Decades of complacency and naivety, or do residents of bucolic Bullaburra simply deserve rights to quiet enjoyment and their buena vista?  The RTA highway juggernaut is at the door.  It won’t just ‘bisect’ the community [‘Anger at RTA‘ BMG 1-10-08]; it will permanently segregate it, raze its rural amenity and degrade it into a noisy truck side stop.  Bullaburra is set to receive the same utility vision imposed on Blaxland and so many other Mountains communities.

Bullaburra looking east along Great Western Highway towards Noble Street (far centre)

(Photo by Editor 20110115, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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I too attended the August township meeting at Bullaburra’s Progress Association hall, not as a Bullaburra resident, nonetheless as a Mountains resident.   At the packed meeting, Bullaburrans unanimously endorsed an alternative plan asking the RTA to accommodate local linkages across what will become another four-lane barrier dividing a local community.  Personal experience in dealing with the RTA at Leura, Medlow Bath and Katoomba affirms it doesn’t listen or care.  It has just plundered the rare 1820s convict road at Leura, hardly pausing its schedule.

Bullaburra:  “Blue Skies” Village – reads the sign (Aboriginal translation)

Western approach to Bullaburra along the Great Western Highway

(Photo by Editor 20110115, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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The RTA’s massive budget is only limited by political will. It stands to be key recipient of the new Building Australia Fund of $22,000,000,000 then claims it can’t afford community bridges.  Be clear, the RTA’s mandate for ‘progress’ is to build more expressways.  Driven by road lobbyists, the RTA is extending greater Sydney’s swelling suburbia like Roman legions extended empire.

‘Few understand how much transport influences land use patterns.  Transport leads land use.  Once an expressway or railway is built, it is easy to change the zoning and development laws to increase the population along the corridor.’  [Then NSW Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor, SMH 29-9-08, p11].

RTA performance is measured by it maximising road ‘ride quality’ and minimising ‘travel times.’  The RTA juggernaut will remain unstoppable so long as local townships rely upon single-handed last ditch battles.  Our freshly elected Mountains councillors should stand up for the people of Bullaburra.

This is what awaits Bullaburra – destruction of rural amenity

Clearfelled mature native trees at Katoomba to make way for a wider faster trucking expressway

Same project, different section.

(Photo by Editor 20090501, free in public domain)

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More of what awaits Bullaburra  –  a trucking expressway amenity!

Eastern approach to Wentworth Falls near Rest Easy Motel (off photo to right).

(Photo by Editor 20110115, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge).

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Following this letter in the weekly local paper, the next week  (20081015) the Chairman of the Bullaburra Township Committee, Mr Will Silk, responded as follows:

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‘Missed Target’

letter by Will Silk in BMG 20081015

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‘I really don’t know where the author (BMG 08.Oct.2008) is coming from, but he seems to have parachuted into a campaign in the dark and has missed the landing zone.

Steven, a word, to you and other latecomers who are just now arriving from above to hitch themselves to the Bullaburra bandwagon – take the time to find out more about us partisans and the grounds on which we have to work.

At the recent Bullaburra Town Meeting, if you weren’t so blinkered by your condescending stereotyping of a “bucolic Bullaburra”, with its residents slumbering in selfish “complacency and naivety”, you might have seen, heard and, possibly, learned some things of interest to residents’ right activists, environmentalists and radical democrats.

You correctly observed a packed meeting of Bullaburra residents as they unanimously (re-)endorsed the Bullaburra Township Committee’s (BTC) plan to manage the way in  which the GWH goes through Bullaburra, and condemned the RTA’s plan.

But, hey, Steven! Where did the BTC Plan come from?  It came from 18 years’ proactive work by Bullaburra residents and their organisations.  We saw the RTA “juggernaut” coming a long time ago, and instead of just whingeing, we developed our own plan before the RTA did, and we united behind it!

You failed to see that at the meeting, the BTC Plan (with its three integral foundations of pedestrian trian bridge), service road and North-South Bullaburra road-rail bridge) has the unanimous  support of all the community organisations in Bullaburra.  You also failed to hear all of the now elected ward councillors give our plan their support.  And moreover, you didn’t see the now mayor, Adam Searle, and from the Liberal side, Chris van der Kley both, literally “stand up”, together and not for the first time, to show their support.

Far from being naive and complacent, Bullaburra, and the BTC have already put in the hard yards of “politically correct” struggle; delegations, submissions, lobbying.  What you failed to see at the meeting was a community gearing up, giving its representatives a very clear mandate, for the next stage in its struggle for a renewed, people and environmentally-friendly village.

We are not “at a last ditch”.   But we are about to go to the barricades.  We encourage you and all Blue Mountaineers who care about creating such townships to join us if you wish.  But leave the mocking paternalism behind.  Seeing the RTA as an “instoppable Juggernaut” is defeatist.  It is a sort of jaded fatalism that is itself an impotent form of complacency.’

~ Will Silk, President of the Bullaburra Township Committee.

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Harsh defensive words from Mr Silk.

I chose not to reply to Will Silk’s above letter in the local paper, because to have done so would have only detracted Bullaburra residents from their united focus behind Will Silk to deal with the RTA.  The aim of my letter had merely been to awaken fence sitting residents to the realisation of the force and power they were dealing with at the RTA.  I  had witnessed similar David v Goliath community campaigns along the highway, most notably at adjacent Lawson, each village/town community singularly convinced that their case was special and naively campaigning in isolation against the legal might and finances of the RTA.

So I was happy to withdraw my involvement at the time to avoid potential conflict, yet my protest campaign in the local paper broadly against the Trucking Expressway continued through into 2010.

