Advertisement

Your views: on urban infill, carbon neutrality and saving The Overland

Today, readers comment on new homes squeezing onto old residential blocks, ACC’s carbon neutral goals, and the threatened Adelaide to Melbourne train.

Mar 10, 2020, updated Mar 10, 2020
Photo: supplied

Photo: supplied

Commenting on the opinion piece: Adelaide’s suburbs must adapt to change – or we’ll end up in poignant stasis

Just because something is a phenomenon everywhere does not necessarily make it worth emulating.

The absolute degradation of traditional Australian housing in Sydney and Melbourne is not a demand of the standard Australian citizen, it is instead a byproduct of a over-inflated property market and a policy of needless mass immigration. Both of which greedy developers push for. 

I for one take umbrage at Lennon’s belief that if one wants a house and garden they can simply have it, when you have a Property Council working explicitly against that.

Pricing the worker out of a home and garden is exactly what immigration boosted urban infill aims to do, and it helps line the modern day mercenaries of the property industry on the way. 

The underlying issue is not about our capacity to adapt but instead about why we are being forced to adapt in the first place. 

Think Big Yellow Taxi: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone … they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot”. 

As Mr Lennon is someone of older age, I would implore him to leave to the younger generation a standard of living better than his own, rather than a capitalist version of the Soviet flat. – Rob Pitt

I live in one of the 72 suburbs earmarked.

There was a recent community meeting at Black Forest where over 100 community members attended. We were all updated and raised concerns and opposition (true consultation). 

Black Forest is a beautiful tree friendly area. Wake up to kookaburras and lorikeets.

We have had three density houses built on one block and we all know which one it is. Revolting. No trees. Takes up street parking. This is a very family friendly area. I hear children playing in yards.  The trees add shade in summer (we add oxygen to our seriously polluted planet).

Yes we are an ageing population, I am one. 

I plan to leave the family home to my child and family which is what I believe most parents do? 

I have written to the Department inviting the Minister or representative to my home, cup of tea and a walk through the suburb. No reply, only the stock standard ‘thank you for your email.’ 

This ‘rush’ with a slight delay? Which I don’t believe for a moment will stop the current push to get their standards across unless we as a community/communities stand up and continue to oppose ‘environmentally unfriendly’ planning.  

The majority of people buying apartments are investors.  It would be interesting to research this. 

No to density building. Build homes, let children and pets breathe and play. Give our wildlife space to live and bring us joy.

Apology if I’m ranting, but I love Black Forest.

The families and their pets, the wildlife which is superb.  Help us stand against the state government on this. – Paolo Mason

Commenting on the story: City council gives up carbon neutral leadership goal

If Adelaide has fallen behind in the race to become one of the world’s first carbon neutral cities, at least we seem to have diligent progress reporting of this.

Proper and open quantification of the situation offers a real foundation for consideration of solutions, and their sufficiency.

Nationally, transport emissions have been rising steadily. Clearly, Adelaide City Council isn’t the level of government to be held accountable for that, or structural policy failures in this area, though it is important that it plays its part.

Adelaide‘s ‘carbon neutral’ difficulties illustrates that local governments and others concerned about sluggish responses to the climate crisis will need to advocate faster national and State-led decarbonisation of transport.

This should include the conversion of all government fleets (local, State and national) to electric vehicles. Jim Allen

Commenting on the opinion piece: How to save The Overland – for the long-term

Of course the Overland should be saved and enhanced into a viable operation.

One doesn’t abandon driving when your car reaches retirement age — you invest in a new vehicle and drive on maintained highways.

That’s what the Overland needs, some solid investment in new rolling stock and a world class thoroughfare supported by the marketing of the advantages rail travel brings; fewer emissions, less congestion, a safer journey, and access to appealing stops along the way – the Grampians, Western district wineries, historic features of locations such as Ballarat and serving the interests of regional Australia.

Don’t be spooked by the bottom line of today — think longer term with imagination and the rewards will flow. Bob Herbert

Great story, and regarding saving the Overland, the people who operate it have no idea how to even promote the current system.

For years I have been getting regular emails promoting it to me, but I’m already a believer, and was a user until 1) they pulled out of motor car carriage, and 2) they made the timetable so ineffective.

They have been and still are unable to understand that they need to, must, inform the community that don’t even know the train and transport opportunity exists. Jim Scammell

The Overland is a way of making city to city travel not only comfortable and cost effective but also more eco-friendly than flying.

I envisage train travel making Adelaide a city where people can live in a pretty and pleasant, smaller city while working in Melbourne, just as is done in Europe. Train is essential for this purpose.

However, the online booking system also needs revamping to ensure it is easy to book tickets. At present my experience has been that the Overland doesn’t want passengers, they make booking so difficult.

As part of the entrepreneurial upgrade proposed, plan a web upgrade. The complete package would be a boon for business, tourism and students. Ruth Rentschler

First the Overland has to be retrieved from Great Southern, which never wanted it in the first place: that was the booby prize when it got Indian Pacific and Ghan to convert to cruise ships on rails.

It has done its worst to eliminate the train, with a useless timetable and down to two trains per week each way, none of which connects with its other trains. It has also allowed much of the stock to go derelict.

Getting a faster train is achievable, but is it worth the investment?

If speed has to be achieved by skipping intermediate stops, a parallel bus is needed anyhow.

NSW could speed up by going to tilting trains, and isn’t (under a Liberal  government, just like SA).

Neither Sydney-Melbourne nor Sydney-Brisbane gets a 100 km/h average speed, so Melbourne-Adelaide hardly warrants the investment to outdo those two.

Tilting confers benefits between Adelaide and Murray Bridge, but not for the rest of the journey.

Talgo trains have a strange riding quality. They need good track: something which Australian managements are incapable of delivering.

The problem is getting ARTC to agree to a faster path.

I think that the Overland is doomed: it does nothing useful.

For much less investment, bring it back to VLine, with two sets providing three trips per day between Melbourne and Horsham, with the morning and midday from Melbourne connecting with buses through to Adelaide, and morning and midday buses from Adelaide connecting through to Melbourne.

That is how Melbourne-south-coast NSW works (changing at Bairnsdale); that is how Melbourne-Canberra works (changing at Wodonga or Albury); that is how Adelaide-Sydney works (changing at Albury).

It would be nice to run an overnight train for football season, but too tricky to rejig the bread and butter rolling stock, and matches are no longer exclusively Saturday afternoons.

QR and ARTC are doing their worst to kill Sydney-Brisbane, cities which are bigger than Melbourne-Adelaide. – Roderick Smith

Want to comment?

Send us an email, making it clear which story you’re commenting on and including your full name (required for publication) and phone number (only for verification purposes). Please put “Reader views” in the subject.

We’ll publish the best comments in a regular “Reader Views” post. Your comments can be brief, or we can accept up to 350 words, or thereabouts.

Local News Matters
Advertisement
Copyright © 2024 InDaily.
All rights reserved.