Roe 8 ruse
I THINK it is sad that there are people out there who think Roe Highway is a huge cost to the environment when in fact the Labor/Green alternative of an outer harbour will be catastrophic to Cockburn Sound, and access roads tearing through Thompsons Lake and the Spectacles — but it isn’t about the environment and never was.
It is about politics and ideology versus forward planning that most cities wish they’d had.
Patricia Phelan,
via the Chook website
Asset strip
WHO can blame our current and former mayors and their associated councils for selling the farm (the West End, the parking areas, Kings Square).
They were simply following a path well trodden by current and former governments of all persuasions.
Selling assets to cover their immediate issues.
We do tend to blame our elected officials for these failings but one would have also thought that the highly paid CEOs at the time should have been able to put together compelling reasons why short term solutions to long term problems were a bad idea.
The real pity is that they didn’t learn from the Norwegians who have managed to turn their non-renewable oil resources into the largest (and constantly renewing) sovereign wealth fund for the benefit of future generations.
Pip Darvall
Lefroy Rd, South Fremantle
Roe the boat
ROE 8 is only a matter of time.
Congestion will get worse!
The locals in time will cry out for Roe 8
The Greens are out of south metro at last.
Labor will deliver no solutions to traffic issues in the area as time goes on Roe 8 will be the clear solution
The anti-car crowd will be seen as the minority they are, and Roe 8 will be completed
The demand for Roe 9 will follow.
Then the real thinkers will develop Roe 10 hopefully in the style I read about a few years ago here in the Herald by some locals with a tunnel into the actual port.
Rethink the link was just another Greenie anti-car, anti-development mob much like the council of Fremantle.
Roe 8 is a matter of when, not if.
Bob, via the Chook website
Do you want health or wealth?
HEALTH insurance like all other household expenses is getting more expensive.
If every person who could afford the cost of health insurance paid into a health fund, the cost could be less.
Unfortunately there are probably a lot of well off people able to pay, but choose to use the public health system, waiting up to two years for a knee or hip replacement.
A means test would be one way, so those able to pay, do not bludge on the public health system.
Instead of giving a rebate to young people to join a health fund, wouldn’t it be better to give it to the loyal members who have been in a health fund most of their life.
I have been a member of a health fund for 70 years; over the years I have been unemployed and sometimes it was hard to find the money; I have always believed that health insurance was more important than insuring the car.
Health is better than wealth, but; a little wealth can help your health.
Frank Granger.
Melville Beach Rd,
Applecross
Road rage
I AM writing in regards to an incident which occurred Friday evening around 4pm on George Street, East Fremantle.
As you may know George Street is popular and bustling in the afternoons once school finishes, with many families going to the park and children coming home from school.
My daughter came home distraught after being verbally abused by a “business man in a shiny black car” who yelled expletives at her, telling her to get off the road as she rode her skateboard home along the edge of the road where cyclists ride.
The language used was entirely inappropriate and I find it hard to believe that such disgusting language could be used in public in such an aggressive manner.
This is not the first incident of this sort and my daughter often tells me how she is angrily beeped at on her way home.
It is disheartening to think that she is growing up in a society where she feels unsafe because of people’s attitudes towards others on our roads.
My overall concern is about the amount of traffic and speed of motorists along George Street in this congested time, as well as the behaviour of motorists who believe they alone are entitled to the road to drive as they please without concern for others.
There is a real need to address the issue of angry and dangerous drivers on the road, perhaps through some sort of initiatives to promote alternative methods of transport — walking, cycling, buses; or initiatives aimed at promoting respect for others on our roads.
Concerned parent
15 Dorothy St, Fremantle
Boiling frog syndrome
WHY do I get a sense of déjà vu when reading that another gym under the control of the City of Melville, on this occasion LeisureFit Melville, is about to close due its inability to detect changes in its industry and/or match the competition before it is too late (“Gym Closing”, Herald, March 25)?
A few years back when the gym within the Leeming Recreation Centre was managed by the council the same thing happened.
It’s called “boiling frog syndrome”, where the temperature of the water in which the frog sits steadily rises but not fast enough for it to perceive that it is being boiled to death.
This is a metaphor for the inability, or unwillingness, of people to react to or be aware of threats that arise gradually.
Colin Delane
Anscombe Loop, Leeming
PFL obsessed
HAD the Mayor of Melville along with some of his councillors listened to and consulted with the ratepayers and wider community, he would not have wasted over $100,000 of ratepayers money on promoting and fuelling his personal obsession with the Perth Freight Link.