What Mr Silk didn’t realise was that I had been actively involved in previous community campaigns concerning the RTA highway widening stretching back to 2001 when I first arrived in the Blue Mountains.  Previous highway campaigns have included Shell Corner (2001-02), Soldiers Pinch (2001-02), Lawson (2003-09), Leura section 1 (2004-05), Medlow Bath (2005 ),  Leura section 2 (2006-08), Katoomba (2006-09), Mount Victoria bypass (2006-08) and Bells Line of Road (2005-07).

What Mr Silk also didn’t realise was that  at the time I was contracting as a management accountant with the RTA, with some insight into the mechanisations, agendas and management culture of this very much political organisation.  What Mr Silk also didn’t realise was that I had researched the history of Bullburra and learnt about the RTA plans for the highway widening through the town.

The RTA plans are set to divide Bullaburra by a faster four-laned expressway, greatly restricting local access and offering very few design concessions to local residents.

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I didn’t have to wait long for the optimistic Bullaburra community sentiments to sour about the likely success of the BTC’s alternative highway design.

The above letter in the local paper by Mr Silk a Chairman of the Bullaburra Township Committee, saw the following week a media release by the Bullaburra Township Committee, headed up with a photo including Will Silk.

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‘Bullaburra joins highway battle‘

by Michael Cleggett (journalist), BMG 20081022, p3.

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‘The RTA’s highway-widening roadshow continues to attract jeers wherever it arrives, and this time it’s Bullaburra residents voicing anger at plans for their stretch of tarmac.
Members of the Bullaburra Township Committee (BTC) are furious their own designs for the upgrade have seemingly been ignored.

BTC president Will Silk is concerned the RTA has not fully accounted for the effect of any works on the village and its people.
After years of campaigning to different levels of government and departments, residents were dismayed by the RTA proposal when it was made public earlier this year.

“We went in to see them in the first week of June this year and not to our surprise, but to our disgust, we found that they didn’t even know about our plan, they hadn’t taken it into consideration,” Mr Silk said.

In anticipation of the highway upgrade the community has been looking into the issue for more than 20 years. The three pillars of the BTC designs are a road bridge connecting north and south Bullaburra, a comprehensive service road on the southern side running parallel to the highway and a pedestrian bridge. None of these form part of the RTA’s proposal.
Mr Silk said the BTC’s vision presents a much better opportunity to create “a modern 21st century village with the unavoidable highway through the middle of it”.

The service road is intended to allow residents to traverse the town without having to make a difficult turn onto the highway while the bridges would avoid permanently dividing the town as well as providing easier emergency vehicle access.  This stage of work will expand the highway to two lanes in each direction from Noble Street to 600 metres west of Genevieve Road.

Outside of the widening, the main features of the RTA plans involve relocating the commuter car park to the southern side of the highway, moving the pedestrian crossing lights, an access road for some properties between Genevieve Road and Noble Street and a number of other changes to street access and bus stops.

Member for Blue Mountains Phil Koperberg has expressed a willingness to further examine the issue.

“(The BTC) proposal for a link bridge between north and south of the Great Western Highway obviously has merit,” he said. “However, whether or not it is practical, feasible or constructable I’ll take advice from the RTA.”

An RTA pamphlet delivered to residents suggests that advice will be bad news. It describes a comprehensive access road and a pedestrian overbridge as unfeasible.
A spokesperson for the RTA said an information session earlier this month was well attended with “some worthwhile suggestions . . . put forward, which will be investigated”.
A second information session will be held by the RTA from 10am-1pm at Lawson Bowling Club this Saturday, October 25.’

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This article by the Bullaburra Township Committee was then followed up by Bullaburra resident Patrick Tatam, who clearly had a stronger interpretation of how discussions between locals and the Roads and Traffic Association were proceeding.

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‘RTA Bullaburra fiasco’

by Patrick Tatam, Bullaburra (letter in BMG 20081029, p4)

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‘Regarding the obstructionist, bullying attitude of the RTA towards the Bullaburra Township Committee (BTC), attacking the BTC’s proposed alternativeplan for the GWH rod widening through Bullaburra, here’s my take on what locals are saying:

1. The major political parties are basically inept, unable to listen to constituents and consumed with retaining/grasping power
2. Phil Koperberg (then local Labor MP) has no effectively influential power, says anything to avoid an issue, is “a bit of a show pony”, and has furthered his career utilising the ‘who you know, not what you know’ approach
3. The RTA is seen as a mob of bureaucratic bullies, are even more incompetent than their political masters (the Hazelbrook railway bridge fiasco is common knowledge), and are responsible/answerable solely to the faceless bosses located deeply within the termite mound of RTA headquarters.
4. RTA representatives at community meetings are aggressive, non-consultative, driven only by their own preferred agendas, ill-prepared, and are the antithesis of ‘public servants’
5. Exiting either Boronia or Genevieve Road is currently dangerous, and will become definitely more so with the planned RTA ‘seagull’ intersection, increased speed restrictions (from 70kph to 80kph) and higher traffic volumes (particularly those larger faster trucks).
6. The BTC’s plan is a far better solution for the Bullaburra area than the ‘crash through or crash anyway’ RTA proposal; it’s a plan that addresses the needs of  the people who live here, not the needs of a termite from a city office, and incorporates beneficial infrastructurec, not just ‘bloody minded’ bitumen.

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Elected government members, and RTA personnel, should realise that they are our representatives, and that locals are becoming more politically astute, voting more for independents, if only to make our representatives more representative.  Those bullies that remain, hiding behind the skirts of party machinery, should recall the destiny of the dinosaur.  Or just move to the last bastions of ‘Bullyville’: Zimbabwe, Myanmar, etc.

~Patrick Tatam, Bullaburra.

