Route 86 submissions due today

If you haven't already done so, please consider making a submission on the Tram Route 86 Corridor Project by close of business today (14 April), which is the deadline for the initial consultation. Details on how to make a submission are available in this post, or at the Route 86 project page.

For those who are interested, my submssion is now available as a web page at Google Docs. Agree, disagree, or discuss here, but make sure you have your say to Council. Community input at this stage will be very valuable as consultation progresses to the next stage and the project is further refined.

Comments, anonymous or otherwise, are most welcome.

One week to make your Route 86 submission

While the consultation for the Route 86 project has been extended, your submission should still be sent in by Tuesday 14 April 2009 - the first business day after the Easter break commencing this Friday.

You can have your say by completing an online survey, completing the survey in person at a customer service centre or Darebin Library, sending your submission by email, or by mailing it to Transport Management and Planning PO Box 91, Preston, 3072 (clearly marking it as a submission for the Tram Route 86 Corridor Project).

Inquiries can be directed to 8470 8341, and you might also like to contact your Rucker Ward Councillors. Mayor Diana Asmar and Councillor Trent McCarthy have been active participants in the consultation process, so let them know your concerns and ideas, as well as including your views in your submission.

Before penning your submission or completing the survey, it's a good idea to have a look at the Route 86 project page, the Westgarth Residential Access page, and the related posts published on this blog.

Remember that, following last Tuesday's public meeting, Council officers have explicitly ruled out using the service road on the western side of High Street south of Westgarth Street as a sliplane to enter Westgarth Street/Merri Parade. However, it can't hurt to acknowledge this in your submission and to briefly say why you think that decision is so important in addressing community concerns.

Other key areas you might like to cover include the positioning of the tram stops in and around the Westgarth strip, the potential impact on residents and businesses from any loss of parking in the strip or nearby (especially from Ruckers Hill), the integration of cycling in the plan, and, of course, issues of safety and access to public transport.

The Route 86 project page sets out the consultation process following the close of submissions on 14 April, and offers notes on recent public meetings, so all the issues are now pretty much on the table - it's now a matter of what gets done with them. I encourage you to have your say to make sure this worthwhile project proceeds in a form that meets everyone's needs as far as possible.

Darebin gets smarter on consultation

Following the Westgarth Route 86 issues meeting on Tuesday, Council has promptly made available on the web the plan for the community consultation process from here, and you can also read the notes from the meeting in Word format (scroll down to the section about the roundtable discussions).

If you don't have Word, you can also view the notes here as a web page. The notes from the cycling issues meeting are also available in Word (here as a web page).

I've yet to read the Westgarth notes, but, together with Tuesday's big win for residents in the High Street service road, this is the sort of responsiveness that will bring big improvements to the consultation process from here.

Have a read of the notes, and be sure to tell your friends that they're available. It's also a good idea to let Council know if you think they've missed anything that you discussed on the night, or if any of the points could be made clearer etc.

The sharing of these ideas by Council offers valuable context for community submissions that are invited by 14 April.

Community wins on High Street service road

A Darebin Council community meeting last night saw at least one big gain for Westgarth residents in proposals to upgrade the Route 86 tram line. The service road on the south-western side of High Street leading to the intersection with Westgarth Street is no longer proposed for use as a sliplane for High Street traffic turning left into Westgarth Street/Merri Parade.

Council's change of heart on this issue means that residents of the service road will no longer face the prospect of heavy traffic - including trucks - entering the service road at Cunningham Street and passing by their front doors, not only threatening their amenity but compromising access of emergency services to their homes.

Council officers last night explicitly ruled out the service road sliplane option in the further development of the proposal. Instead they will consider alternative designs for left-turning traffic based on a possible re-alignment of tram tracks (as suggested by a local resident), or part-use of the strip currently separating the service road from High Street.

What was initially a very heated meeting evolved through compromise into what could be the start of more effective consultation by the City of Darebin, with benefits to this and other Council projects. Initial staunch opposition to a badly communicated format of small group discussions subsided when community members suggested a session at the end in which outcomes from each group could be shared among them all. This helped address the concern that the groups would split the consultation and hinder the communication of outcomes, an area in which Council has so far performed very poorly.

