Warrenheip slow down
The Warrenheip Station idea beggars belief. The parking at the main station is and will continue to be inadequate despite the multi-deck facility. The city is growing to the west, where there have been calls for a station at Cardigan and Wendouree station is bursting at the seams, and there is the dream of a one hour service to Melbourne, which a station at Warrenheip will countermand – unless, of course, ‘Warrenheip’ is a surrogate for ‘Ballarat’, thus achieving the one hour aim. A station at Warrenheip will add 12 minutes to the journey from the real Ballarat station, not two minutes, as claimed by the Warrenheip proponents.
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The Velocities achieve their highest speed (160 km/hour) through Warrenheip, so a stop will really slow down the journey. Why so much focus on the 60-minute commute in any case – surely our focus needs to be on creating jobs in Ballarat, connected by a good local transport system. Reality says that a 60-minute train trip to Melbourne (Southern Cross station) will be more like a 120-minute trip when journeys at either end are included - especially if you’re parking at Warrenheip. And don’t think there’ll be ‘development’ at Warrenheip to support the station: the area is water supply catchment and high-quality agricultural land, with long-standing planning policies opposing urban growth.
We have yet another project designed to undermine the primacy of the Ballarat railway station – a station for rural Warrenheip, at $22.7m. This appears to be a project dreamed up by a collective of no apparent standing, with no basis in city planning strategy, supported by no other strategy, although apparently supported by Federation University but with no evident analysis of students, etc who would use the facility - other than to justify selling off railway land at the Ballarat station.
What’s palpably missing is a transport strategy for Ballarat. The Council continues to muck around with parking plans, ignoring, for example, that many Ballarat CBD workers park at the station, including letting developers off the hook in paying for parking because the Council doesn’t know where the parking will be built, and talks about promoting cycling and public transport but does little in reality Where’s the policy, where’s the detail and how do all of these components hang together….In any case, a focus on improved public transport to the main station must be a priority of a City transport plan.
Hedley Thomson, Canadian
Free trial needed
I notice buses travelling around our city with very few passengers on board except for school children at school times. I believe it costs the State Government around $50,000 a day to operate with only around $8,000 received in fares. I think it would be worth trialing free travel for seniors as the city of Darwin does, with a series of interchanges making for efficient travel times.Some of Ballarat route times are now awfully long due to the recent changes . I feel this issue should be re investigated. Free travel for Seniors would also help with getting more cars off the road and free up parking spaces in the CBD particularly around our hospitals, where seniors are the bulk of patients. There is a State Election soon therefore I urge forward thinking candidates to come on board with this proposal.
Keith Pitman, Alfredton.