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Editor’s Campaign to Save Bullaburra’s 300+ year old Angophora tree from the RTA

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Bullaburra’s Angophora – on RTA’s death row

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Listed on Blue Mountains Council’s  Significant Tree Register

Registered Significant Tree #:   29

Botanical Name:   Angophora costata

Common Name:   Smooth Barked Apple, Red Gum

Date Registered:  17th July 1985, adopted 21st June 1988

Location:   Great Western Highway, Bullaburra, Opp. Lot 173, DP13407.

[Read Significant Tree Register]

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Campaign article in Blue Mountains Gazette 20081203, p19.

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This followed a quarter page campaign article published in this newpaper on 20081105 costing this Editor $460.

 (Click image to enlarge)

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 Letters by Bullaburra residents 20081001

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(Click image to enlarge)

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Noisy by day, nightmarish by night: Mt Victoria residents (Blue Mountains)

near this 24-hour Caltex service station are being disturbed round-the-clock

by truck drivers parking on their doorstops.

[Source: Blue Mountains Gazette, 20040924]

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As alternating Labor and Liberal governments ignore rail investment across Australia and instead encourage and invest hundreds of million of our taxes in bigger roads for truck freight, regional highways are being transformed into noisy and dangerous trucking expressways.

Year on year, the regional Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains for instance, has seen a steady increase in the number, size and frequency of trucks using it for long-distance linehaul.  Produce, fuel, sand, soil, cement, grain, steel, concrete pipes, shipping containers are getting carted by road, some from as far away as Darwin and Perth, over the highway that runs through Blue Mountains towns and villages.  There are many different speed zones to ensure the safety of local road users.  All of these freight types could be carted by rail, which for the most part runs alongside the highway, but is mostly only used by passenger trains.    The only commodity still banned is uranium but with federal Labor recently allowing uranium sales to India to resume, is it only matter of time before radioactive uranium is carted through Blue Mountains towns and villages?

There are commuters, school zones, buses, cyclists, pedestrian crossings and increasingly 19 metre B-double trucks hurtling along the same highway driven by ‘trip-rate’ pay incentives.  Tail-gating is an all too frequently noted dangerous habit of many of these truck drivers, yet the NRMA suggests that “you try not to let the size of the vehicle intimidate you“. (Karen Fittall, NRMA’s ‘Open Road’ magazine, September/October 2005, ^http://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/mynrma/hs.xsl/heavy_going.htm).

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Trucks behaving badly Pacific Highway (and Great Western Highway)

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Somehow the Transport Workers Union has allowed the hourly rate to go out the window in favour of the employer’s convenient fixed cost ‘trip rate’.  So to a truck driver it’s more trips for more money based on commercial incentive arrangements.  This incentive structure has become the motivation driving faster trucks and therefore more dangerous trucks to push and exceed speed limits.  Across the Blue Mountains, both Great Western Highway and Bell Line of Road, highway signposted speed limits are systemically unenforced.

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Where’s the speed governor?  Where are the road patrols?

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At the time of Bob Debus MP as NSW Labor Member for Blue Mountains (1981 – 1988, then again 1995 – 2007), then federal Labor member for Macquarie (2007 – 2009), the once prohibited B-double trucks surreptitiously started using the Great Western Highway.  How was this allowed?  Now 19 metre B-doubles are at such frequency along the highway as to be standard, but there has been no local community consultation nor local community approval.  It has been an undemocratic impost.  What is stopping 26 metre B-doubles creeping in?

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Exhaust Brake Noise is Rife!

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Many trucks drivers on the highway apply their noisy engine brakes (engine compression braking) because they are told it saves on the cost of brake pads.  Engine brakes in heavy vehicles are auxiliary brakes installed as important backup safety braking to reduce the load on service brakes on a steep descent.  But many truck drivers have then engaged automatically so they kick in as soon as the driver takes his foot of the accelerator pedal.  (This Editor holds a Class ‘HC’ Heavy Vehicle Drivers Licence, so is aware of this lazy habit).

Many truck engine brakes are noisy and the ‘bark’ characteristic of the noise reverberates considerably at night.   Truck drivers selfishly use these even as they drive through Blue Mountains towns and villages.  So 24 hours a day, often in the wee small hours, these exhaust brakes can be heard reverberating for miles around, keeping many Blue Mountains residents awake.

The police do nothing – they say it’s not their job.   The Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) does nothing, except put up tokenistic signs – ‘Trucks – limit engine braking‘, which is flatly ignored and not enforced.    The Blue Mountains Council does nothing – it say it’s not it’s job, even though it accepts operating as an agency for the RTA at Katoomba.

Possibly the most ignored sign on a highway

One sign means the RTA can avoid the cost of enforcement

while pretending to and meet its local government development guidelines

– on paper.

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So truck owners apparently save on the cost of renewing their brakes, but selfishly at the expense of Blue Mountains residents trying to get a good night’s sleep. This editor lives a kilometre from the highway yet almost nightly hears some lousy trucker’s exhaust brakes as it moans up to the red lights outside Council chambers.  Selfish bastards they are!  I bet there’s been complaints, but typically none of these agencies has done squat about it.

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Dodgy Truck Rest Area

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Big linehaul trucks are destroying the Blue Mountains. Not only by their noise and dangerous speeds, but intimidating tail-gating to keep schedule and parking day and night outside residents homes.

At Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains, the RTA and Blue Mountains Council approved of  24-hour Caltex Service Station and allowing truck drivers to use the adjacent highway shoulder to park and sleep.   The shoulder was even widened to accommodate and encourage its use as a dodgy heavy vehicle rest area.

Since December 2003, Caltex at Mount Victoria was somehow allowed to become a round-the-clock operation with drivers of passing trucks, semi-trailers and B-doubles using the road shoulders to park their vehicles, often directly in front of residents’ front doors.