The result of the recent state election was clear to all.
[Melville mayor] Russell Aubrey needs to either move on, or be moved on.
His resignation before the next round of council elections in October would be welcome.
Rod Short
Tamar Street, Palmyra
Highway hell
IT took me 20 minutes to get onto Leach Highway from Winnacott Street yesterday morning (28 March, 2017).
It was diabolical: west bound Leach Highway traffic banking up to turn right onto Potts Street (presumably dropping their kids off at school), filling up the right-hand turning lane and spilling onto Leach Highway, blocking the view of cars turning right onto Winnacott street.
I watched three near misses, horns blaring, trucks and buses and cars roaring up the hill.
Bus pulls onto Leach Highway: no bus lane here so this is blocking a lane of traffic.
Then the cars banked up, blocking the right lane.
Only the middle lane had vehicles moving.
Children everywhere and while most were smart enough to use the footbridge many were playing with their young lives running across six lanes of truck-infested traffic to save a few seconds.
Eventually someone will die here, I have no doubt about it.
Today I am going to spend several hundred dollars to install high quality front and rear cameras in my Toyota so I can record, legally, the madness on Leach Highway.
I will keep taking, logging and storing photos and footage of this crazy road.
It is difficult to understand why your government would not build a road, Roe8, that will, amongst other benefits, start to ease congestion on a large section of Leach Highway.
As the reports start coming in, it would appear that this section of road will cost the same amount of money to NOT build as it will to build.
I really do need someone to sit down and explain this to me because I am either not the brightest of people or the new government is completely mad.
If Bon Scott was alive today he would be singing ‘Highway to Hell’ about Leach Hwy instead of Canning Hwy.
Bradley Don
2 Dudge St, Willagee
False horizon
AT a public meeting in the drill hall (27 March, 2017), Sunset Events outlined its latest proposal to transform J Shed and Arthur Head into a tavern, brewery and beer garden.
Sunset’s proposal differs only in the abandonment of live music events, from the one emphatically rejected in 2016 by the WA Planning Commission.
On January 26, Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt spoke on Bathers Beach to recognise the cultural significance of the area to the Nyoongar people.
I think it is time that Dr Pettitt, on behalf of Fremantle council, makes a clear statement on whether they support a tavern at Arthur Head or not.
Richard Mehan,
Fremantle Inner City
Residents’ Association
High Street
What a joke
REGARDING your front page story, (“Housing plan to kill Roe 8”, Herald, March 18)
What a joke: houses won’t stop a highway.
Replant trees and bushes, make the wildlife corridor, spread out the mulch of those former trees — it’s there, use it — it will hold back dust and weeds.
Plenty of Liberal personal without jobs.
Give them all a shovel and start planting.
Llewella Davies
Merrill Drive, Success
The Ed says: Housing was pretty successful in keeping the Fremantle Eastern Bypass out of White Gum Valley; it forced the Barnett government into the Fremantle tunnel option because it was deemed too expensive to resume all the bypass land that was sold off.
The car dependent society, which fails to car pool, use public transport, walk or ride. The whining that goes on about wait times on roads. Seriously, try Tokyo or San Francisco, London even. A couple of Ks of bitumen which is destructive and greedy is no solution to the real problems we face.
Patricia Phelan [April 1] is right when she points out that the outer harbour is going to affect the Cockburn Sound environment, but that is no reason for Roe 8. The outer harbour has bipartisan support and there is the potential to better manage the already degraded Sound, rather than simply destroying the Beeliar wetlands when Latitude 32 will take the trucks out of Leach Hway and South Street, and put much more on rail. She might also like to read the recent Latitude 32 reports which uses the existing Russell Rd through Thompsons Lake and Thomas Road further South.
Bob [also via the chook web site] wants to describe anti Roe8 people as “anti-car crowd” but whether we are or not, and many/some of us aren’t, our issue is the long term resolution of the traffic problem rather than one that simply shifts the issue from one area to another. Sorry Bob, but Roe 8, like the Fremantle Bypass 20 yeas ago, will not rise again. The real issue is whether Labor/Greens will do the job quickly – certainly the minor [liberal] party won’t be breaking any barriers in the next decade.
