr.
Just go across the border to Brisbane and see the climate designed, handily spaced bus stops up there (our glass shelters were designed in France…and not for an increasingly subtopical city like ours!). And their wonderful buses which apart from other joys all have hanging straps (have others encountered the large number of our buses with NO hanging straps whatsoever?)
Go to Melbourne and see not only well designed tram stops but use beautifully designed and functional trams and trains which have written on them “made in Victoria by Victorians”.
Meanwhile we long-suffering Sydneysiders are ruled by the same mad thinking which brought us the removal of bus stops, an oversized, overbuilt and over budget “light rail” project – and of course the Connex fiascos will also see us having those “light rail” carriages built in France – and our next fleet of trains built in South Korea.
Thanks Gladys!
Stupidity rampant.