YOUR HELP IS NEEDED TO SAVE MONA VALE FROM the "B-LINE" BUS PROPOSAL Transport for NSW as part of the B-Line bus program is proposing 2 things for Mona Vale which will be a disaster. The first one is to take the last remaining 36 casual parking car spots in Beeby Park and use them for Commuter Parking. Then on the other side of the road they propose to build a huge indented bus stop in Village Park by widening Barrenjoey Road, running basically from the corner of Pittwater Road to the corner of Park Street taking recreational space Crown Parkland and removing 21 well established trees and the grass mounds. Loss of this greenspace is not the desired outcome. Your help is needed to stop this madness. THE BEEBY PARK PROPOSAL Help Save Casual Parking for Mona Vale ! ! First a brief look at the history of Beeby Park. Beeby Park Used to Look Like This Beeby Park was used for Passive Recreation The local community held protests and secured 852 handwritten signatures on a petition objecting to the Pittwater Council proposal to turn Beeby Park into a 72 car space bitumen carpark. Pittwater Council and the 9 Councillors weren't interested in the objections or the 852 people that signed the petition. Then in September 2013 Pittwater Council's Environmental Destruction Began with Chainsaws and Bulldozers The Killing of Wildlife Beeby Park is on Pittwater Councils “Wildlife Corridor Map”. Objectors warned the Council including all 9 Councillors that the works and subsequent car park would destroy the natural habitat for wildflie in Beeby Park and their homes would be lost. They didn’t listen, didn’t care. The photo below is the result. Beeby Park "Wildlife Corridor" Now Looks Like This Prior to the budgeted $550,000 works commencing community groups objected to the new car park whereby parking in the car park was only permissible under the Crown Lands Act if the parking was associated with the reserves use of sports and recreation, which included Kitchener Park use as well. Pittwater Council and Councillors were not interested in this inconsistency with the Crown Lands Act. Objectors also raised concern that the 72 spot car park would simply be used by commuters for park and ride. Subsequent to this a council resolution was that all 72 car spots would be sign posted for timed parking of 4 hours to deter that use. Within a year Pittwater Council removed the 4 hour signs pertaining to 36 of the 72 car spots and these were now un-timed, thereby permitted 36 commuters to park there even though this use was not permitted under the Crown Lands Act. Now Transport for NSW with it's B-Line service wants to take the remaining 36 car spots and the whole car park will be used for commuter parking and no casual spots will exist at all. Beeby Park is the one last hope that shoppers have to find a spot when wanting to visit Pittwater Place and other shops in Park Street. Pittwater Place one level of car parking is quite often full, no on street parking exists in Golf Ave with it parked out by commuters, no parking in Park Street, Harkeith St or Darley St. Beeby Park is the one last hope that shoppers have and the 36 casual parking spots MUST REMAIN timed at 4 hours. THE VILLAGE PARK PROPOSAL Transport for NSW as part of the B-Line bus service proposes to delete 3 bus stops in Mona Vale. Delete the "Mona Vale Main" Northbound Bus Stop on Pittwater Road near Waratah Street Deleting this bus stop will impact on about 120 businesses that will be commercially disadvantaged with loss of passing trade. It will aalso disadvantage the community for convenient access to shops. One example is currently departure from a bus and a visit to the Post Office entails a walk of 50 metres. The distance from the proposed bus stop in Village Park to the Post Office will be 250 metres, 5 times the distance. This is not a good outcome. Noted this is a for able-bodied people. The travel distance for a wheelchair bound commuter departing from the bus at the proposed new stop in Village Park and wheel chairing 250 metres to the Post Office is a disastrous outcome. Delete the Northbound Bus Stop on Barrenjoey Road located near Harkeith Street This bus stop on Barrenjoey Road permits commuters to depart the bus and have convenient access to the shops in Park Street and Pittwater Place. Deleting this bus stop is a another poor outcome. Noted there is room for an indentation at this location, which would allow buses to pull in and traffic to flow past. Consideration should be given to making this the terminus stop, not Village Park and leaving the stop near Waratah Street in place. Delete the Southbound Bus Stop on Barrenjoey Road located outside Tex Mex Two new bus stops will then be installed. One will be 'IN VILLAGE PARK' with the removal of at least 21 mature trees and the grass mounds as a result of the huge indent needed into the Crown Land Reserve. The Mona Vale Place Plan vision for Village Park is shown below, a design arrived at in conjunction with Transport for NSW. Note when assessed to the current image of Village Park shown below the central grass area will be dissected by an undesirable array of paths feeding the new B-Line bus stop. Also note the current circular bike path used by many mums and dads to push prams around, young children to ride their bikes and scooters is deleted. This is Crown Land. Northern Beaches Council or Transport for NSW does not own it. Village Park will not be the same. It will loose the attractive "Green Grass Oval" feel it has where children can run around on the grass and play. The paths break this up and are a safety hazard in the park. The loss of the at least 21 mature trees and grass