Instead, the group discussions produced valuable feedback that Council officers shared at the end and have committed to publishing on the web by the end of this week. Issues covered included the contentious, but now thankfully rejected, service road sliplane option; resident access to streets south-west of the High Street-Westgarth Street intersection; the positioning of new tramstops; business and resident parking concerns; the integration of cycling; and the consultation process itself.

The initial deadline for consultation of 14 April (by which date submissions are still invited) will now be followed by a report detailing the outcomes of consultation, before a further 'listening phase' refines the proposal with the input of a yet-to-be-nominated community reference group. The ultimate timeframe for consideration of any final report and recommendations is yet to be announced, and the community is also awaiting further advice on which councillors will be able to vote - four having previously declared a conflict of interest related to the Route 86 project.

The overall aim in the new process is for Council to shape the proposal in a more suitable timeframe to reflect community needs, rather than submitting to overly hasty consultation to meet the State budget deadline. The difference could be a good project well rather than badly implemented, provided feedback on more effective consultation is heeded.

The focus now shifts to the related questions of tramstop locations and parking - in particular whether stops should be located immediately south or north of the intersection of High and Westgarth Streets. This will partly be influenced by redesign of the intersection to avoid use of the service road as a sliplane, and partly by the impact of the northern option on parking in the strip. The community will be looking for clear options regarding this point as the proposal is refined.

At the other end of the strip, a useful contribution by the Palace Cinemas representative put forward the idea of north- and south-bound stops located immediately north of Union Street instead of just south of it in the strip. This may well have benefits for parking in the strip itself, and would move the stops closer to the proposed 47-unit older persons public housing development at Roberts Street, which will lose its current south-bound stop under the plan.

In my own view, this option could be enhanced by considering the repositioning of the light-controlled pedestrian crossing to facilitate the flow of bicycle traffic from the eastern to the western leg of Union Street immediately south of these stops. Better crossing arrangements for Westgarth Street at McLachlan Street would consolidate this move by offering a safer connection to the bicycle path network accessed via the Merri Creek footbridge near Rushall Station. A related cycling issue was continued concern regarding interaction between waiting passengers and cyclists riding over tramstops.

An unequivocal outcome of the meeting was that the loss of parking from Ruckers Hill would have a heavy impact on Westgarth businesses. It was also suggested that a broad traffic and parking study should be undertaken across a range of times to determine true parking capacity and how people come to the strip, and that acquisition of sites at either end of the strip should be considered for the development of underground parking.

While the meeting was a big step forward, albeit only after some community intervention on the night, it should now be clear to Council that the community will no longer tolerate bad consultation, and is fully capable of mobilising opposition to bad proposals.

To build on last night's positive turn of events, Council should acknowledge that the community's anger has been well-founded. It must also do more than one councillor's empty suggestion of clapping each other and council officers after the meeting. That said, there was certainly a mood of constructive progress that I hope will continue. This is a big chance for our new Council to re-establish the trust of its community.

Chances are in detailing such a busy meeting I have missed a few things, so feel free to comment about what you thought was important.

Earth Hour sequel at Westgarth issues meeting?

Laudable as this weekend's Earth Hour climate event may be, we don't want to be kept in the dark again at the Route 86 Westgarth meeting next Tuesday 31 March, when Darebin Council expects to resolve complex service road and parking issues in the space of a single hour.

One of four so-called roundtable discussions - and the only one devoted to Westgarth issues - Tuesday's meeting looks set to repeat the pattern of last week's public meeting - a lengthy preamble by officers about the overall context for the project, complex information made available for the first time on which the audience is asked to comment on the spot, and major issues that deserve in-depth treatment compressed into the short time left over for actual public discussion.

The meeting will take place nearly two weeks after the 18 March public meeting at Northcote Town Hall, and two weeks before the 14 April deadline for submissions on the Route 86 proposal.

Given that the key issues are already clear - the High Street service road treatment, the parking implications for businesses and residents, and cycling - there is little reason why Council should not publish on the web any further work done on the options well in advance of the roundtable discussion. This has been communicated to Council at Officer and Councillor level, as well as to the company engaged by Council to facilitate the consultation.

In the lead-up to the meeting, a group of Westgarth business owners yesterday met with Rucker Ward Councillor, Trent McCarthy. While the meeting was described as 'constructive', the acid test will not be media photo-opportunities, but the public stance taken by Councillor McCarthy on issues such as the service road, parking, and the consultation process. The same goes for Mayor Diana Asmar and Councillor Steven Tsitas, Rucker's two other Council representatives. Individual assurances given in small meetings must be reflected in a broader public position that is advocated to Council to improve the community outcome.

