The Cooks River to White Bay link: new hope or false dawn?
July 14th, 2012 at 14:43
- Former White Bay power station
The Inner-West Courier last week gave some hope that the campaign for the GreenWay is having an impact within the NSW Government. It reported that the Transport for NSW website has been updated to state that investigations are underway into an ‘active transport’ corridor between the Cooks River and White Bay.
This corridor makes sense. It involves combining the GreenWay (which runs from Iron Cove to the Cooks River) with the City West cycle link (which proposes using the goods line corridor for a cycle path from Leichhardt to White Bay) There’s a good map here to show how the GreenWay and City West cycle link interact.
Effectively, it would mean a cycle and walking path would follow the goods line corridor all the way from Dulwich Hill to White Bay. Together, these two corridors would run for about 7.5km and provide an almost completely off-road path into the city – linking with the Anzac Bridge and then cycle paths through Pyrmont-Ultimo.
However, what seems like new hope could be a false dawn. The Courier didn’t appear to be able to get a supportive quote from the office of Transport Minister Berejiklian, despite this being a good news story.
Furthermore, on June 25, consultants for Transport for NSW were due to address the GreenWay Steering Committee (made up of the four local councils + community representatives) to talk about the Cooks River to White Bay link. After confirming they would come, the consultants pulled out on the day of the meeting. Committee members who’d previously met the consultants said they were “not across the issues” and couldn’t provide any useful information about the proposal. The committee passed a motion stating it would pass on its concerns about the process to date to Transport for NSW. The formal minutes should be available shortly.
Hopefully, Transport for NSW will be better equipped for this task once it hires some active transport managers (these positions were advertised several weeks ago).
The irony is that, right now, we should be publicly discussing the ‘Cooks River to White Bay’ link with the NSW Government. If it is seriously considering this proposal an off-road route, the government deserves credit. However, unless it begins consultation, we’ll never know.
July 15th, 2012 at 10:57
Note that there is some urgency to this.
An active transport corridor along this route would depend on widening the rail cutting (in the same that the M2 tunnel is being widened) to allow sufficient space for both tracks of the light rail and a path for others. Once the light rail is commissioned this will leave no room for the earth moving machinery required to do the work.
July 17th, 2012 at 17:30
Rob – thanks for pointing this out. It’s interesting that the Transport NSW website has explicitly stated that “construction of the light rail extension now will not preclude the later construction of a shared path.” Perhaps we may be able to ask Transport NSW to explain this statement if and when community consultation comes about.
July 20th, 2012 at 11:12
Greenway and CWCL are elements we support, go one further folks and build the White Bay Green-Link concept proposed by EcoTransit, then you’ll have close to EVERYONE in the InnerWest able to walk and cycle safely into the whole CBD on a designated pathway, not just those living south of White Bay.
Where’s Balmain in this debate? Where’s Balmain’s light rail? Build the Green- Link rather than funnel everyone through Pyrmont next to cars and buses, and you’ll have substantial State value added to the whole area by cleaning up not just the additional local congestion on the M4 Citylink, but also Victoria Road. It will also make light rail for all those living south of Lilyfield half an hour faster into the CBD – and could one day connect to the Anzac Parade light rail extension, which will mean everyone living in the InnerWest could get from their homes to the SCG, Fox Studios, UNSW and Randwick Race Course – even Maroubra – without a car or bus. Think big picture – you’re worth it – and so is Sydney.
October 10th, 2012 at 11:15
Rang Matt Faber in TfNSW today about the progress of the study into alternatives to the Greenway corridor as mentioned in that TfNSw website link. It now seems to have changed to a “patronage demand” study, not a benefit cost study or an alternative route study, which I assumed it was. They aren’t consulting cycling groups because our views are all well known, and it would only complicate matters. They are doing surveys of demand. Claim this hasnt been done before. How this could be of any use if they don’t have a clear idea of a possible route or routes I don’t know. Most cycling projects have a good or even high benefit to cost ratio so hard to understand why a link of some sort is not justified, particularly when there isn’t a link at present. A network of bicycle routes is worth more than the sum of its parts, so I hope they factor that in.