Newcastle Greens
18 November 2010
Labor’s Newcastle transport plan aims to fail, say Greens
The state Labor government’s recently released transport plan for the Newcastle city centre aims to fail, according to The Greens candidate for Newcastle, John Sutton.
“The government’s plan acknowledges that the proposals in it won’t achieve their own target for increasing public transport use in Newcastle,” Mr Sutton said.
“The Newcastle City Centre Transport Management and Accessibility Plan (TMAP) released this week along with the government’s scoping study for cutting the Newcastle rail line states that the initiatives outlined in the plan will achieve a peak period public transport mode share of only 15.7% by 2016 – a tiny increase on the current 14.1%, and well short of the 20% target set for 2016 in Labor’s own State Plan,” he said.
“This week’s Newcastle transport plan shows that the state government won’t even get close to its 2016 public transport target for the city a decade and a half later (by 2031), when it states that the peak period public transport share for Newcastle will reach only 16.5%.
“Labor’s Member for Newcastle, Jodi McKay, is still wasting precious time and public money pushing the discredited developer-led campaign to cut the Newcastle rail line, whilst she and this dysfunctional Labor government mouth empty clichés about a ‘rail based solution’”.
“This is worse than fiddling while the city burns,” Mr Sutton said.
“This whole sorry episode is now well on its way to becoming Newcastle’s version of Sydney’s Metro fiasco, which eventually cost taxpayers $500million to achieve nothing.
“It was Sydney Labor who preselected Ms McKay to represent Labor in Newcastle, and she has clearly learned what she knows about public transport from the same stable.
“Newcastle’s public transport system has gone backwards under Ms McKay’s watch, and Labor’s latest plan to cut the city’s rail line (which she initiated) will take Newcastle even further from the government’s own transport policy destination.
“Ms McKay and the state Labor government should cut their losses now, and ditch this hair-brained scheme to cut the city’s rail infrastructure and services, so Newcastle can get on with developing a credible rail-based revitalisation strategy that could attract much needed federal funding,” Mr Sutton said.