As the deadline for submissions approaches, Westgarth businesses have given strong support to a petition stating that the loss of parking, particularly from Ruckers Hill, will have a deleterious effect on businesses in the strip. More than 78 parking spaces will be lost in all the current options, with no specific research gaving been undertaken by Council to show how Westgarth customers arrive in the strip. While business owners further north are worried by their own loss of parking, the situation in Westgarth is exacerbated by the lack of dedicated parking areas behind shops. Sounds like more than hour's worth, doesn't it?

See all posts on the Tram Stop Route 86 Corridor Project.

Council must consider Westgarth alternatives

With Council yet to put forward any Route 86 options that do not use the High Street service road as a sliplane for traffic turning left into Westgarth Street, residents themselves are coming up with options that might well solve the problem.

The option above, produced by a local resident, shows how three lanes can be accommodated south of Westgarth Street on the northbound western side of High Street. This would allow left-turning, northbound and right-turning lanes without using the service road as a sliplane.

The first slide uses the Nicholson Street-Alexandra Parade intersection as an example. The following two slides show the changes necessary in Westgarth - including early signage down the hill, the distance needed for the approach, and the slight re-alignment of tram tracks that could be accommodated by making High Street one lane in the city-bound section south of Westgarth Street. As locals will know, the two lanes there as you cross the intersection rapidly converge to a single lane anyway.

I understand that this option would retain the central tram stop of Council's preferred Option 2.

Council should seriously consider this and other ideas that may emerge to meet what are clear resident concerns about this proposal. Their consideration of such community input - including technical advice - must also be completely transparent. What we need at next week's Westgarth roundtable discussion aren't further options thrown up on a screen for the first time, but further discussions on refined options that go up on Council's website this week in advance of the roundtable.

If this happens and the options show clear signs of meeting resident concerns about the sliplane, parking and cycling, then we might well see some positive movement in advance of Council's next meeting on 6 April.

A larger version of the presentation can be viewed using the control next to the slide number, or on Google Docs.

See all posts on the Tram Stop Route 86 Corridor Project.

Details of next week's roundtable discussions, and how to make a submission by the 14 April deadline are now available at the Route 86 project page.

Update: See Council's Westgarth residential access page for the options presented at last Wednesday's public meeting, together with some additional information.

One thing that should be noted is that it's confusing to have the tram stop options listed as options 1 and 2 on the main route 86 page, and then use the same terminology for the options regarding residential access on this new page.

Route 86 consultation wastes deadline extension

Following last Wednesday's public meeting on the Route 86 project at Northcote Town Hall, the City of Darebin has done little to progress its promised roundtable discussions, and has failed to publish on the web the details of the further consultation, or the additional options it presented at the meeting. So much for transparency, and so much for the fast-approaching extended deadline on 14 April.

Of the many people I have spoken to about this issue, no-one who has put themselves forward to take part has yet received a response about attending the discussions, and there is little evidence that Council has promoted the opportunity to do so among residents or businesses who may not have attended the public meeting.

This has been despite the election of a more progressive Council last November, a positive Council meeting last Monday to secure the deadline extension, and the attendance of Mayor Diana Asmar and Councillor Trent McCarthy at the public meeting to hear residents' concerns.

A notable absence at that meeting was Councillor Steven Tsitas, one of four Councillors - including Mayor Asmar - who declared a conflict and could not take part in last Monday's vote on the motion to extend the consultation deadline. With Councillor Gaetano Greco on leave of absence, the motion was ultimately not put to a Council vote due to the lack of the required quorum, but authorised instead by Darebin CEO, Michael Ulbrick, on the spot.

The first point to note is that a possible conflict presumably does not preclude representation of your constituency, as Mayor Asmar has shown. A Councillor can listen to constituents, attend public meetings, and advocate on behalf of residents and businesses to Council officers without landing in hot water over any potential conflict of interest.

The second point is that, with four Councillors having declared a conflict at the Council meeting, they will presumably be unable to vote when Council officers finally report on this proposal and make their recommendations.