Local residents have complained to their members of parliament about the constant truck noise, of truck drivers leaving their rubbish by the side of the road and some even using front yards as a toilet – urinating and defecating!

In 2004, Liberal MP Duncan Gay, then Shadow Roads Minister, met with local community representatives at Mount Victoria, confirming that:

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“The RTA, who are responsible for fatigue management need to provide proper rest points”

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Now in 2011, with the Liberal Coalition in power, still nothing has been done. With speed being the main cause of at least half the recorded crashes, and the NRMA confirming a need for increased enforcement of heavy vehicle speed limits, Duncan Gay back in 2004 also advocated the installation of two new speed cameras ‘to convince motorists to take more care.’  Nup, not yet done either!

Then NSW Liberal Party Shadow Minster Duncan Gay (centre)

meeting Blue Mountains community representatives at Mount Victoria in 2004.

All care and no responsibility. 

(Source:  Blue Mountains Gazette)

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The RTA, while headlong enthusiastic about channelling hundreds of millions into capital works widening sections of the highway, highway maintenance and traffic enforcement has always been the RTA’s unsexy Cinderella. Fatigue is one of the biggest causes of crashes for heavy vehicle drivers and the RTA is the delegated authority responsible for overseeing heavy vehicle driver fatigue management on New South Wales roads.  This necessarily includes providing for the necessary rest facilities.

Suitable rest areas are important for heavy vehicle drivers to take long and short rest breaks, use amenities and check loads and vehicles. Heavy vehicle drivers must conform to fatigue management legislation that specifies strict resting requirements. In order to fulfil these requirements they require suitable rest area facilities that are regularly spaced along key freight routes.  (Source:  ^http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/heavyvehicles/safety/hvfatigue/index.html)

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RTA reneging on its duty to provide suitable Rest Areas

On 29th September 2008, Australia’s National Transport Commission (NTC) introduced new Heavy Vehicle Driver Fatigue laws national-wide.  This came about as a consequence of many crashes involving heavy vehicles on designated national freight routes and fatigue identified as a key cause.  The Audit of Rest Areas against National Guidelines (Austroads 2006) had found that many rest areas on freight routes across Australia (many in NSW) were deficient in being suitable to provide for appropriate rest breaks to address driver fatigue.  One of the key freight routes is Great Western Highway /Mitchell Highway (Nepean River to Dubbo).

The NTC Guidelines for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas includes the following principles:

• Sites generally at no more than 100km intervals. Geographical and other physical constraints may require a range between 80 and 120km with the maximum limit generally being 120km.
• Sites are to be provided on both sides of the road on those parts of the network that have high levels of demand, while those with lower levels of demand will not require provision on both sides of the road.
• Sites are to be well signposted for heavy vehicle drivers and have suitable access for ingress and egress.
• Sites are to have designated hard stand parking for heavy vehicles and an appropriate number of parking spaces dependent on demand.
• Sites are to meet the basic needs of heavy vehicle drivers including provision of sealed pavements particularly for ingress and egress lanes/ramps, at least one toilet on each site, shade, shelter, rubbish bins and tables and chairs.

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[Read More:  ^http://www.ntc.gov.au/, access section under ‘Safety & Compliance’ tab]

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The RTA restated these two years later in its public document ‘RTA Strategy for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas on Key Rural Freight Routes in NSW, January 2010‘.

 A RTA model heavy vehicle rest area

‘Station creek’ rest area north of Karuah, Pacific Highway, NSW

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A RTA dodgy heavy vehicle rest area

‘Mount Victoria’ outside resident properties #45-47, #49, #51, #143, #147, #151.

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RTA dodgy (unconscionable) heavy vehicle rest area in front of residents’ homes

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The RTA is obligated to provide for a Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas along the Great Western Highway accessible from each side of the highway at the intervals and with minimum standard of facilities as prescribed under the 2008 NTC Guidelines.  Similarly, heavy vehicle drivers are required to have breaks at the frequencies, duration and under such conditions as prescribed under the 2008 Heavy Vehicle Driver Fatigue laws, basically to ensure that they ‘fit for duty’ and not too tired to drive safely.  In NSW this is law under the Road Transport (General) Regulation 2005, which in relation to trucks applies to trucks with a Gross Vehicle Mass of 12 tonnes. Under the regulation, Basic Fatigue Management, starts with a solo driver required to have a 15 minute ‘stationary rest‘ after no more than 6 hours and 15 minutes at work, driving or otherwise.  Longer work shifts have increasing rest break requirements.  ‘Stationary rest‘ is defined as rest time that the driver spends out of the heavy vehicle or in an approved sleeper berth of a stationary regulated heavy vehicle.

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However, along the Great Western Highway, which the RTA deems to be a ‘key rural freight route‘, the entire route of 200 km between outer Sydney (Penrith) and Orange provides no current rest area facilities, either westbound or eastbound that meet the 2008 NTC Guidelines.   There should be two sites at no more than 100km apart, and on both sides of the highway, not just one side, with suitable access for ingress and egress.  The sites should have stand parking for heavy vehicles and an appropriate number of parking spaces dependent on demand, as well as offering drivers a toilet, shade, shelter, rubbish bins and tables and chairs.

But the RTA simply doesn’t care.  The RTA is prepared to ignore the problem of fatigue, to configure exemptions to avoid legalities and otherwise spend millions on the more politically sexy capital works upgrades.  Three years after the NTC Guidelines, and many crashes later (involving heavy vehicles), the RTA has spent hundred of millions widening the Great Western Highway into a trucking expressway for bigger and more trucks to use, but has provided no facilities to address heavy vehicle driver fatigue.   So the RTA is telling truck drivers to take proper breaks, but providing them with stuff all places to properly have a break.  The RTA is negligent. It is also sly at claiming private enterprise facilities as its delivery of rest areas.

