Heading straight for a battle royal
City heart could lose something special under takeover,
HOBART’S battle royal over whether there should be a cable car to the pinnacle at Mt Wellington occupies prime space in our media and is likely to continue to do so.
Yet a little spoken about decision to take control of our major streets, Davey and Macquarie, from the city to the State Government hardly rates a mention. So what is the impact of this takeover by the Hodgman Government?
History provides us with many lessons and few are as pronounced as what the loss for community might mean for our capital. These two streets, named after British forebears with links to the then colony [with no recognition afforded the indigenous owners and custodians] have always loomed large in civic and community activity. When Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh came to Hobart, in January 1868 the city, “festooned with flags and several arches” greeted the prince warmly, with the civic highlight being the quaintlynamed Colonists’ Ball at the Town Hall, which had been specially illuminated for the occasion. The dancing continued with great spirit until the early dawn. During his Hobart visit, the Duke laid the foundation stone of St David’s Cathedral, on the corner of Murray and Macquarie streets.
The visit of the popular Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) in 1920 prompted lavish displays of affection, including a municipal welcome arch, illuminated decorations and civic entertainment. In both, our Macquarie St was a focus for the people as it has been on countless Anzac days and innumerable public events. Over all this time, the City of Hobart has been the responsible custodian of these two significant city assets.
Contrast the sad state of present day Sydney’s Parramatta Rd in many places. Once a bustling shopping strip where local traders greeted each other by whistling across the road is now a clearway with the motor vehicle replacing the camaraderie of the several village communities along the way to Parramatta from Sydney’s heart.
These two roads, much debated for the possibilities of being adapted and made more people friendly by city futurists such as Gehl, the globally renowned city sculptor, will shortly and with a sweep of a bureaucratic pen become state highways and over 100 years of municipal stewardship will be gone forever. So too will my concept of a road under Macquarie street between St David’s Cathedral and the museum which would have transformed that part of Macquarie St to a pedestrian boulevard and for the first time linking that sad and desolate bus mall to Franklin Square and thence to the waterfront.
Are we as Hobart’s current generation about to lose the heart of Hobart in the form of two couplets, Macquarie and Davey streets, to the latest idea of ameliorating the tipping point of traffic congestion? Will sole state control make any real difference to the reality of increasing congestion in these two streets, being in my view the inevitable consequence of a significant boost in population in Kingborough and on the Eastern Shore spreading into Sorell and neighbourhood and the need for workers to use these two streets at the morning and evening peak in an ever increasing proportion to commute to work and home.
After a century plus of city stewardship is there a doubt that Hobart with its professional traffic engineers working closely with the state is not capable of working collegially in the community’s best interest?
We are urged to trust and believe in the beneficence and wisdom of government, that, for an as yet totally unannounced value, that state control will be good for us. Lest we not end up with a Parramatta Rd in our city lying at the bottom of the world, with clearways,
increased speed, unstable Georgian building foundations as a consequence and kerbside traders left with no parking access to their businesses.
I would propose a new accommodation and joint concert between the State with its greater Hobart mandate and our city through a joint authority responsible for the ownership and management of these arterial roads. The authority would have equal responsibility for funding and for decision making. By formalising the arrangements, the intimate knowledge each has can be combined in the communities’ best interest and all issues of traffic management worked through collaboratively.
I will be presenting a motion to council to act quickly in the manner outlined as being the most responsible course to take.
Former lord mayor Damon Thomas is an alderman on Hobart City Council.