Jo Obronschka, Sydney
More than 300 people attended a meeting organised by the Marrickville Transport Action Group (MTAG) on November 26 to discuss the Labor state government's plans for motorways, road construction and traffic increases in the area resulting from the resurrected F6 (the freeway from the Sutherland area to the city) proposal.
Details about the NSW government's proposals to widen the roads in Marrickville, destroying swathes of homes and buildings in heritage conservation areas (including St Luke's church in which the meeting was held) as well as increasing traffic, particularly trucks, were given. The Morris Iemma government has been very secretive on the future of the road reservations which cut across Marrickville and are indicated on planning maps by red and white candy colour stripes.
For residents, the road reservations are a bitter reminder that the state government has not come clean about its proposals for road widenings and traffic planning across the whole of Sydney. The road reservations are linked to the Iemma government's proposals to expand Port Botany and the federal government's agenda to make Sydney airport a shopping and car parking Mecca with some 11,000 car spaces, the biggest revenue raising venture at the airport. The road reservations are also linked to commercial interests in road construction, as has been most clearly demonstrated by the cross-city tunnel debacle.
Greens Mayor of Marrickville Sam Byrne, Michelle Zeibot, a transport planner and a representative of the National Trust all called on the state government to take the road reservations off the planning maps.
Zeibot said that the benefits for commercial interests in having big roads constructed cannot be underestimated, pointing to the whopping profits made by the road company operating the M4 road toll, which is about to stop paying the coffers. Zeibot also pointed to the relationship between politicians and road interests.
Prior to the Marrickville by-election, Labor's candidate, Carmel Tebutt, distributed a leaflet in response to information provided by the MTAG that stated that "the Iemma government will not expand the F6 through the streets of Enmore" and labelled MTAG's work "an unsubstantiated scare campaign". Tebutt also said that "the only thing being reviewed is the metropolitan road network".
However, Tebutt's colleague Michael Costa recently spilled the beans, announcing the F6 freeway was back on the agenda and very much a part of the review of the metropolitan road network.
The F6 involves a widening of the Princes Highway to traffic from the south of Sydney and widening "feeder roads" to scuttle traffic from the F6 near the airport area to Parramatta Road, the M4 and M5, via a network involving local roads in the Marrickville area.
The slicing of road extensions through the Marrickville area is referred to as the "Johnson's Creek extension". This includes areas along Liberty Street, Edgeware Road and Llewellyn Street in Enmore and Newtown, Kingston Road, Newtown and a possible link via Campbell Street in St Peters, a swathe through the recently rehabilitated Tempe (former Tempe tip) reserve area and other streets within Marrickville.
The road proposals may also affect other inner city suburbs and areas. There is a possible connection from Victoria Road near Balmain to Parramatta Road via Johnston Street in Annandale, which would cut a swathe of bitumen and pollution through the beautifully preserved area, ironically preserved from sterile Norton Street-style development through the imposition of a road reservation in the past.
The meeting discussed action plans, which included getting unions involved, and called on the state government to lift the road reservation by March 24, 2006, one year before the next state election.
[For further information and to get involved in the campaign, contact the MTAG at <http://www.marrickvilletag.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 7, 2005.
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