So the RTA is not just negligent. It is unethical.

 

No heavy vehicle facilities provide by the RTA for 200 km between Penrith and Orange

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Along the Great Western Highway freight route between Penrith and Orange, a distance of over 200 km, the RTA provides no dedicated rest areas for heavy vehicles to the NTC Guidelines.  The only RTA-built rest area is an unshaded paved vehicle check area just west of Faulconbridge with no facilities except two rubbish bins.

Only private enterprises are providing any form of adequate rest facility eastbound between Orange and Penrith that is accessible by heavy vehicles – the BP Service Station at Mount Lambie and  the Caltex Service Station at Mount Victoria, but neither provide space for a heavy vehicle to park so the driver can sleep.   The only heavy vehicle rest facility between westbound between Penrith and Orange is the Shell Service Station at Yetholm where there is ample off road parking, a roadside restaurant, toilets and an adjoining motor inn, but this is a commercial operation, not one provided by the RTA.

The RTA is thus contributory in culpability for heavy vehicle crashes due to driver fatigue along the Great Western Highway.

The RTA map below (which can be viewed full size by the link provided) shows the Great Western Highway from Penrith to Bathurst, with only two rest stops (‘Driver Reviver‘ sites in yellow) – one at Glenbrook (westbound only), and one at Faulconbridge (eastbound only).  Neither are any more than roadside parking areas without facilities – big of the RTA!

(View full size map with legend, click here)

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RTA’s key rural freight route supposed ‘rest area’

for Heavy Vehicles at Faulconbridge – westbound access only.

(Photo by Editor 20111019, free in public domain)

• No toilets
• No shade
• No shelter
• No tables
• Two bins, but who empties them and how often?
• Not signposted as ‘Rest Area’ but as ‘Vehicle Checking Area’  I wonder why?      (see next zoom photo)

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RTA key rural freight route truck stop Faulconbridge

Not signposted as ‘Rest Area‘ but as ‘Vehicle Checking Area‘

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Back to the January 2010 ‘RTA Strategy for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas on Key Rural Freight Routes in NSW’, the RTA lists the facilities available or not available for heavy vehicle drivers along the Great Western Highway between Penrith and Orange in two tables – one Westbound (p.19), one Eastbound (p.20).

Read ‘RTA Strategy for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas on Key Rural Freight Routes in NSW, January 2010‘.

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Westbound (south side of highway)

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(Click to enlarge table)

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RTA Official Excuse:

‘Victoria Pass Parking Area‘ is nothing but a widened road shoulder outside the Caltex Service Station at Mount Victoria outside residents homes.  There is no shade or shelter.  The Caltex Service Station provides for refuelling/vehicle inspection, but no place for drivers to sleep in the vehicles.

At the time of writing, there are no current facilities at River Lett Hill – the statement of there being ‘a rest area…on both sides of the road including a toilet‘ is false and misleading.

At the time of writing, the Raglan Service Centre (Shell) is currently closed and is under construction as a BP service station.  It is to be a private facility, not provided by the RTA.

RTA:  “No existing rest area meets or can be upgraded to meet the required 10 parking spaces in one site in this section (due to existing site constraints). The recommendation is for heavy vehicles to utilise and upgrade existing rest areas, in the interim, with the RTA investigating the potential, to construct in the long term, a major rest area as part of the Great Western Highway upgrade – Mount Victoria to Lithgow project.”

Ed: Given this will cost about $1 billion, it is unlikely to be funded or built any time soon, and so is a poor excuse by the RTA for doing nothing.

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Eastbound (north side of the highway)

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(Click to enlarge table)

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There is no heavy vehicle facility between Orange and Bathurst.  The RTA’s  mention of upgrading the Larra Lee rest area is a proposal only, just to fill in space in the table to mask its failure to provide a facility.

 

‘Raglan Service Centre’

At the time of writing the ‘Raglan Service Centre is closed.  It was a Shell Service Station for heavy vehicles.  It is currently under construction as a BP Service Station, but it is not a facilty provided by the RTA.  The RTA’s branding of this facility as a ‘Raglan Service Centre’ is deceptive and misleading.

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Caltex Service Station at Mount Victoria

The only facility that the RTA mentions is “Parking bay east of Mount Victoria (existing). Food, toilet, shade, shelter provided at adjacent service station“.

This false and misleading.  The facilities are not that of the RTA.  The only service offered by the Caltex Service Station for heavy vehicles is refueling, vehicle inspection, a roadside cafe and toilet.  There is no shade or shelter either on the Caltex site or along the road shoulders.   The “parking bay” is the road shoulder.  What a deceptive fabrication!

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RTA’s excuse for perpetuating its Dodgy Rest Area at Mount Victoria

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Standard Politic Tactic #1:    Blame lack of Federal Government – will sit well with NSW Roads and Transport Minister of the day

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RTA:

‘Implementation of the RTA’s Strategy for Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas on Key Rural Freight Routes in NSW is largely dependent on the availability of funding from the Federal Government.

The Federal Government’s 2008/09 Budget outlined that the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government would provide $70 million across Australia over four years to fund a range of heavy vehicle safety initiatives.  This funding is being allocated under the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program (HVSPP) in two rounds with Round 1 covering 2008/09 – 2009/10 (complete) and Round 2 covering 2010/11 and 2011/12 (current). Under the HVSPP Guidelines a key consideration in allocating the funding is the extent to which state and territory governments commit to match the Federal Government’s funding contribution.

