COTTESLOE RESIDENTS SAY NO TO FREIGHT LINK
Cottesloe Councillor Sally Pyvis is going to try to get Cottesloe Council to join the protest against the PERTH FREIGHT LINK by putting a motion up at the next council meeting. The last motion on the PFL was defeated because Mayor Jo Dawkins used her casting vote against it.
Experts have predicted a severe increase in truck and general traffic along Curtin Avenue should the PFL be built.
There have been two public meetings in Cottesloe that were critical of the PFL proposal by State Government and it was the top topic at the Cottesloe Ratepayers and Residents Association meeting earlier this month and a resolution was passed to oppose the project.
The Fremantle Townhall meeting this Tuesday is booked out, but weather permitting, will be broadcast on Kings Square.
Roel Loopers
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I spoke to the MRWA staff whose role it is to monitor and manage the timing of traffic lights. They refer to the Tydeman Road suite of lights as the Burmuda triangle. I was speaking to them because I find several times each week, waiting at lights that supposedly I am entitled to cross ie, they are green but trucks are still running their red, although the lights have cameras, they have long since been decommissioned, to effectively hide this daily ritual of trucks running red lights. While discussing the alternatives he has available to him, he said in practice his hands are all but tied, as he has been instructed to work on an annual growth rate of truck movements of 9%pa, 9% this year up to 18 next, etc, staggering! The impact of a change in timing at Tydeman impacts all the intersections back a further 8kms, in all directions – his assessment not mine.
If you are regular user of either Stirling Hwy or Curtin Ave, I am sure you will already be feeling the impact, as getting into and out of the CoF is already involving longer queuing times for the convenience of Trucks.
Another ridiculous practise, is the FPA routes their internal dockside truck movement from Rous Head and North Mole to and from Napier Rd using Tydeman Rd instead of internally within FPA, it was chaotic last Friday.
Paul
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If only someone of Martin’s experience and common sense was on council we might actually get some results. Instead we have green idiots screaming blue murder like a bull to a red flag.
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There is no chance rail will take all the trucks off the roads it will just shift them, If you look at Lat 32 it would increase truck travel times/distance, possibly needing even more trucks to the jobs of those in use now as their distance back and forth with increase for some trips more than doubling.
Trains run on diesel too and they will leave all that pollution right in the heart of Fremantle.
Only 30% or so of freight goes to Kewdale in total, where the rail line goes, if it is maximised and every container hits Kewdale is by train, which still leaves 70% of the freight to move by truck.
Fremantle will continue to be a working port so trucks and trains will continue to be needed.
The only way to stop trucks leaving the port would be to close it.
Still leaving all the cars that drive on the road to deal with
Stirling HWY has over 60,000+ vehicles a day traveling thru Nth Freo crossing the bridge is only 4000+ trucks.
Changing the timetable for trucks travels would help the issue more than anything. But would still leave the 56000+ other vehicles to deal with.
Currently there is no efficient east west route from the coast to the freeway or to further east of it!
Not to mention with a quick calculation of the lat 32 project which still requires roe 8 to be built, plus a new port, to be constructed, a harbour to be dredged, an additional freeway to be constructed to link Tonkin Hwy, the 1/2 doz or so node areas to be built, a rail tunnel from Fremantle to Spearwood, dividing that community. Oh not to mention the cost of all of that would pop out in the $9 billion market, so where all this cash is coming from I’m not sure?
Oh and has anyone asked the residents in Kwinana what they think, as we chastise Melville for pushing their traffic to us, without a thought we kick it down to Kwinana, a bit of a double standard I think. Any bets on how many of the people protesting the PFL will be the ones to protest dredging a new harbour in Cockburn sound?
End of the day rail is only 30% of the answer and doesn’t address any increasing cars movement.
For those who think Perth is the only place building new roads here is a link to a little of what is planned in parts of the world for motorway construction, no mention of China or India.
http://fremantlereform.com/parking-roads-transport/fremantle-councils-ideology-over-world-reality/
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The whole debate about trucks going through Cottesloe was started by transport “expert” Peter Newman, who has stated that the tolls on the PFL will cause trucks to head north out of the port rather than east via Leach Hwy and Roe Hwy. Anyone that stops for a moment and thinks this through will quickly work out that this defies logic. Even if a trucker wants to find a rat-run to avoid tolls to get north of the city, he will quickly do his maths and work out it is better to go via a PFL toll road.
