2 posts tagged “report”

... and this is the contentious section, that seems to contradict the 'nice, brochure style' report where Eddington say show great the East-West Link will be for Melbourne.

Pg 75

As you can read, it says: "New overbridges would be required for the railway line, Childers Street and Dynon Road to cross this open 'slot'". This seems to indicate that instead of 'cut and cover' construction, it's more like 'cut and leave open'.

This graphic is also from the engineering report.  I think the line drawn is only indicative - however if you do look at it, it seems to go straight through the park.  I've zoomed in, so it's a little difficult to read.  The box says "SOUTH KENSINGTON TO MARIBYRNONG RIVER".  Then, just to the right of that, there's a little double-headed arrow thing.  Just below that - that green area is JJ Holland Park.  So, as you can see, the line goes straight through the guts of it.

From the report

If I try to follow a line through, as outlined above, it would look something like this.

Park tunnel

For one proposal, south of Childers Street and the railway line, it seems to go parallel to Kensington Road, through what is currently some light industrial factories, businesses and derelict buildings, before going up and over Dynon Road.

For the other, it will continue towards the river and link up with Ballarat Road.

I'm still reading, (OK... currently I'm working, so I'll be reading tonight) to get my own take on what is happening.

Pages 4 and 5 of The Age - 03/04/08

Over the past few weeks, there's been various strategic leaks in the media about Sir Rod Eddington's forthcoming report on how to fix Melbourne's current transport woes (both car/truck and train issues).  Well... today it came out.

It suggests that, amongst many other good things, that the two 'big ticket' items are two tunnels - one rail one linking Footscray though the city (Melbourne Central and Flinders St stations), down to the Domain and onto Caulfield - the other a road (car and truck) tunnel linking the Eastern Freeway to... err... Footscray(ish).  And yes... that's part of the problem - it's not really detailed there.

Construction of these tunnels means that there will be a lot of dirt moved.  And, in the report, Sir Rod Eddington has suggested that a good 'staging area' for the tunnel's construction could be the JJ Holland Park.  Yep, people, that's our park.  It's the park that we visit every day.  We walk Ben there.  Genevieve's Childcare Centre is in it.  Genevieve's Toy Library is in it.  Genevieve's playground is in it.  The local pool is in it.  The local adventure playground is in it.  It is currently undergoing a City of Melbourne funded refurbishment.  They've completed the jogging track and they're just about to replace the old pavillion with a new grandstand/pavillion for the local football and cricket teams.

Staging area

Anyway - we're unsure what this 'staging area' means.  It could be, they just pile dirt/rock/etc there awaiting it being transported out.  It could be that they may actually do some digging from here.  In short, we don't know.  I'm not a NIMBY.  If it has to happen, it has to happen.  What I don't understand, is why they're picking on the park, when there's heaps of alternative options available to them (see 'Staging Area' graphic, I whipped up in 5 mins this morning, with the help of maps.google.com.au

What it does look like, however, is that unless we can act and get some sort of retaliation happening, our park will be affected - to some degree - possibly to a completely, all-encompassing, we no longer have a park degree.

At this point, we don't know. We're not even sure if the tunnel will come out close to us.  (Even if it doesn't, it's safe to say that traffic coming out of it will come close to us to go into the CBD).

Again, we just don't know.

We're going to read the report, which is available here.  At present, we're just going on what the media is telling us, which is (of course) to sell newspapers. The rang the Childcare Centre, and asked for some 'concerned parent' pix.  We were only too happy to oblige.  The local residents group, the Kensington Association, are on it and we'll be attending the next meeting.

We'll keep you posted.