Depending on the return of Councillor Greco, this may leave less than a majority of Councillors to vote on the issue, and therefore once again without the necessary quorum for a vote to occur. I understand Darebin Council is seeking legal advice on this issue, which needs to be quickly resolved if there is to be any sort of vote at all on this proposal.

In the meantime, the consultation is showing all the signs that led the City of Darebin to score so poorly on its own 2008 report card in the area of community engagement. With a clearly more progressive Council in place, it can surely do a lot better than this. Get on to your Councillors to demand progress on the consultation, and register your interest in joining the roundtable discussions on the issues of concern that have been identified so far.

It is my hope that the separate discussions will be appropriately linked (for example, a couple of business owners in the service road discussion among a majority of residents, and vice versa in the parking discussion for businesses). As I said at the public meeting, the proceedings of these discussions must be transparent as they progress, so that there is every chance of a solution that optimally meets everyone's needs.

Update: See the Route 86 project page at the Darebin website for a series of meetings on the evenings of Tuesday 31 March and Wednesday 1 April. Of four sessions, one hour on the Tuesday is devoted to 'Westgarth issues', with one hour the following night on cycling issues - presumably for the whle project. I had expected there would be themed meetings on issues such as the service lane, loss of parking and cycling, but at least the first two have been compressed. It is also disappointing to note that the meetings begin almost two weeks after the public meeting, and that the additional options then presented are not on the website. I got my email about the sessions after 5.00pm today. If you haven't received yours, email route86@darebin.vic.gov.au to take part.

Strong concerns emerge at Route 86 meeting

A public meeting held at Northcote Town Hall last night saw big concerns emerge about the City of Darebin's Tram Route 86 Corridor Project as it applies to Westgarth. There was a strong message that options for the project must get a whole lot clearer much more quickly if there is to be any sort of result for the community from consultations that are set to end on 14 April.

Among a large audience, overwhelmingly of residents living south of Westgarth Street, it was also clear there is staunch opposition to the current treatment of traffic and use of the High Street service road as a left-turning sliplane under the proposals.

Specifically, the meeting extended the two options available until now on the project website, inviting on-the-spot feedback to quite complex diagrams that were not at all clear when projected on screen. They all, however, feature the use of the High Street service road as a sliplane diverting traffic - estimated at 200-300 vehicles in peak hour - past the doors of some eight houses, then west along Westgarth Street/Merri Parade to St Georges Road.

Other issues to emerge included the vagueness of the design of the High Street lanes at the intersection (one north-bound lane and a dedicated right-turning lane); the incompleteness of traffic modelling for the broader area; the potential restriction of emergency access to the service road; the consequences of a mechanical breakdown there for banking traffic; and the impact of additional traffic on Westgarth Street/Merri Parade - including for the safety of pedestrians and cyclists crossing further to the west at McLachlan Street.

Following a previous meeting at the Jika Jika Community Centre, concern was again expressed about the danger of cyclists having to ride over raised tram stops in High Street, where pedestrians, including the elderly and people living with a disability, would be waiting to catch trams. It emerged that, while there have been discussions with Bicycle Victoria (claimed to be 'generally supportive') and Darebin Bicycle Users' Group, no formal written advice has yet been received by Council.

The loss of parking received limited air-time at the meeting, and there was poor representation from local businesses. One business owner I spoke to on my way to the meeting didn't know it was on, and the facilitator referred to the previous meeting for businesses at Jika Jika Community Centre, despite Council's website inviting 'Westgarth residents and businesses' to last night's consultation.

The loss of parking - up to 78 spaces from Ruckers Hill, and up to nine within the strip, is a major concern for traders - especialy in the absence of specific research showing how customers make their way to the Westgarth shops. There is an additional concern that the parking shortfall could also be distributed across local streets, resulting in further parking pressure for residents.

A key point was also made that Council's parking survey appears to indicate that spaces up to 700 metres distant are considered by Council as conveniently available to the strip. Not only does this paint a false impression of parking capacity in the (not-so) immediate area, it seems to assume Council is comfortable with the idea of women (or those with mobility challenges) walking 700 metres at night to reach the shops, cinema and restaurants.

While it was good to see Mayor Diana Asmar and Councillor Trent McCarthy there to hear from their Rucker Ward constituency, there could have been more from them on the specific substance of the proposals. They did, however, map out in general terms the shape of consultation from here until the close of submissions, and the success of these measures will determine the value of these councillors' contributions.

