Thursday 28th of March 2024

a BIG CON JOB by the baird government...

CONnex

The con is easy to spot: in the artist impression of the interchange by the planning department at top, there is hardly any cars. This suggest that the interchange is absolutely not needed. The lower part of the image shows what is REALLY going to happen: Massive TRAFFIC JAMS AND HIGH RISE BUILDINGS...


Opposition to Sydney's $16.8 billion WestConnex motorway project is gathering pace after Marrickville Council used its powers to try to block contractors from accessing roads to carry out preliminary work.

In a further sign of the level of resentment in the city's inner west to the project, the council has refused to grant WestConnex a road operating permit to install underground electricity mains to service the proposed spaghetti junction of motorway ramps at St Peters. The council, which has been a vocal opponent of the new motorway, rejected the permit to work on eight roads on the grounds that government approval has yet to be given for the second stage of the project. 
It is has told WestConnex and subcontractors that it will not consider other applications to carry out work until the project is approved.
It is the second time in just over two months that the council has attempted to stymie work on Australia's largest motorway project. In February it voted to block geo-technical investigations at Tempe Reserve.
Known as the New M5 East, the nine-kilometre tunnel project from Beverly Hills to St Peters is due to open in 2019 and is the second stage of WestConnex. It involves construction of a major interchange just south of Sydney Park in St Peters.
Marrickville mayor Sam Iskandar warned that the council would use its powers to block work again if it posed serious disruption to residents. "It is a big project and it is coming through heavily populated areas and the streets are struggling already [to handle the impact]," he said. 
However, the builders of WestConnex are able to circumvent the council by using powers under the Roads Act to carry out work on local roads for major projects.
"Roads and Maritime will advise Marrickville Council if it exercises this power," said a spokeswoman for Sydney Motorway Corporation, the agency building the WestConnex motorway. 
"Planning for utility provision is standard for all major infrastructure projects."
So far, Marrickville Council is the only local government body to use its limited powers to attempt to stop work on WestConnex.
Planning NSW is still assessing almost 12,900 submissions from residents, councils and community groups  lodged in response to the environmental impact statement for the new M5 East tunnel.
WestConnex Action Group spokeswoman Pauline Locke said preliminary construction work on the second stage should not be allowed until it gained approval from NSW Planning.
"What is the point of having a planning process if they are allowed to go ahead and do work beforehand?" she asked.
"All of this is going on while they have 13,000 submissions that they are assessing. It doesn't fill you with confidence that they are going to take the submissions seriously if they want to charge ahead with major work."
Inner-west residents have also taken matters into their own hands in recent months by disrupting preliminary work. A small group occupied a planned drilling site in St Peters on Monday before police moved them on.
"As it becomes real, a lot more people are getting angrier and prepared to take action to stop it," Ms Lockie said.
Marrickville Greens councillor Sylvie Ellsmore said the latest refusal sent another message to the state government that the council and residents opposed the project.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/opposition-to-westconnex-grows-as-council-blocks-contractors-from-streets-20160407-go0j3i.html#ixzz458O1hZxZ Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

 

destroying the neighbourhood...

The con is easy to spot: in the artist impression of the interchange by the planning department, there is hardly any cars. This suggest that the interchange is absolutely not needed. The lower part of the image shows what is REALLY going to happen: Massive TRAFFIC JAMS AND HIGH RISE BUILDINGS so that developers can fill the gaps in the vacated industrial lots — providing cash to the state government through the stamp duties, BUT DESTROYING THE ENTIRE NEIGHBOURHOOD: St Peters, Newtown, Marrickville, etc. 

 

see also: 

we will destroy your suburb, your houses and your streets...

on the other hand of the westCONnex...

Westconnex traffic modelling company AECOM pays out $280million for flawed modelling

Westconnex predicts abundant usage, but based on recent history the traffic modelling used could mean empty tunnels, bankrupt operators and an even bigger financial hole for tax payers to fill.

The $17 billion of tax payers money being spent on Westconnex is in part being allocated with data from a company that has just paid out $280million as the data they supplied was incorrect, misleading and sent toll road operators into receivership.  The NPBA wants to know if the Department of Environment and Planning intends to approve the Development Application for Westconnex Stage 2 despite knowing the information they base their decision on could be misleading and incorrect.