As part of Round 1 of the HVSPP, on 8 May 2009 the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and the then State Minister for Roads announced $16M (50% Federal and 50% State) for NSW.   Of this, $15M is currently being spent on 6 new rest areas and 22 rest area upgrades with the balance on bridge assessments for higher masses. In Round 1, NSW received 26.6% of $30 million available.

In applying the principles set in the RTA’s Guidelines for Provision of Major Heavy Vehicle Rest Areas a summary of needs across key rural freight routes in NSW is outlined in Table 2.  Currently, on these routes 101 rest areas qualify as major heavy vehicle rest areas and 76 sites have been identified for enhancement. A total of 61 existing rest areas have been identified for upgrade to qualify as a major heavy vehicle rest area and 15 sites identified for new heavy vehicle rest areas. The strategic cost ($2009) to undertake required works that are not anticipated to be delivered as part of a major infrastructure proposal is estimated at around $50 to 60 million.

Delivery of works at all 76 identified sites is significantly higher than  this strategic estimate.’

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So what is the RTA’s ultimate excuse:

‘The RTA investigating the potential, in the long term, for a major rest area as part of the Great Western Highway upgrade – Mount Victoria to Lithgow.‘

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(Ed:  Given the $1 billion pre-blowout estimate, the RTA can focus on its more sexy capital works highway upgrades)..

Meanwhile, back at sleepless Mount Victoria, the Blue Mountains Council was told that the real estate profession had refused to place a valuation on the homes because of the problem and that the homes had been ‘effectively rendered worthless‘.

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[Source: ‘Mt Vic’s truck dilemma’, by Len Ashworth, Lithgow Mercury, Tuesday 20081125]

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There is a ‘baby boomer‘ political penchant to encourage more and more freight to travel by truck, which has dominated Australian Government transport planning for the past sixty years since World War II.

It is a short-term tactical stop-gap measure.  Compared with rail freight, road linehaul for large volumes, over long distances, in the long term is price uncompetitive, and Peak Oil driving up fuel costs will eventually prove road linehaul a strategic economic blunder.

Speeding B-doubles increasingly dominate the highway over the Blue Mountains

‘Woe betide anyone who gets in my way!‘

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain)

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Yet ‘road-centric’ freight policy dominates the infrastructure planning, simply because it is being driven by the self-centred vested interests of the trucking industry –  influenced (read ‘bought‘) by ongoing substantial monetary donations (read ‘bribes’)  to the electoral campaigns of alternating Labor and Liberal governments.  Visit ^http://democracy4sale.org/ and choose either:

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Money talks, hence the political penchant to favour road freight.  Whereas rail, entrenched as a government monopoly, has long denied any community say.  Rail has become the Cinderella to Road where only a small honourary volunteer lobby, the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) has not the funds to compete against the collective corporate might of trucking donors.   Read about the ARA:  ^http://www.ara.net.au/site/index.php

The Liberal-Labor Party’s Auslink National Transport Plan since 2004 professed  ‘a new strategic framework for the planning and funding of Australia’s roads and railways to meet long term economic and social needs.’    However, in reality the funding has all but gone into building bigger and more highways.

News is, we are about to enter the year 2012, so we should have advanced somewhat from post-war trucking thinking.

Yet in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, well over $1 billion is forecast to be spent to build a massive highway viaduct and tunnel; simply so that larger and faster trucks can cart freight, fuel and ore over the Blue Mountains and to bypass the village of Mount Victoria.  The fact that a rail line following a similar route exists and has long been used to cart copious quantities of coal over the Blue Mountains, is ignored by a truck-centric political mindset.   The planned Mount Victoria bypass is just one of the multiple ongoing highway widening sections being constructed by Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) contractors over the Blue Mountains and ultimately extending from Penrith in Sydney’s outer metropolitan west to the New South Wales central-west regional town of Orange, 250km away.

Great Western Highway, Wentworth Falls, March 2010

This trucking section just $115,000,000  (pre-blowout estimate)

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain)

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The widening of the highway has caused the destruction of much native vegetation and has ruined the bushland amenity of the villages and towns of the Central Blue Mountains.  Construction has caused irreversible sediment contamination of many Blue Mountains waterways that drain from the highway ridgeline downstream into the Blue Mountains National Park and World Heritage Area.

Leura, January 2006

– collateral stormwater pollution of downstream creeks to serve the Trucking Expressway

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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Since 1996, the widening of the Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains has cost over a billion dollars already.  Yet the highway runs parallel to an existing dual rail line, which for the most part runs right alongside one another.  One justification argued for the massive cost and widening of the highway is to relieve traffic congestion for motorists, but there is a low population base in the Blue Mountains as settlement is confined to the ridgeline over the Blue Mountains where the highway and rail run together.  Steep terrain either side prevent a large population expansion.

Katoomba, May 2009

– collateral vegetation damage to serve the Trucking Expressway

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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Before construction began, the only systemic traffic congestion on the highway was at weekends when tourists from Sydney ventured west in their cars.  Spending billions to encourage domestic regional tourism has not been the real justification.  The real justification has been and continues to be to encourage more truck freight along the Great Western Highway.

Yet the public is still waiting for a cost-benefit analysis, a calculation of any return on investment, an end-to-end journey analysis of the freight options, an holistic comparison to rail.
Instead, not only has there been a road-only freight focus, the trucks have got bigger.  Governments are now permitting and encouraging the use of 19 metre ‘B-doubles’ along the highway.  It is only a matter of time before 26 metre B-doubles turn up.  In Victoria they are permitting B-triples – basically road-trains!   Successive Labor and Liberal governments at both national and state level have maintained a truck-centric mindset since the 1980s when the NSW Greiner Government abandoned and close down much of the State’s rail infrastructure, including the closure of  rail depots at Valley Heights and Junee.