Finally, Bradley Don, in answer to your request for an explanation: Roe 8 has never ever been a plan “to ease congestion on … Leach Highway” except by shifting and significantly increasing the congestion in the Stirling/Leach H’way area and then only by trucks being willing to pay a toll on Roe 8. Oh, and Roe 8 fills the bill for Bon Scott’s ‘Highway to Hell’!
Goods on rail won’t go much over 30%due to the breakdown and rail configuration
What rail will do is ensure more double handing and more miles of transport per container
Rail is a great solution for bulk cargo and containers over large distance 100kms+
But is not cost effective over the distances in metro area.
That’s why the government has to give subsidies to each container moved by rail as its more expenses and less efficient than trucks
But you will never hear the road to rail mob talking about true costs like subsidies that need to increase by container and will continue to grow in volume
If you look at the years of planning for Lat 32 it has included Roe 8 as part of the road plan for the future
Russell Rd and others going east will also need to be doubled or tripled in size to manage the volume of cargo going through another wetland
What this plan does is ensure a good % of freight traveling by truck here will greatly increase the miles travelled looking a great increase in truck pollution/emissions
Not mention new bridges, intersections needed to built on this route not to bring other traffic to a halt.
Traffic in this area going north south is packed imaging the impact of running trucks across it east west, gridlock
Some how this argument is saying to build more roads crossing through the same wetland network to increase truck miles and a massive new harbor instead of finishing one road to the current port is abetted environmental outcome, who could believe that bullshit
It’s trying to justify spending 10’s of billions of dollars, which still fails to fix the actual problem Freo faces in its traffic issues
They also fail to mention that the plan for the outer harbour is not big enough to replace Freo harbour it’s merely an overflow port, not bad for 5-10 billion dollars investment
It also fails to mention that Freo harbour will continue to grow well past its current volume of Days TEU movements even with the outer harbour.
So not only does their supposed solution not lessen the harbours impact on the urban road network but it fails to even address the growing amount of not container based traffic which is by far the greater volume.
Their plan is to completely ignore Freos commuter and business traffic issues and add to it, by driving up the density in the area which is being led by Fremantle council
Who seems more interested in their UN motivated agenda than actual issues it residents have been complaining about for a decade, traffic and road safety.
How can you improve road safety if can’t separate urban local traffic from container trucks and commuter traffic crossing through Fremantle
The whole outer harbour side show is a distraction from real traffic issues in the Freo area,
The outer harbour will not in any way fix Fremantle’s traffic issues
Their plan to build an outer harbour may be needed in 20-30 yrs but does nothing to fix the current issues, it actually guarantees nothing will be done to address these issues as their smoke and mirrors parlour trick is a one trick pony, as building a port 10kms south of Freo will do nothing for the commuter and Local traffic in Freo as they both need a different solution
The outer harbour is purely a distraction
How long before Freo locals wake and see their traffic is only getting worse and the outer harbour has nothing to do with solving this problem, they have been conned
Bob argues that containers on rail means “more double handling”, but surely containers on trucks also means double handling: containers carry goods in bulk and must be unpacked, sorted and repacked for distribution. Whether unloaded at Fremantle or Cockburn [outer harbour] the goods will be delivered to Latitude32 for unpacking/repacking and then forwarded to their ultimate distribution by road or rail depending on their destination.
He also notes that Latitude32 included Roe8, but reports in April 2016 do not include Roe8 – seems the planners knew more than the conservative government. Agreed Russell Road and others will need to be expanded to take the traffic but they already exist and as a consequence environmental impacts in wetlands will be minimised, thus avoiding the destruction of additional wetlands
Bob seems to think that the outer harbour is seen as a replacement for Fremantle which would be news for parliamentarians, Fremantle harbour management and planning departments. Cockburn harbour has been on the plans for a long time – which explains why Latitude32 has been planned and is developing. Everyone else knows that Fremantle will reach capacity in the not distant future.
Bob, we know that this will cost Billions but see no reason for the additional billions building Roe8 when there is no plan on how to solve the traffic jams at Stirling bridge. You seem to acknowledge that Building the outer harbour and maximising rail will reduce Freo congestion as it will for the suburbs covering Leach H’way and South Street, without destroying more wetlands – a win win situation.
Finally, Bob asks “how can you improve road safety if can’t separate urban local traffic from container trucks and commuter traffic crossing through Fremantle”. That is simple – build the outer harbour now thus diverting much of the truck traffic through Latitude32 and the existing Roe and Tonkin H’ways.