Notice their enthusiasm for fusty old visions like “villages” and trams. They harken back to the days when suburbs like Chatswood and Rockdale were sleepy low rise suburbs full of people just like them, rather than the high rise (and “asian”) “horrors” they are now.

City Hub will, like the Hearld, fully endorse the Ron Christie transport plan, with its emphasis on trams and strong anti Metro stance. Notice also the racist undertones of that report’s “east Asian” horrors if we get a Metro. European model “good”, Asian “bad.” Just pathetic…

Can you imagine a more conservative, establishment icon than the Fairfax group? The “left” claim its views as their own! What a joke, they have become the new reactionaries, and they’re out of step with the new Sydney. Which will become more “asian” and dense. City Hub, the Herald and like-minded fossils will just have to lump it.

Or leave!

But on the Greens… You say they support public transport, but not the Metro because its “on the nose in a near marginal seat, it is political poison. Simple a that.”

Those of us who live in Leichhardt have yet to see them support building anything, they even opposed facilities for their own Council staff. But the second bit is true.

And how cynical is that? It really looks like “whatever it takes” Richo has got another client now that McGurk is dead. The Greens of Leichhardt.

Some people did expect a bit of principle and honesty when they voted for the Greens here. But they got cynical opportunism and hypocrisy on a scale this area has not seen in my lifetime.

The West Metro may survive the current fiasco and it will have a station at Parramatta Rd near the Italian Forum.

But watch as the Leichhardt Greens oppose that too.

I’d suggest Sydney Metro bypass Leichhardt altogether, and put their stations on the other side of the road in Marrickville. And Ashfield and Canada Bay of course. Luckily, those areas do have Mayors who support their own commuters and residents.

Why choose Rozelle as a stop? Think carefully before you answer this question, because “it will be the first step in the creation of a new transport network” is not an adequate answer (more like a catch-phrase) and if you choose to posit that as a credible answer, then please show the readers of City Hub the costings, funding documents, overall plan & government guarantee that the Metro will cross the Parramatta River to back up your statement.

If White Bay at some future stage, needs a transport node fine, all the State Government needs to do is come clean, explain the situation, and plan adequately. However not at the expense of having no money in the kitty for the rest of the city’s (& state’s)transport needs. Of course this will be a service for the well heeled, please spare us the “people need somewhere to live” scenario, this is all about desirable address not housing the general public.

The fact that the Metro will likely be nixed in Rozelle has little to do with the Greens being anti-public transport (I have read & heard their position on the Metro & it seems that this party is in support of public transport options other than the Metro) but more to do with the Metro being on the nose in a near marginal seat, it is political poison.’Simple a that.

It is little wonder that the current Premier is currently looking to strategies that might bring more immediate public transport relief such as light rail (a form of transport that Metro spruikers sought to denigrate as it was taken to be ‘the competition’).People want to see results & action, not another glossy brochure or pretty website.

Is it not conceivable to have an adequately planned Metro running alongside light rail and other public transport options? (the blinkered party political morons that cannot look objectively at this issue without their master’s approval only fiddle while Sydney ‘burns’, people are over the party line with this project I’m afraid)

If only the ALP put some of the stuck in the mud advisors on public transport out to pasture a few years ago they might not be in the situation they are presently in.

Let’s look at Pyrmont & the building of a Metro station. The first (lazy) option was simply to knock down the historic Victorian era commercial row at Union Square and have the hide to present the most bland, unsympathetic replacement buildings that I’ve ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes on, all within the surrounds of a popular local square that features predominately Victorian era buildings.

After much protest, the Metro Authority backed down somewhat at Pyrmont. Even so, many thousands of dollars were squandered on fanciful, over the top, ‘concept’ designs for the new Pyrmont station by some high profile architectural firms (none of these designs is likely to see the light of day – thankfully in some instances, as a few of those designs seemed almost as uninspiring as the initial designs for the station), it seemed odd that the Transport Minister was issuing statements to preserve the terraces when some (though not all) re-design options for the proposed Pyrmont Station (emanating from a public ‘workshop’) seemed to include impressions of a new structure in place of the terraces.

The same lack of sensitivity (with design) continued to Rozelle, the pushing through of over the top, needlessly grandiose, station entrances, with these entrances destroying local businesses and putting the locals well and truly off side.

Add into the mix conflicting projected patronage figures from both the NSW Transport minister & (acting) Head of the Sydney Metro Authority, the genuine lack of investment in transport infrastructure to the southwest & northwest, the perception that there might be safety issues with train speeds and well, I don’t need to go on…it speaks for itself.

What drugs was this person on?

Then there is our David Hunt, who says, “one of the great things about Sydney is people looking after one another”

Fortunately for him that includes those who own franchises which flog us our plasmas. But not in those in Rozelle who actually live here, a long way from the privatised, expensive light rail at Catherine St (which isn’t even in Rozelle) and the even more expensive and limited peak hour only ferry service at Elliot St (in Balmain).

But oh yes, we have buses, and are “massively over-serviced”.

What tosh. Jamie should ask Sydney Buses to reduce services! But I’ll leave those (minor gripes) aside and say this:

In this long, dementedly paranoid mish-mash of 70’s style conspiracy theory and anti-development whingeing which laughably impresses David Hunt (he of the plasmas), NOT ONCE does the author offer

1. Evidence. NONE, not a skerrick.

2. Anything at all constructive about how Sydney will cope with its growing population and infrastructure needs in the era of peak oil and climate change.

We are offered instead the “charming, attractive, dynamic and young Jamie Parker” (excuse while I go and take a cold shower!) Plus a lot of the usual nimby-ish, negativity which this publication and the “charming” Jamie Parker are now well known for.

Outside the affluent, boomer-dominant suburbs like Rozelle and Balmain, where the residents indeed may not want or need public transport (they have those luxury SUVs), anti public transport, anti- everything sentiments like those of the author’s are not quite so popular.

In those Labor regions to the west, development is not seen as evil. It represents jobs, and homes and security for our children. Not something City Hub could care less about, of course.

Apparently the author is waiting for some Thatcher-like messiah to “bust the union, which has created one of the most dysfunctional and inefficient transport systems in the western world.”

Good luck with the wait. He may well get Jamie, the “popular” (in his wet dreams!) mayor of Leichhardt. But Jamie will be a outsider in a government run by the uncharming, undynamic, totally redundant Barry O’Farrell and his party of climate change deniers, unrepentant Howardistas, big-end-of town spivs and right wing fundamentalists.

Enjoy that, City Hubsters…

Labor has truly lost it’s way and I am also dissapointed now that we are hearing that the businneses in Union Square are putting up with the full brunt of an unsatisfactory CBD Metro Pyrmont Station. Why are people being punished ? Why are the people of NSW being forced also to fund the $5,000,000,000 project ? Divide that into 7 million population of NSW and thats over $758 each we all have to pay. Man, Women and Child. Thanks NSW Labor. I am sure the people in the Country really wanted to pay the $758 from their taxes to fund this disastrous project.

I would call on all good members of the public to make your feelings known. The people in Pyrmont need your help, as do we all. It’s only through your input that we can look after those that need it. I haven’t even mentioned those in desperate need of better public transport in the Western suburbs of Sydney. These people need this better transport to seek and hold down employment. One of the great things about people in Sydney is looking after one another. We may need to have to a bit more because NSW Labor certainly isn’t.

Roll on the the next election and thanks to the writer and paper for being such a bastian for the community and person in the street.

David Hunt
Rozelle