This statement was designed for one reason only – to spread misinformation and cause scaremongering. I have to congratulate Mr Newman on his skill, as it has been incredibly successful. Cottesloe Councillors are now in a panic.
Peter Newman is an expert in commentating on transport policy and trends. We need people like Mr Newman to make sure we learn from mistakes made elsewhere globally and that we are watching success stories elsewhere, and he speaks plenty of sense in these areas.
However, he is not a transport and traffic planning expert. This involves a 4 year Civil Engineering degree, majoring in transport and traffic planning. I am not sure he has an economics degree either, but that does not stop him commenting there either. [If he has these degrees, I stand corrected.]
The problem we face is that he is now commentating and providing consulting advice (to the CoF) in an area in which he has no expertise. I think he is sailing pretty close to the wind here, and this leaves himself very exposed to undermining his professional credibility, which he has built up through hard work over decades.
The CUSP report to the CoF is of the quality of an unsupervised undergraduate – and that is being generous! It has no technical merit. Despite its length, it contains very little real detail on their alternative proposal. It doesn’t state what would actually be built or where, how many trucks it will take off the road, how much pollution it would remove from the atmosphere, how and where the rail replaces the trucks, or what it will cost. It’s not possible to evaluate their proposal economically, as it’s like trying to nail jelly to the wall!
The CUSP report is clearly designed as both a political statement, and to cause misinformation, and has been very successful at both aims.
Councillor Jon Strachan says he will opposed the PFL because he is against the building of new roads. The CUSP proposal involves building 18km of new dual lane highway to Tonkin Hwy. Have out Councillors even read the CUSP report, never mind understanding what it says?
I have noted a very clear change in the rhetoric this week. The shift has gone from the curses of trucks and pollution to the building of a freeway for cars. This is hardly surprising, as the last thing Mr Newman wants is for proper scrutiny of his maths about the PFL impact on trucks and pollution. He knows his maths (if you could even call it that) does not stack up, as it was just fabricated to gain political opposition to the PFL. That box has now been successfully ticked.
At last we are talking about cars. North Fremantle knows a lot about them, as it carries 67,000 vehicles daily. Hampton road carries about 27,000 vpd, with a similar amount making it across the old traffic bridge. At least CUSP is on more solid ground diverting the conversation to cars, as new roads can be demonstrated to generate additional car traffic.
The PFL is going to be a disaster in its current form, as it will cause a nightmare for North Fremantle. This is the same whether there is a WGV tunnel or a widened High St route. Unfortunately a proper debate has been hijacked and deliberately mislead on political grounds.
Reading the traffic count figures, North Freo is in far more desperate need of fixing than anywhere else. Furthermore, trucks pass through 5-6 traffic lights from Marmion St to the port, versus 6-7 from the corner of Stock /Roe 8 and south of Marmion St. There are tunnelling options to fix this, including delivering trucks under Marmion St and the river (yes – a new river crossing!) and directly into the port, with cars brought out north of the Leighton Beach development – imagine what that could do for the lives of rate payers on North Freo! Just a concept… but certainly one of many that are not even being discussed.
If the State Government wants to remove traffic light for trucks, perhaps it is getting the order of development wrong. Perhaps it should look at Nth Freo first, and WGV tunnel second?
If a North Freo Tunnel eventually linked up with one under WGV, we would not see any trucks in Freo, Hampton Rd would become just a local road again rather than a Freo by-pass, and almost all vehicles that simply want to pass through Freo would do so off our roads…
Unfortunately our Council is just focussed on pushing its political ideology, rather than looking for the best solution for Freo rate payers. [and thanks go to Andrew Sullivan once again for leading the charge!]
Martin
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I agree Glen. It is not NIMBY, the Perth Freight Link is the worst possible option.
Roel
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It is not NIMBY at all. How many times does it have to be said, RAIL RAIL RAIL and once more for those that it is not sinking in RAIL. The whole point is why do we need to congest roads to the bejaysus belt with huge trucks?