This baby boomer political penchant has been encouraged and lauded by baby boomer himself, Bob Debus, long-time Labor politician for the NSW seat of Blue Mountains then the Federal seat of Macquarie, both covering the Blue Mountains region.  Bob Debus has since retired, yet the Labor boomer mindset perpetuates with its truck-centric fervour.

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“It is with dismay that I watch the Mountains stand by as the RTA fulfills Bob Debus’ promise of an “upgraded” highway (read Trucking Expressway) – by his own admission – built to carry 26m B-double trucks.  The RTA admits that when the western container hubs are finished they will generate 4000 extra B-double movements per day.  Parked end to end they would stretch 102 km – every day!  Goondiwindi, Toowoomba and many other towns don’t allow them but we will see them roaring through every Mountains town – past schools, shops and homes.”

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~ Dennis Plink, Hartley Vale (letter ‘B-double agenda‘ in Blue Mountains Gazette, 20090304, p.8.

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The widening of the highway into a trucking expressway is wrecking the Blue Mountains.  And certainly, those trucks have increased – in number, in size and length and in speed.  These bigger, faster trucks are not policed.  They are turning the Great Western Highway into a dangerous death zone.

Speeding B-Double truck overturns on Lapstone Hill

–  at an already widened section of the Trucking Expressway

Zoom, zoom, zoom!

(Photo by Top Notch Video).

 

Last July, on the highway at Lawson near Queens Road, truck driven by a 66-year-old Murrangaroo man collided head-on with an eastbound car trapped a female passenger, followed by a separate collision between a truck and a car near Boland Ave at Springwood.  On Friday, 29th July 2011 on Lapstone Hill the driver of a semi-trailer failed to negotiate a left-hand bend while travelling east and crashed into the concrete median barrier.  The impact caused the truck’s trailer — containing a full load of bark — to tip over the barrier and slide a short distance into the path of a westbound Mitsubishi Lancer, driven by a 30-year-old Hazelbrook woman, who remained trapped before being rushed to Westmead Hospital.  Traffic chaos ensued as all westbound lanes were closed for more than eight hours and one eastbound lane also shut for the clean-up operation. Lapstone Hill is one of the widened sections of the highway.

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[Source:  ‘Blue Mountains highway mayhem’, by Shane Desiatnik, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20110803, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/blue-mountains-highway-mayhem/2246694.aspx?storypage=0]

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Increasingly we are reading in local newspapers of road trauma involving trucks.   Across Australia, during the 12 months to the end of March 2009, 248 people died from 229 crashes involving heavy trucks or buses. These included:

• 138 deaths from 124 crashes involving articulated trucks (semi-trailers, B-doubles, B-triples)
• 90 deaths from 86 crashes involving heavy rigid trucks
• 22 deaths from 21 crashes involving buses.

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[Source: ‘Fatal Heavy Vehicle Crashes Australia: Quarterly Bulletin, January-March 2009’, Summary, ^http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2009/fhvca_q12009.asp]

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Here are just some of the tragic road trauma incidents involving trucks across Australia over the past year:

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‘Truck burns at Yelgun’ … two days ago!

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Flames engulf a postal truck at Yelgun on the NSW north coast on December 18, 2011. The driver stopped the truck after noticing smoke pouring from the engine bay. He collected his belongings and departed the vehicle before the flames took hold.

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[Source: ‘Truck burns at Yelgun”, by Kalindi Starick, ABC, 20111220, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-19/flames-engulf-a-postal-truck-at-yelgun-on-the-nsw-north-coast/3737752]

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‘Teenage driver killed in truck collision’…two days ago

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One woman was killed and five people were injured in two accidents involving B-double trucks.

1. Engineers were called to the scene of a dramatic accident on the Gateway Motorway at Boondall in Brisbane about midday yesterday, when a B-double truckexploded after it and a car collided.
2. On the Bruce Highway near Rockhampton, a 19-year-old woman died and four people were injured when a car and a B-double truck collided. Police said the station wagon tried to turn into the southbound lanes of theBruce Highway at Marmor just before 8pm on Friday when the car and truck, whichwas travelling in the northbound lane, collided.  The 19-year-old driver was killed, while her three female passengers, two aged19 and one aged 18, were taken to Rockhampton hospital. The three are in a stable condition. The 65-year-old driver of the B-double was taken to hospital for precautionary treatment and has been released.

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[Source: ‘Teenage driver killed in truck collision’, by Date: December 18 2011, Ellen Lutton, 20111218, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/teenage-driver-killed-in-truck-collision-20111217-1p0ax.html?skin=text-only]

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‘Truck crash closes Melbourne freeway’

Melbourne’s Monash Freeway is closed in both directions after a semi-trailer crashed into a bridge pylon in the suburb of Mulgrave in the city’s south-east.

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[Source: ‘Truck crash closes Melbourne freeway’, ABC, 20111213, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-13/truck-crash-closes-melbourne-freeway/3727918]

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‘Truckie quizzed over fatal crash’

 

Two people have died in a crash on the Pacific Highway near Yamba on the NewSouth Wales north coast.

A 62-year-old man and a 51-year-old woman from the Leeton area died when two cars collided about 11:00am (AEDT) today.  A woman and three children who were in the other car have been taken to the Coffs Harbour Hospital. Police say a truck driver who was involved in the accident but failed to stop, was later pulled over at Ballina.  Police are interviewing him. Rebecca Walsh, from the Traffic Management Centre, says the Pacific Highway is closed in both directions and vehicles are being diverted along the Summerland Way at Grafton.

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[Source: ‘Truckie quizzed over fatal crash’, ABC, 20111111, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-11/truckie-quizzed-over-fatal-crash/3660874]

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‘Chemical alert after truck rolls in Blue Mountains’

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Fire crews are battling to contain a major chemical spill on the Great Western Highway at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, after a truck overturned and 20,000 litres of a bright green industrial chemical poured out.