Between now and 14 April, a series of themed roundtable discussions with Council officers will seek to concentrate on the particular concerns that have emerged - for example, the sliplane, traffic management, parking and cycling. These will have unlimited and open memberships (at the useful suggestion of Mayor Asmar), and community members and other stakeholders can nominate now to take part.

There was strong sentiment among the audience that these groups must be representative, and their work completely transparent to the broader community as it proceeds. If that is achieved, the discussions will not only inform the proposal being developed by Council, but will help the broader comunity shape their individual submissions to the process.

At the meeting, I called for the process to be clearly detailed as a priority on the Council's website for the project, including Mayor Asmar's suggestion that an extension to consultation could be requested if the groups felt there was not enough time to fully resolve the issues. Council had some difficulty with publicly advising the membership of the roundtable groups, but this would add to the transparency of the process.

In addition to detailing this process on the web, Council gave an undertaking to publish online all possible information on which the proposal is based - traffic data, as well as details of feedback from stakeholders such as Bicycle Victoria. Council should also expedite online publication of the new options, including the slideshow presented last night - if the community can do it, Council should certainly be able to.

The community will also be keen to see Council live up to last night's promise to carry out comprehensive letter-boxing in the area regarding the consultation. It is putting very substantial resources into what will potentially be be a multi-million dollar infrastructure investment, so a few thousand leaflets shouldn't be too much trouble to keep everyone informed.

Finally, it is important to reiterate that the roundtable discussions are only part of the input the comunity can have on this proposal. You can respond to a survey, or email your own submission by 14 April. Let's see how Council can now expedite a much clearer process, and what they do with your views. Stay tuned for more updates, and please leave your comments on how you felt about last night's meeting.

See all posts on the Tram Route 86 Corridor Project

What do you want from tonight's meeting?

With the extension of the deadline for submissions, tonight's public meeting on Darebin's Tram Route 86 Corridor project stands some chance of getting the consultation back on track. So, what do you want to see come out of the meeting? Feel free to leave a comment, but here are a few thoughts to get things started.

While most people would agree that faster, more efficient and accessible public transport is an urgent priority given climate change, a good idea badly executed helps no-one.

I'm hoping tonight's meeting will especially address the impact on those affected by the closure of the splitter island (see also Nick Hurle's map) near the intersection of High and Westgarth Streets, the implications of the likely loss of parking for local businesses, and the integration of cycling paths in the proposals. There is also the effect on existing transport, with the service lane bus stop set to disappear under both the current options.

In particular, as they will ultimately vote on the proposal, I would like to see each of our Rucker Ward Councillors - Trent McCarthy, Diana Asmar, and Steven Tsitas - briefly share with us their views on each of these issues. It isn't too much to ask where they stand individually, and how they think they can contribute to a resolution. Trent McCarthy moved the motion to have the submissions deadline extended, and that is a welcome start to a better outcome, but let's get into the details.

In line with Councillor McCarthy's motion, I'd also like to hear at the meeting just what further 'roundtable discussions' will take place with community members and other stakeholders to work through these issues. The discussions must include the people most affected by the proposals - service lane residents, business owners, public transport users who are elderly or living with a disability, and residents who can contribute in other ways - for example, by offering specialist knowledge on transport, traffic management and the environment.

Referring back to a point raised at the Thursday 12 March meeting at the Jika Jika Community Centre, Council should also offer its view on doing specific research on the Westgarth strip to identify just how customers arrive to do their shopping. If that research showed, like the Northcote study, that far more people arrived by alternatives to car travel than the business owners had believed, it might go some way to reassuring businesses about the loss of car-parking spaces. If the results showed a heavier reliance on cars than Council claims, it would surely strengthen the case to explore options to preserve parking.

Either way, the parking solution will be a mix of approaches - research, looking for alternative parking provision, minimising the loss of spaces, and offering incentives to change the transport mix to encourage people to get here by foot, bike, tram, bus or train. While Council is far better resourced to call on expertise, it also needs to encourage and listen to community ideas that might help.

One idea might be for shops to be allowed to sell individual tickets at the bulk discount rate with each purchase. Could incentives be offered for patrons in the strip who arrive by sustainable transport, or in full cars, instead of each person arriving individually and taking up a separate parking space? Do the tram stops have to be 33 metres long? Is there any prospect of shorter but more frequent trams that need shorter stops and take away fewer parking spaces?

