Permaculture Out West

Posts Tagged ‘westlink’

WestLink Public Information Sessions

As part of the consultation process for WestLink, Linking Melbourne Authority is holding three public information sessions “so people can learn more about the preferred WestLink route and have the opportunity to provide feedback.”

LMA says “Members of the community are encouraged to come and talk directly with the project team, view large maps of the preferred route and see an overview of the work we have done in Phase 2. The sessions are a chance to provide direct feedback about the preferred route.”

You can attend any of the three display sessions:

Saturday 23 October 2010

11:00am to 3:00pm
Sunshine West Community Centre
25 Kermeen Street, Sunshine West

Sunday 24 October 2010

11.00am – 3.00pm
Whitten Oval (Footscray Football Ground)
417 Barkly Street, West Footscray

(Note that there is plenty of parking available.)

Monday 25 October 2010

11:00am to 3:00pm
Hyde Street Church Hall
10a Hyde Street, Footscray

Contact for Information Sessions:  California Nguyen, Linking Melbourne Authority, Ph: 8562 6824 www.linkingmelbourne.vic.gov.au

The Linking Melbourne Authority has launched an online community survey to get information from local people about the way they travel around their area, what they value about their community and issues of importance to the West.

The survey will take around 15-20 minutes to complete.

The survey is one of the research activities for the WestLink project, which will proceed in two stages. The first stage is a tunnel linking Dynon Road and Footscray Road in the Port of Melbourne precinct with Geelong Road and Sunshine Road in West Footscray. This includes upgrades to Sunshine Road, Dempster Street and Paramount Road. The second stage is a longer-term connection to the Western Ring Road.

Westlink Campaign invites you to a meeting about the proposed Westlink tunnel and freeway/ tollway.

The first meeting is in Yarraville, next Monday 24 May at 7pm.

It’s been a great response so far to our campaign for smarter, greener transport instead of the Government’s proposed Westlink tunnel and freeway/ tollway. I’ve been out doorknocking, and have had a great group of volunteers  pounding the streets letterboxing our ‘we can choose’ postcards

We have planned the meetings to focus on action. We hope that people will be able to:

• find out about the Government’s Westlink plan
• learn how this tunnel and freeway/ tollway won’t solve our transport problems
• discover how smarter greener transport can work to get the people of the West of Melbourne moving efficiently and effectively
• work together to develop an action plan to win this campaign!

The meetings are:

Kingsville-Yarraville
7pm Monday 24 May,  David House, Kingston St, Yarraville
Seddon
7pm Monday 31 May Macedonian Church, 83 Victoria St, Seddon
Footscray
7pm Wednesday 2 June , St Johns Anglican Church, Paisley St, Footscray
West Footscray
7pm Thursday 17 June YMCA West Footscray Community Recreation Centre Hall
Sunshine
Meetings  in late June/ early July. Dates and times to be confirmed

Please RSVP by emailing colleen.hartland@parliament.vic.gov.au or ringing my office on 9689 6373
For more information visit the website www.greensmps.vic.greens.org.au/transportwest.

Some of you received a Westlink News Community Update April 2010, dropped into your letter box over the last week.

In it, it announces a new $10 million two and half year study. This study and all that follows is conducted under the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act, introduced in Victoria in 2009. It is administered by the Minister of Planning, the Honourable Justin Madden (he’s the one that’s been in the news recently over his staff suggesting they fake a community consultation).

Westlink will affect the communities of Seddon, Footscray, West Footscray and Sunshine West. One of the key elements is a road tunnel between the Port of Melbourne and Sunshine Road running under the Maribyrnong River and the communities of Seddon and Footscray. The key reasons for building Westlink are:

• to cater for an additional 350,000 people moving into the west over the next 15 years (i.e. more cars);
• reduce pressure on the Westgate Bridge (i.e. more cars and trucks);
• to improve freight access to the Port of Melbourne (i.e. more trucks)

The newsletter introduces us to a “Social Impact Assessment” team leader Ruth Davies (see here for Ruth’s LinkedIn profile) and to two new advisory groups (you can see why is costs $10 million) to help with the communication with the community, and vitally, to get the community’s input. There’s even talk of 2 way communication. There’s a online community survey (click here and select the Community Survey picture on the right hand side)

Of concern is that there’s not one mention of health issues. There is a link between ultrafine particles (a form of particulate matter prevalent in truck and car exhausts) and the following:

• Individuals with respiratory disease (e.g., Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, acute bronchitis) and cardiovascular disease (e.g., ischemic heart disease) are at greater risk of premature mortality and hospitalisation.
• Individuals with infectious respiratory disease (e.g., pneumonia) are at greater risk of premature mortality and morbidity (e.g., hospitalisation, aggravation of respiratory symptoms). Also, exposure to particulate matter may increase individual susceptibility to respiratory infections.
• Elderly individuals are also at greater risk of premature mortality and hospitalisation for cardiopulmonary causes.
• Children are at greater risk of increased respiratory symptoms and decreased lung function.
• Asthmatic children and adults are at risk of exacerbation of symptoms and increased need for medical attention.

These findings where documented in a federal government literature review of  published studies from around the world- it’s just over 300 pages – click here.

Have a read and start thinking about what the future developments will mean for our communities. We live in safe Labor seats; Labor is the party in power at the state and council level. Go and fill in the online survey, start talking to your neighbours and to your local council member, to your state level representative. We need to make sure that our air, our soil, our environment is not in a worse condition for all of us.