Protective bunds have been built around the spill site to stop the chemical, which is possibly a type of hydraulic fluid, reaching the iconic Leura cascades.  The chemical is described as biodegradable, but it can be a toxic irritant to skins and eyes if touched.

Six fire crews were at the site at 5pm, plus a hazardous materials unit from St Marys, a spokesman for Fire and Rescue NSW said.National Parks rangers, Blue Mountains council staff and fire crews are monitoring the extent of the spilled fluid, some of which entered the drainage system. Council staff have poured gravel around the edge of the spill area to try and contain it. The truck rolled over at about 2pm, and the driver’s condition is unknown, although he or she was understood to not have been trapped in the vehicle.

.[Source: ‘Chemical alert after truck rolls in Blue Mountains’, by Ben Cubby, Environment Editor, 20111026, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.theleader.com.au/news/national/national/environment/chemical-alert-after-truck-rolls-in-blue-mountains/2337200.aspx]

 

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Editor:  Subsequent reports by a Katoomba resident reported observing the green hydraulic fluid flow in quantities down Govetts Creek.  The contaminant would probably have ended up in the World Heritage Area of the creek within the Grose Valley, but would the RTA, Blue Mountains Council or the National Parks Service care? 

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‘Truck overturns at Tabbimoble’  (Maclean)

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A woman suffered minor injuries when the truck she was driving overturned on the Pacific Highway at Tabbimoble yesterday morning.

The B-double truck carrying general freight was heading north on the Pacific Highway and was about 2km south of the New Italy complex and 25km north of Maclean when it rolled shortly before 5am.  The 46-year-old woman who was at the wheel of the Volvo semi-trailer complained of back pains and was taken by ambulance to Lismore Base Hospital. The highway was partially blocked for four hours while emergency service cleared away the debris.  The accident occurred on what has become a notoriously black stretch of road where several fatalities have occurred in recent years.
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[Source: ‘Truck overturns at Tabbimoble’, Northern Star, 20110609, ^http://www.northernstar.com.au/story/2011/06/09/truck-overturns-tabbimoble/]

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‘Cyclists mowed down by truck’

M4 Motorway (aka Trucking Expressway) on approach to the Blue Mountains

Photo: Adam Hollingworth

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One man has died after a truck veered into a group of cyclists on the M4 motorway.

Fatigue may have caused a truck driver to veer into the breakdown lane and mow down a group of cyclists, killing one, on the M4 in Sydney’s west.  Police said a group of four cyclists were riding in the breakdown lane of the M4 near the Northern Road overpass at South Penrith when they were struck by a B-double truck about 7.40am today. A male cyclist died and the three others sustained serious injuries. The injured were taken to Nepean Hospital.

A WorkCover spokesman said a preliminary investigation was under way to ascertain whether driver fatigue caused the accident.  Police said the male truck driver was taken to hospital for mandatory blood and urine tests.  Police are investigating the cause of the crash.

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[Source: ‘Cyclists mowed down by truck’, Sydney Morning Herald sourcing AAP , 20100410, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cyclists-mowed-down-by-truck-20100410-rz7v.html]

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‘Overtaking gamble cost highway driver his life, police believe’

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One person has died after a truck carrying chemicals exploded after colliding with a car on the NSW north coast this morning.

Police believe a car driver’s early morning gamble in trying to pass a B-double truck on a no-overtaking stretch of the Pacific Highway cost him his life. The sedan was travelling southbound at Warrell Creek just before 4am when it appeared to pull out into the oncoming lane to overtake the truck. It then crashed head-on into a second, northbound, B-double carrying chemicals, Senior Constable Brian Carney of the Mid North Coast Crash Investigation Units aid.

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[Source: ‘Overtaking gamble cost highway driver his life, police believe’, by Glenda Kwek, 20110405, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/overtaking-gamble-cost-highway-driver-his-life-police-believe-20110405-1cz01.html]

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‘Exploded fuel tanker closes Pacific Highway’

 

The Pacific Highway on the New South Wales north coast will be closed until New Year’s Day while crews clear a fuel tanker that exploded and killed the driver.

The tanker hauling 40,000 litres of fuel overturned and exploded on what is regarded by truckies as a notorious stretch of the highway, near Tintenbar, 10 km north of Ballina.

Authorities have set up a one-kilometre exclusion zone around the burning tankerand more than 100 firefighters equipped with breathing apparatus were sent to the scene.The ambulance service says the truck driver was killed in the blast, while two people have been freed from a nearby car after being trapped when powerlines came down on their vehicle.  The second trailer of the B-double was thrown into a paddock where it leaked fuel into a nearby wetland, and police still cannot get to the cabin of the burnt truck where the driver’s body remains inside.

Another tanker driver, Gary, says the driver is one of their own but they do not know who.”It is sad to be holed up on the side of the road like this. And it’s sad for a driver that’s not going to go home to his family,” he said.

The truck was laden with diesel and unleaded fuel, which has now been mostly contained.  Police say they will not be able to assess the damaged road until the scorched truck is moved, but they expect the Pacific Highway to be closed for the rest of today.  Six other trucks are banked up behind the accident site unable to turn around.

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[Source: ‘Exploded fuel tanker closes Pacific Highway’, ABC, 20101231, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/31/3104386.htm?site=goldcoast]

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‘Truck lobby donations seem more important than people’s lives!‘

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~ Dennis Plink, loc. cit.

Native Angophora 300 years old.

The RTA’s Environment Manager says it’s in the way – Chip it!

– collateral damage for the Trucking Expressway

…note railway line on left  

>:/

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