Finally, it is interesting to note that by far the greatest impact on parking in Westgarth will be the loss of spaces on Ruckers Hill. This is claimed as necessary to preserve a lane of traffic on each side of the dedicated north- and south-bound tram tracks. If we stopped seeing High Street as both a (clogged) car artery and a major public transport route, it might be possible to retain some parking on Ruckers Hill - local traffic and parking should pose a much smaller impediment to trams even if they share the tracks.

It is, of course, a reality that existing traffic has to go somewhere, and not simply be unfairly diverted onto other roads where other residents will have to deal with the associated problems. This only goes to emphasise the need for a systemic focus on public transport that meets the needs of commuters who, for lack of a good public transport system, drive their cars along our roads.

What do you think?

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Come to the Route 86 meeting Wednesday night

The City of Darebin is holding a public meeting for Westgarth businesses and residents tomorrow night, Wednesday 18 March, at 6.30pm to discuss the Tram Route 86 Corridor Project, and in particular the potential impacts on the local businesses and the community from options presented so far. Unfortunately, no agenda seems to be available. Go to the Northcote Town Hall, Room 2B (Level 1) and have your say.

Those visiting the Route 86 project page at the Darebin website should note that, despite the tardy updating by Council, the deadline for submissions on the project has been extended to 14 April (the Tuesday after the Easter break), and that further 'roundtable discussions' have been promised between Council officers, stakeholders and community members.

See all posts on the Tram Route 86 Corridor Project

Route 86 Westgarth consultation extended

The deadline for submissions on the City of Darebin's Route 86 project taking in the High Street segment of Westgarth will be extended from 27 March to 14 April following a motion by Rucker Ward Councillor Trent McCarthy at tonight's Darebin Council meeting.

In response to resident concerns over the short timeframe of the consultation, Councillor McCarthy moved that the consultation be extended to the April date, and that further roundtable discussions take place between Council officers, stakeholders and community members regarding issues arising from the proposals.

Farce threatened the motion as councillor after councillor declared their inability to vote due to a conflict of interest for reasons of 'indirect interest by close association', reducing the councillors available for the vote to numbers insufficient for a quorum.

The conflicted councillors included Steven Tsitas and Diana Asmar, who represent Rucker Ward together with Trent McCarthy and had earlier in the meeting included in their activity reports having dealt with constituents on Route 86 issues. Had the motion been postponed to a subsequent Council meeting, this would have carried deliberations about a possible extension beyond the current submissions deadline of Friday 27 March.

Fortunately, Darebin CEO Michael Ulbrick stepped in to advise that an extension would be granted by officers in the interests of better consultation informing the ultimate Council vote. This was a most welcome development, but the test now will be whether this assurance lives up to the substance of Councillor McCarthy's motion.

Roundtable discussions must particularly include those affected by the proposed closure of the splitter island at the south-west corner of the intersection of Westgarth and High streets, Westgarth businesses and residents affected by proposed reductions in parking, and cyclists.

While more time doesn't necessarily guarantee that the issues will be addressed, it increases the odds of that happening. The challenge now is for the community to mobilise to ensure their concerns are very clearly articulated and fed into the process. On Council's part, they'll need to do some genuine thinking about the options presented to ensure issues raised here are adequately addressed.

See all posts on the Tram Route 86 Corridor Project

Slides show Route 86 impacts on Westgarth

In his comment to the previous post, local resident, Nick Hurle, offered links to his slide presentation of the impacts that will flow from current options for Darebin's Route 86 project. With permission, I've embedded the presentation here for those who may not have the necessary software to open the files. You can use the zoom function (View/Zoom), or the fullscreen control in the slide show menu (next to the slide number) to enlarge the presentation.



Feel free to comment here, or email Nick.

See all posts on the Tram Route 86 Corridor Project

Route 86 consultation on the fast track

The impact on houses exposed to increased traffic, the business downside of decreased parking, and the seeming failure to accommodate cyclists in plans for upgraded tram stops are looming as key issues in the Westgarth segment of Darebin's Route 86 project.

The issues emerged at a Darebin consultation meeting held at the Jika Jika Community Centre last Thursday and attended by representatives of local Westgarth businesses and some residents.

