Yarra trail pontoon closures
I do have to admit, I had some fun writing this one:
Dear Transport Minister, Terry Mulder (Denis Napthine, Local MP Ted Baillieu, Ryan Smith MP responsible for Parks Victoria, Parks Victoria itself, and Bicycle Victoria CCed),
I am writing about the sudden closure of the Main Yarra bicycle trail around Punt Road. The floating sections of the trail have been closed for the foreseeable future because of some over-zealous lawyer at Parks Victoria who has decided that careless riders might injure themselves on the rare occasion when the pontoon is both icy, and resting on the bottom of the Yarra at very low tides, sloping sideways at a minor angle. The trail has been closed before Parks Victoria have even planned for how they're going to rectify the problem with the pontoons. Instead, the lawyers have forced riders to take to parallel streets such as Swan St (which I took tonight in the rain, negotiating the thin strip between parked cars far enough from their doors being flung out illegally by careless drivers, and the wet tram tracks beside them). Obviously, causing riders to take these detours will be very much less safe than just keeping the trail open until a plan is developed, but I can see why Parks Victoria would want to shift the legal burden away from them.
I have no faith that the pontoon will be fixed in the foreseeable future without your intervention, because of past history -- that trail has been partially closed for about 18 months out of the past 3 years due to the very important works on the freeway above (keeping the economy going, as they say, by digging ditches and filling them immediately back up again).
Since we're already wasting $15B on an east-west freeway tunnel that will do absolutely nothing to alleviate traffic congestion because the outbound (Easterly direction) freeway is already at capacity in the afternoon without the extra induced traffic this project will add, I was wondering if you could spare a few million to duplicate the only easterly bicycle trail we have, so that these sorts of incidents don't reoccur and have so much impact on riders in the future.
I do hope that this trail will be fixed in a timely fashion before myself and all other 3000-4000 cyclists who currently use the trail every day resorting to riding through any of your freeway tunnels.
Yours sincerely,
Me
Dear Transport Minister, Terry Mulder (Denis Napthine, Local MP Ted Baillieu, Ryan Smith MP responsible for Parks Victoria, Parks Victoria itself, and Bicycle Victoria CCed),
I am writing about the sudden closure of the Main Yarra bicycle trail around Punt Road. The floating sections of the trail have been closed for the foreseeable future because of some over-zealous lawyer at Parks Victoria who has decided that careless riders might injure themselves on the rare occasion when the pontoon is both icy, and resting on the bottom of the Yarra at very low tides, sloping sideways at a minor angle. The trail has been closed before Parks Victoria have even planned for how they're going to rectify the problem with the pontoons. Instead, the lawyers have forced riders to take to parallel streets such as Swan St (which I took tonight in the rain, negotiating the thin strip between parked cars far enough from their doors being flung out illegally by careless drivers, and the wet tram tracks beside them). Obviously, causing riders to take these detours will be very much less safe than just keeping the trail open until a plan is developed, but I can see why Parks Victoria would want to shift the legal burden away from them.
I have no faith that the pontoon will be fixed in the foreseeable future without your intervention, because of past history -- that trail has been partially closed for about 18 months out of the past 3 years due to the very important works on the freeway above (keeping the economy going, as they say, by digging ditches and filling them immediately back up again).
Since we're already wasting $15B on an east-west freeway tunnel that will do absolutely nothing to alleviate traffic congestion because the outbound (Easterly direction) freeway is already at capacity in the afternoon without the extra induced traffic this project will add, I was wondering if you could spare a few million to duplicate the only easterly bicycle trail we have, so that these sorts of incidents don't reoccur and have so much impact on riders in the future.
I do hope that this trail will be fixed in a timely fashion before myself and all other 3000-4000 cyclists who currently use the trail every day resorting to riding through any of your freeway tunnels.
Yours sincerely,
Me