Congestion and unreality

Last week’s survey by the NRMA on the impacts of traffic congestion and road snarl on small business in Sydney’s CBD continued to highlight the problems we face in our City – and it’s only going to get worse.  As a community we can’t afford to let small business suffer.  It is, after all, small business that creates so many of our jobs and underpins business investment.

While I commend the State Government’s on-going commitment to ease local congestion by getting trucks off our local roads and the containers from Port Botany onto rail, I’ve got my concerns about the new ideas to allegedly improve port efficiency through financial rewards and penalties for on time truck arrivals at the port and the proposed new truck holding area. I am fearful we’ll start to see more trucks either propping or driving around our streets as they wait for their predetermined arrival time at the port.

I know the State is trying but when I hear the Minister for Transport on the radio saying that travelling times haven’t increased and our public transport system is getting better I must confess I get concerns about where we’re heading.  My concerns were heightened the other morning when I was down on Botany Road about 7.30am looking at some Council things.  To my amazement a large semi decided to do a U turn at the lights on the corner of Botany Road and Wentworth Avenue so he could change from going north to south.  After holding up the traffic (of which as we all know there’s quite a bit at that time of the morning) he then went about 100 metres or so southbound on Botany Road and then parked, blocking one lane completely – in a no standing zone.  This is not an isolated case as you can always see trucks parked where they shouldn’t. When I see the almost moron-like actions of a few – and the traffic impacts they create – my concern about the future increases.  Also, I find the total lack of consideration for others even more disappointing.

Communities and people care for each other – that’s always been the case in our City, at least.  But the growing incidence of a lack of concern or thought for others gives me as much cause for concern as does road congestion.  We need to get back to more caring communities, more consideration for others, a more humanised community.  We’ve still got a lot of that in the City of Botany Bay – much more than you find in other parts of Sydney.  But we, in our City, have to be careful we don’t lose what we’ve got.