918 The Destruction of George Street, Sydney
Something horrible is happening
in Sydney: Our city centre is being destroyed; not by terrorists …
but by our state government, who behaves like terrorists.
SMH: Light rails finish-date now 2020 - a year
later than planned
SMH: Delays to Sydney cbd light-rail construction
leave retailers struggling
This situation is appalling and
instigated a rather frustrated letter to my newspaper (which they - and don’t
they do that only too often - shortened).
The bit they cut out I deem rather important, the fact that soon we will
have battery powered, probably self-driving buses …
Has there ever been a more monumental
f***up by a state government than the digging up and utter destruction of
Sydney’s George Street? For what? To see street cars running in tracks, fed
their energy from overhead cables? One can hardly come up with a more
retrograde, sooo-last-millenium concept if one tried.
Was there nobody those years ago who said
to the powers that were by the time the project would be finished it would be
hopelessly out of date? Trackless trams anybody? Battery powered buses?
Probably self-driving? Oh the folly of it, the idiocy, the colossal waste of
money.
Of course it is a great idea to remove
cars from George Street and open it up to public transport and pedestrians. But
why was it necessary to approach the task with blinkered eyes, gaze firmly
averted from new, modern, innovative technology that was clearly on the horizon
when that disastrous decision was made to dig up the street?
And now it turns out there is no end in
sight to the project. The compensation for the business owners who are sent to
the wall by this stupidity should be taken out of the salary and superannuation
of those responsible.