Presenting plans for two options, Darebin's Transport Strategy Coordinator, Kate Myers, explained that new stops planned for Route 86 would be 'DDA compliant' - that is, they would be built to meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act coinciding with plans to upgrade tram tracks on the route.

A sticking point for both options was the redirection of traffic along the service road on the western side of High Street south of Westgarth Street. Currently traffic turns left at a 'splitter island' close to the intersection, but redirection further south into the service road at Cunningham Street will allow traffic to continue flowing west along Westgarth Street even if cars are banked up waiting to head straight along High Street up Ruckers Hill.

Unfortunately, this means some eight houses will experience far greater exposure to traffic on what has long been a service road providing a protective barrier between them and the main flow of traffic.

There was a strongly held view at the meeting that this was an inadequate and unfair solution that took the least expensive route in solving design issues for traffic flow at the expense of local residents. A number of alternatives were discussed among the audience, including the use of the strip currently planted with trees, with the possibility of mature trees being transplanted from a realignment of the entrance to the splitter island. The existing plans already appear to impinge on two mature trees south of Cunningham Street, so the potential of a redesign to minimise impact on the service road houses should not be overlooked by Council.

Of the two options, the second (Council preferred) option had a lower impact on car-parking within the strip (approx. 3 versus approx. 9) than the first, but both entailed the loss of 78 car-parking spaces on Ruckers Hill north of Union Street. Kate Myers explained that this was necessary if the tram was to have dedicated lanes north and south in this section, as only one lane would be left either side for traffic, with no room for kerbside parking. Should this aspect of the plans proceed, it will likely have a dual impact on the Westgarth community.

The first is on the sustainability of local businesses. Kate Myers admitted that there had been no specific research to gauge how Westgarth customers travelled to the shops, but said research further north on High Street indicated that far fewer customers arrived by car than business owners thought - 33 per cent compared with 55 per cent. However, the applicability of the Northcote research to the Westgarth strip was questioned, and specific research suggested before any decision was made on removal of parking.

The second impact may well be felt by local residents, with pressure from the lost parking spaces distributed across local streets not equipped to absorb the extra burden. Kate Myers indicated that survey work had shown capacity to absorb extra parking demand at specified times, but the audience felt this was selective and that the parking situation was already generally pressured.

While Council is playing up the project's emphasis on public transport, even the Northcote research showed that more than twice as many people arrived at local businesses by car than by public transport, and this should not be ignored to the detriment of local businesses and residents.

The implications are that options must be developed to expedite trams without prejudice to parking. As Westgarth lacks the dedicated rear car-parks that characterise High Street to the north, consideration must be given to acquiring sites that become available for such parking in the strip - for example, the Ultratune or Armstrong's furniture sites.

Finally, the options presented were felt to favour public transport over a much less emissions-intensive form of travel - bicycles. Despite the claim by Kate Myers that Bicycle Victoria was 'generally supportive' of the plans, there appears to have been little effort to integrate bicycle lanes in either option of the proposal, with cyclists instead directed to Victoria Street or St Georges Road.

Under both options, cyclists will be required to ride up and over the proposed Westgarth tram stops (which will be admittedly lower to assist wheelchair access). As was pointed out at the meeting, however, this at the very least poses a risk from the interaction of bikes and passengers waiting at the stops.

With these and other issues very much unresolved, the timing of the consultation apears somewhat rushed. Submissions (which can be emailed) are due by 27 March, and another public meeting of residents affected by the proposed closure of the splitter island will not be held until this Wednesday at Northcote Town Hall.

Council claimed that the meeting came at the midway mark of the consultation, but it felt to many very much like the beginning. The claims of Council to broad consultation were undermined, in fact, by the use of such a small room to hold the meeting. It appears that the consultation is intended to compartmentalise different stakeholder groups in targeted meetings that fragment the community response and cut across its interests.

Also of note was the absence of the three Rucker Ward Councillors from the meeting, though Councillor Trent McCarthy indicated a prior conflicting engagement booked some weeks in advance. He also indicated a willingness to hear community concerns.

With submissions closing on 27 March and Council to vote on a final report in April, it is vital that community concern is widely mobilised to inform the ultimate outcome. This should certainly take the form of written submissions to Council, but a community public meeting might also be useful.

Your comments and suggestions for further action are welcome.

See all posts on the Tram Route 86 Corridor Project