Traffic modelling is one of the key tools to assessing the potential impact of a major road project such as Westconnex.  Decisions to approve, reject or amend these projects are made through assessing different criteria, but many major decisions are made on the basis of this information.  Therefore its accuracy and best possible representation of what the future holds is a critical component in the approval process.

http://www.newtownprecinct.com.au/westconnex-traffic-modelling-company-aecom-pays-out-280million-for-flawed-modelling/

At the moment, the thingsters that measure traffic are in force around the Newtown area. You can smell the government tactics at work. One of the thing the Baird government hopes is that councils will close the through traffic through the back street in  an even more draconian manner as it is already, thus pushing traffic through the tunnels, for cash. I think my prediction in the illustration at top is more in line with the hopes of the government compared with what the planning department is offering as a "green space" around the exchange in Newtown. Because the city is a terminal destination, the traffic will mostly bank back up for many kilometres on the exchange and the tunnels. NO-ONE WILL BE SINGING IN THEIR CARS as promised by Tony Abbott. But the government won't care. It would have given the public land to developers and collected cash from tolls, whether the developing company makes a profit or not... This is the most ridiculous plan ever.

a trench and bridges...

I am not an expert on trenches and bridges, but like most observant people, I can see fudge... The interchange planned for St Peters is MASSIVE. I know, the tunnel becomes "open" for a couple of kilometres or so and despite being sunk in a what appears to be a 10 metre deep trench, it will have to be over-passed by three layers of roads. The top layer will tower about 30 metres above the natural level of the land, which in swimming pool equivalent is about a ten storey building. MASSIVE? IDIOTICALLY MASSIVE!

and, as we create new roads to nowhere...

Sydney is hurtling towards an unsolvable transport crisis if job growth in western Sydney continues at the same rate as it has for the past decade, a new report says.

There will be a jobs deficit of more than 300,000 and nearly half a million people – mostly professionals travelling long distances – will be forced to leave western Sydney each day to get to work by 2036 if things continue the way they are.

A major shift in direction is needed or congestion will kill this city. 

This is the grim projection made in the Western Sydney University report, which says Sydney will be "strangled" by congestion on roads, trains and buses, a loss of productivity and rising costs if nothing much changes.

"Global Sydney will suffocate," the report's author Professor Phillip O'Neill, director of the Centre for Western Sydney, said.

"If jobs growth in western Sydney continues at the pace of the last 10 years – and I use the word "pace" sarcastically – if we stay at the current pace then the distances needing to be travelled to get to work will strangle Sydney by crushing the capacity of its roads and its public transport."

The Addressing Western Sydney's Jobs Slide report says western Sydney's shape and structure will be locked in by 2040 and "we will have failed our next generations miserably" if workers do not have reasonable job choices within manageable distances available to them.

The manufacturing sector, which has been the main employer in western Sydney since World War II, has undergone dramatic job losses but there has been a lack of growth in the service sectors to offset this decline or match the increase of workers.

Government polices to build large concentrations of jobs in western Sydney, the report says, "have not been pursued with the required aggression".

"Unfortunately, the rhetoric isn't accompanied by the required commitment. Saying jobs are the number one priority is easy to say because it is a vague thing to say," Professor O'Neill said.

The report also takes aim at state government employment projections for western Sydney, saying they are unrealistic, unable to be justified beyond their desirability and show a "startling difference" to the historic growth rate.

Transport for NSW's Bureau Statistics and Analytics job forecasts produces an annual job growth rate in western Sydney that is 137 per cent higher than that of the past 10 years, the report says, leading to a more manageable deficit of 82,000 jobs and just over 300,000 workers leaving the region each day by 2036.

The figures in the report result from a different population forecast than what the bureau uses, but a Transport for NSW spokeswoman said the body was investigating long-term transport corridors to support future population growth and was continuing to analyse where additional capacity was most needed for western Sydney.

Opposition Leader Luke Foley said growing jobs in western Sydney had to be "absolutely top priority" for policymakers.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/why-the-number-of-jobs-in-western-sydney-should-concern-all-sydneysiders-20160407-go1dro.html#ixzz45ID7zHQQ 
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

it's not baird the builder but baird the nazi...