mounds are a negative amenity impact on the recreational park users. Traffic on the busy 6 lane highway of Barrenjoey Road going past will be seen and heard as the screening is gone and the mounds which provide an acoustic buffer will also be gone. Instead there will be a view to all the traffic and the massive stretch of B-Line bus stop from one corner of Village Park to the other. The proposed relocation of the northbound “Mona Vale Main” bus stop to Village Park puts the bus stop basically in the middle of nowhere for pedestrian connectivity. In periods of inclement weather commuters departing a bus have no covered shelter connectivity to the shopping village. Commuters are really out in the open and will get very wet. Currently “Mona Vale Main” at Waratah Street, commuters get off the bus and are immediately undercover and can walk to all shops using the shop awnings. There is poor lighting which leads to concerns of personal safety for people waiting at the bus stop but especially those, departing a bus. Village Park is extremely isolated with no shops nearby, no casual surveillance and personal attack on commuters especially after dark, is potentially high risk. Transport for NSW have not sought any report from the Police Force regarding this. The proposed relocation of this bus stop 200 metres north will be to the commercial detriment of shopkeepers that rely on passing trade associated with the current bus stop location. Commuters currently depart a bus and walk south along Pittwater Road past a number of shops. They can walk north and then along Pittwater Road which has many cafes and eateries. More importantly when commuters walk up Waratah Street there are shops on both sides, then they walk into Bungan Street either south or north of the roundabout. It has been calculated that at least 120 businesses will suffer commercial loss with this proposal to relocate this bus stop to Village Park. Furthermore a personal survey of the shops in this location has revealed basically no one knows anything about this proposal. DECEPTIVE and MISLEADING INFORMATION TfNSW on the B-Line Mona Vale website page http://yoursay.b-line.transport.nsw.gov.au/mona-vale has an artist’s impression of the proposed bus stop in Village Park. The published image which has been on their website for over 12 months and is misleading to everyone that visits the website. The image is included here: It shows the posts for the bus shelters installed on the street side of the existing concrete footpath. A new paved section installed to replace the current grass strip between the current footpath and the road. The bus shelter provides cover over the seating and the existing concrete footpath. It shows everything on Village Park side of the existing footpath will remain as is. This is misleading the public. In actual fact what the REF reveals is that minimally 21 of the trees and the grass mounds shown in the image will go. That’s about 12 metres behind the indicated bus shelter will be removed spanning from Pittwater Road to Park Street, a distance of 140 metres of green space gone. The image below as it appears in the TfNSW REF has not been altered in any way and it clearly shows the extent of the proposed works. THE NEW BUS STOP ON PITTWATER ROAD With the required draw in and draw out zones the new bus stop will result in the loss of SIX (6) on street car spaces. It is understood the business owners are extremely upset by this and say it will destroy their business. Absurd Unrealistic Distance Between Bus Stops The current bus stop shown below outside 1719 Pittwater Road (just south of BP petrol station) will remain. The distance from this stop to the current stop corner with Waratah Street is 300 metres. This distance will be increased to 500 metres with the relation of “Mona Vale Main” bus stop into Village Park. Businesses will suffer with this increased access distance after departing the bus. Two bus stops half a kilometre apart in a shopping precinct is a very poor outcome imposed on Mona Vale by Transport for NSW. Three residents have done submissions and provided a copy here for downloading
MONA VALE NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT OBJECT TO THIS B-LINE MADNESS Select all email addresses below, copy and paste into "send to" of your email to lodge your objection [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]: [email protected] Also see "HANDS OFF OUR VILLAGE PARK" Youtube video www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IK_346I2xM or click on the image below Transport for NSW B-Line Publications - Mona Vale
2 Comments
John
20/4/2017 14:19:00
I do no agree with what is being done and the proposed transport will not help us on this northern most part bus wise. Only the other week a large que at Wynyard therefore a large amount of passengers were left behind due to the fact that the largest amounts of the passengers got off at the Mall and Dee Why leaving more northern passengers having to wait. As there are many buses through Dee Why and the Mall they should on the inward journey drop off spot and a pick up on the northerly journey.
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Frank
20/4/2017 14:21:06
I wrote a letter to the SMH about Barrie’s comments but as usual, because it wasn’t critical, it never made it into print. I tried to emphasise how the existing system works well and how the B-Line is going to cause a huge inconvenience to the thousands of bus travellers who live north of Mona Vale and will have to change buses at the new terminus but they obviously thought that was not newsworthy.
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