Charge commuters in the city
HOBART TRAFFIC
THOSE urging for a government takeover of Davey and Macquarie streets need to take a cold shower and review how our street flows are managed. Traffic lights control the flow of cars through the central business district. To suggest the traffic flow one way will be organised by the government while the cross flow will be organised by Hobart City Council is nonsense. Traffic controllers can’t have two bosses.
The only sensible solution is to adopt practices used in other major cities. In London there are penalty areas where you are charged to take a car into that area. A similar practice would encourage commuters to change to public transport, buses, trains and river ferries. A ramp-up of outlying park-and-ride stations charging realistic prices, coupled with severe increases in city parking charges, would see a drop-off of workers sticking to their cars to get to work. Travellers passing straight through the city and out the other side, using a designated route, might incur no charge. Toll road technology makes all this possible. Drivers hellbent on sticking to their car to come to work might have to pay dearly for the privilege. Serious planning needs to start now for circumstances that will apply in 10 or 20 years.
On the river
HOBART’S magnificent harbour and River Derwent is totally under-utilised. “Mayors unite on ferries” ( Mercury, April 19) is a very positive start and the Hodgman Government should deliver on its election promise. Our capital unfortunately is fast catching up with the rest of the nation when it comes to traffic gridlocks and trialling a ferry service initially between Hobart and Bellerive should be a priority. If there is sufficient patronage, water transport will rapidly gain momentum and there is plenty of shipbuilding expertise on our doorstep to make it a reality.
Divert
PART of the problem for traffic delays on Monday was closure of Campbell St between Liverpool and Collins streets. This diversion took traffic probably heading for Davey St and the Southern Outlet on to Liverpool and gridlock. Either divert at Brisbane St, where drivers have two options, or divert at Bathurst St back on to the Brooker, where drivers have multiple options.
Take command
CONSULTATIONS with residents, business, council and others about traffic could be a waste of time because it is impossible to make it right for everyone. Decisions have to be made and people informed, so they can work with and around it. The traffic problem needs to be eased now, not talked about for years like other issues.
Learn lessons
IT is costing the Victorian Government up to $7 billion over eight years to tear up 50 level crossings that are causing road traffic congestion in greater Melbourne. A new way to have your say themercury.com.au readers have a new way to have their say. It’s free to use, just register and have your say. For more details and to register, visit the website.
They are to be converted to either over or underpass crossings. This is to correct unwise decisions of a past that failed to foresee increased road traffic. Now both major political parties seem intent on foisting the same ill-considered conditions on private motorists and the commerce of Tasmania. The idea of light rail in Hobart and the Northern Suburbs is stupid. I wish we could shake off the stigma of Slowbart.
Paying the price
MY husband got to admire the fourth floor, for two hours, of Argyle Street carpark — before giving up and walking back to the office to pick up the car later, having lost all his clients’ bookings for the day.
Change it back
THEY aren’t the brightest sparks at Hobart City Council and the person who decided to change the process for parking at Coles in Sandy Bay should be given a boot up the proverbial and told to go and rectify the signage and return it to what it was, at their own expense. I am happy to supervise. I shop there two or three times a week and never previously had I experienced the traffic lined up into Russell Crescent, while cars searched for vacant carpark spots. The past four times I have been, twice I have had to sit in Russell Crescent while vehicles sort themselves out in the carpark. HCC, return it to its original status with easy to read signs.
Lone voice
THE nightly news seems to be a one-man band — on all issues it’s Josh Willie. Didn’t Labor win 10 seats.
Timing’s everything
LET the drastic sentences issued to the ball-sanding three be a warning to all Australian cricketers: don’t tamper with the ball during negotiations for broadcasting rights (“New era for cricket coverage”, Mercury, April 14).
Overpaid
TASMANIAN public service executive salaries — obscene!
Fishy smell
ORFORD and Triabunna have been hit with water restrictions. What a surprise. I don’t suppose it has anything to do with the Tassal establishment at Okehampton Bay, and the water consumption of that establishment.
Wild about Will
WILDERNESS is wildness at its best. Take heed, Will Hodgman and your fat cat cronies, Bob Brown in Talking Point makes sound sense ( Mercury, April 19). We need wilderness like we need clean air. It matters, mark my word!