It is becoming a game of cat and mouse between the builders of Australia's largest motorway project, WestConnex, and residents of Sydney's inner west.

And it is leaving residents opposed to the project quickly finding themselves on the wrong side of the fence in suburban streets.

In what is becoming an increasingly familiar scene, contractors for WestConnex turn up to carry out preliminary work. Residents protesting against the project surround contractors' trucks before a temporary fence is erected around them and the vehicles.

The protesters within the fenced area are then served move-on notices and warnings from police that they face arrest if they refuse to budge.

It was played out again on Friday at St Peters, the suburb that is set to become a large construction site for a spaghetti junction of motorway ramps if the government approves the second stage of WestConnex.

The urban battle between the two sides comes as Leichhardt Council became the second council in a week to attempt to use its powers to block contractors from conducting preliminary work.

On Friday, the council rejected a request from Sydney Motorway Corporation, the agency building WestConnex, to carry out geotechnical work on 24 sites on the basis that the government is yet to give approval for the third stage of WestConnex, which will be tunnels linking the M4 and M5 motorways.

Leichhardt Council mayor Darcy Byrne said the government should not be surprised that councils were unwilling to co-operate given it was attempting to rush the project through.

"They certainly do not have our support for this ridiculously expensive project," he said.

But Roads Minister Duncan Gay said the councils appeared intent on fighting a battle that they knew they would not win.

"The councils know full well we have the right under the Roads Act to lawfully proceed with these works," he said.

"It is always our preference to work with local councils, however these politically driven actions in trying to stop works are doing a disservice to their communities." 

Once construction of the $16.8 billion project begins in earnest, protests springing up on streets in Sydney's inner west are likely to become more common.

St Peters resident Rick Williams said contractors had clearly been given a playbook to enable them to deal with protesters.

"Building a fence around someone doesn't seem to me to be a really legitimate way to go about business," he said.

"It's a kind of entrapment really. They are creating a space in order to be able to move people on. They always say their concern is the safety of the public but actually the main safety concern is going to be the pollution stack [from the new motorway tunnels]."   

Mr Williams lives several hundred metres from what is set to become the entrance to one of the WestConnex tunnels. 

St Peters resident Ngaire Worboys said she had decided to protest on Friday because she wanted to stop the "huge waste of money" on WestConnex.    

"It was a bit odd to have someone build a cage around you. It felt like you were being imprisoned," she said. "On so many levels this project stinks. The local people do not want this."

A spokeswoman for the Sydney Motorway Corporation said it was standard practice to secure worksites to ensure the "safety of workers and the community".

People who "intentionally obstruct the establishment of a safe work zone" were given every opportunity to leave. But if this was ignored, contractors could request police assistance, she said.

Residents and local businesses were notified before work began, and the sites were clearly marked as work zones.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/it-felt-like-you-were-being-imprisoned-westconnex-protesters-caged-in-20160408-go1nt5.html#ixzz45IOZ5Fnk 
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

NVDA — go for it...

It's war. That's the word on the streets of Rozelle and Balmain, at Newtown, Ashfield, St Peters and Haberfield. Mike's Motorway Madness is not their war of choice. They didn't start it and certainly didn't expect to be fighting it all over again. But it is war and, they say, they'll fight it to the end.

So NVDA - Non-Violent Direct Action - is a thing again. If you're a city dweller, NVDA is coming to a hood near you. Motorways are to the city what coal-and-gas are to the country: means for cynical government to funnel both private property and public interest into deep corporate pockets. The country defended itself with Lock the Gate. The city has NVDA. Watch for it. 

Protests, heritage, bulldozers, arrests, civil disobedience training days. There's a deja vu to all this, as though history tripped and fell into a half-century repeat cycle. Remember Arthur Dent, from Hitchhiker's Guide, whose planet was demolished for a hyperspace bypass? That was 1978. Even then motorway madness was meme enough for satire. Now, in world terms, it is simply old-fashioned. Yet we're still doing it.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/westconnex-is-a-war-on-inner-sydney-city-dwellers-20160427-gog082.html#ixzz470V9ETkC
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

back roads or public transport...