It is dangerous to our lives on the roads and it is dangerous to our health with diesel pollutants passing through all the suburbs. Shift the major portion to rail and open up a new Cockburn Sound harbour now, not once it is all too crowded on our roads and too full at the ports.
Unfortunately the least desirable option for the govt is the best one. But no, as usual they would rather do the cheapest than what is actually the best
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Seriously I don’t get how what is touted to become the most congested road in Australia(West Coast Hwy) will attracted trucks off a Hwy going east? The common sense is beyond belief?
The western suburbs have to deal with ever increasing congestion, giving up theirs FUV’s is as likely as anyone else in WA giving up theirs, the choice in the future will be give up cars or building new roads.
Given a choice what do u think the western suburbs will choose a new road or surrendering their FUV’s?
The fear mongering over this road is getting off the chart.
The MITCHELL Freeway is already a car park at peak time so I doubt that will be a great option?
What is screwing up established suburbs is the actions of councils like Fremantle that are increasing density with no practical solutions to the problems they are creating.
Its cars on the road that are creating congestion, Fremantle is actively driving greater density which adds more cars, this is what’s creating more problems in the future, blaming congestion in the northern suburbs on a road that is not even built is just pathetic.
It amazes me as this Fremantle council accuses Melville for building a road to divert truck traffic around Melville when their plan is to divert truck traffic from Fremantle to Kwinana.
Again the pot calling the kettle black.
In the end the plans fremantle supports from cusp actually increases over all truck mikes per container. Not decrease them, all they will have achieved is passing their problem to somewhere else.
This whole issue is classic NIMBY.
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Its not surprising that people in Cottesloe and the Western Suburbs are starting to wake up to what is being planned by the State and Federal governments. While the government still refuses to release any information about what is planned north of Marmion Street, its pretty obvious its going to be a real dogs breakfast for both the Canning Highway intersection in East Fremantle and most of the North Fremantle Town Centre.
The tunnel option between Stirling Highway and Clontarf Hill is looking like the favoured option from inside government. That’s basically the old Eastern Bypass built underground. While the Eastern Bypass road reserve was deleted years ago, going underground enables Main Roads to build that section of a coastal freeway anyway. Sadly, the road reserves for Roe Highway still exist from Clontarf Hill to the east, and for the Fremantle-Rockingham Highway going south.
The Freight Link might be primarily touted as a road to divert trucks around Melville but it will also create the coastal super highway south of the river that Main Roads have always dreamed about. This will encourage many car drivers who would otherwise use the Kwinana Freeway to use the coastal highway instead. That will land all of that new traffic in North Fremantle. Its obvious that you can’t build a super highway that sucks in a huge volume of cars from the south and the east and then just stop it in North Fremantle.
The government must already understand that the other half of that super coastal highway will have to be built as well – its just politically inconvenient to mention that fact. That means at least a 4 lane highway along the Curtin Avenue reserve in Cottesloe. It means widening West Coast Highway north of Servetus Street. It means re-introducing the Stephenson Highway through the precious Bold Park bushland and hard up against the Herdsman Lake wetlands. It then connects into the Mitchell Freeway and hey presto we have the super coastal highway the road builders have always dreamed about.
What the Western Suburbs people are starting to realise is that all of the social and environmental disasters that we know will flow from these roads south of the river will also be replicated north of the river.
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I think the believe is that many more private cars would use the new freeway and end up in North Fremantle to head on to the northern suburbs.
There have always been substantial freight transport along Curtin Ave and peter Newman believes this would increase. I would like to see estimations by Mainroads and Transport on this as one source is not enough to inform the community.
Roel
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Roel what experts?
Why would a road heading east, send more traffic north, than already uses it. I drove back along curtin ave this morning plenty of trucks already heading to and from the port from West coast Hwy.
People in Cottesloe should be worried about the West Coast Hwy being the worst congested road in Oz, as freo increases density it will continue to get worse, and i don’t see the western suburbs giving up their FUV’s
The amount of fear-mongering over this road is getting over the top.
I hear people in Lancelin are now worried about its impact on them too.
60,000+ vehicles traveling thru nth freo each day isn’t going to be solved or helped by lat 32.
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