More than 60 per cent of Parramatta voters say they would use other roads instead of paying the tolls on the WestConnex motorway, according to a phone survey sponsored by a group opposing the toll-road.

The ReachTel survey of 650 residents across the federal seat of Parramatta also shows that a majority of those surveyed would prefer to spend billions on public transport projects instead of the motorway.

"People in the west clearly don't want WestConnex," said Gavin Gatenby, a member of the NoWestconnex: Public Transport group that sponsored the survey.

"This poses the bigger question: why are Labor and the Liberals continuing to support the project?."


The 33 kilometre WestConnex project is intended to duplicate the existing M4 motorway between Parramatta and Concord and, from next year, re-impose a toll on both the M4 and the new road.

The $16.8 billion motorway will also run in tunnel between Beverly Hills, St Peters, Rozelle, Haberfield and Ashfield.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parramatta-voters-back-public-transport-over-w...

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By end of the project more than 34 billion will be the cost...

greyhounds...

It is somewhat speculative to say that the Baird government is trying place its grubby hand on the Wentworth Greyhound park to develop it as housing by selling it to PRIVATE developers. This popular park, including the soccer fields next to it is now a GREY area on Google maps. I trust it used to be green, that is representing a PUBLIC park. Gone, going, vamoose... Idiotic Opus Dei Baird...

he's done enough damage...

NSW Premier Mike Baird has announced his retirement from politics.

In a statement on Twitter, Mr Baird said he was ready to move on from politics after 10 years in public life.

"As I have reflected on the approaching halfway mark of our current term of government, and the opportunity it presents to refresh the Cabinet team, I have decided that this is the perfect time for me to hand the reins over to a new Premier," it read.

"Serving as Premier of NSW has been a tremendous honour, but I have made clear from the beginning that I was in politics to make a difference, and then move on.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-19/nsw-premier-mike-baird-announces-r...

Baird has made enough damage to Sydney and ruined its pleasant quirkiness. The destruction of the Councils, of the trees, of heritage buildings and the privatisation of many public assets (possibly except the Opera House an the Harbour Bridge — who knows) were below the belt. Not to mention the move of the PowerHouse Museum into suburbian obscurity for profiting developers — including the construction of the most ugly buildings, in Darling Harbour, that would not even be approved in Las Vegas. UGLY. Good riddance.

the city killer...

With Sydney finally dead, Mike Baird's work is done

Let's look at the legacy of the premier who bravely stood up to the weak and made the state safe for mining, property development, and casinos. Especially casinos.

 

Sure, Baird is hardly the only conservative politician to see no problem with being a committed Christian while doing things like closing women's sheltersreneging on promises for domestic violence funding support services for the Family Court, and turfing pensioners out of public housing – even though they are things with which Jesus would, perhaps, not be entirely down. 

But these have not been the only people that Baird felt were getting in the way of NSW's progress. Far from it!

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/with-sydney-finally-d...

old news about new money....

Leaked internal documents obtained by the State Opposition reveal the NSW Government is facing a more than $700 million cost blowout on the new M5 section of Sydney's WestConnex project. 

Labor says the leaked documents, which it made public today, show the contractor delivering the $4.3 billion road project is in dispute with the Government over changes to its design and construction. 

The alleged cost blowout and delays are outlined in letters between the contractors — Sydney Motorway Corporation and the CPB Dragados Samsung joint venture — building the new M5 from Beverly Hills to St Peters. 

In one of the leaked letters dated May last year, which has been seen by the ABC, the contractor claims changes to the design and construction of the project entitle it to an additional $79.7 million in "change costs" and $626 million in "contractor delay costs".

The alleged cost blowout adds up to $705.7 million.

 

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-03/secret-m5-east-documents-reveal-nsw-governments-$700m-blowout/9723164

 

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destroying the place...

Inner Sydney councils, residents and advocacy groups have seized another opportunity to attack the Berejiklian government's $16.8 billion WestConnex toll road, voicing their strident opposition ahead of the latest probe into the controversial development.

More than 500 submissions for this week's NSW parliamentary inquiry into WestConnex were overwhelmingly negative towards the 33-kilometre motorway, described as the nation's largest infrastructure project.

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/inner-sydney-councils-attack-destruc...

 

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