News & Discussion: Adelaide City Council

[Eurostar]

In my opinion the former RAH area would be a better spot for a new city aquatic centre/crows ground. It could be integrated with the botanic gardens. The current site should be reserved for an freeway interchange , use it as a park n ride for now with free bus service between park n ride and the city.

Please tell me you're joking?

No I am not joking. Our city ring route like many city ring routes around the world should be grade separated motorway not like the current ring route with its lots of traffic lights.

[Patrick_27]

In my opinion the former RAH area would be a better spot for a new city aquatic centre/crows ground. It could be integrated with the botanic gardens. The current site should be reserved for an freeway interchange , use it as a park n ride for now with free bus service between park n ride and the city.

Please tell me you're joking?

No I am not joking. Our city ring route like many city ring routes around the world should be grade separated motorway not like the current ring route with its lots of traffic lights.

Yes, but building a freeway/interchange on the parklands is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. You know, it might come as a surprise to some people on here but the parklands aren't just free parcels of land there to be built on at the government's leisure. Whilst I admit that they need more investment from both the ACC and state government, and there are certain public facilities that could be built on there to encourage their use the notion of building roadways above, through etc is absolutely ridiculous. And if I'm sounding like a NIMBY, so be it.

[bits]

Knock over the houses on the other side if you want an interchange or park n ride, they are less noteworthy than the park lands.

[Eurostar]

Please tell me you're joking?

No I am not joking. Our city ring route like many city ring routes around the world should be grade separated motorway not like the current ring route with its lots of traffic lights.

Yes, but building a freeway/interchange on the parklands is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. You know, it might come as a surprise to some people on here but the parklands aren't just free parcels of land there to be built on at the government's leisure. Whilst I admit that they need more investment from both the ACC and state government, and there are certain public facilities that could be built on there to encourage their use the notion of building roadways above, through etc is absolutely ridiculous. And if I'm sounding like a NIMBY, so be it.

Firstly a grade separated city ring motorway is what this city needs. And when I said a freeway/motorway interchange I don't mean some big monster one, I mean like the interchange we have in Gillman.

[NTRabbit]

Much more detail in the InDaily article just posted. Relevant tidbits that indicate final design is far from settled:

The plan wasn't supposed to be presented for another 3 months, but Anne Moran, Robert Simms, and the North Adelaide society types were able to force this presentation to happen early, without having received any of the guidelines from the council. That's why most of the renders are early stuff featuring old artwork, ie there's one or two that have Eddie Betts murals in them. I read elsewhere that the developers have been in overtime crunch for weeks to get it done on time after this early vote was forced. Moran was hoping to make the club and developers present a half baked plan that could be shot down early, but instead they presented most of a plan that was voted forward to continue to whatever the next phase is. First battle goes to the AFC, on to the next one.

[SBD]

No I am not joking. Our city ring route like many city ring routes around the world should be grade separated motorway not like the current ring route with its lots of traffic lights.

Yes, but building a freeway/interchange on the parklands is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. You know, it might come as a surprise to some people on here but the parklands aren't just free parcels of land there to be built on at the government's leisure. Whilst I admit that they need more investment from both the ACC and state government, and there are certain public facilities that could be built on there to encourage their use the notion of building roadways above, through etc is absolutely ridiculous. And if I'm sounding like a NIMBY, so be it.

Firstly a grade separated city ring motorway is what this city needs. And when I said a freeway/motorway interchange I don't mean some big monster one, I mean like the interchange we have in Gillman.

This is drifting away from the City Council thread topic, but why put a ring route so close in to the CBD? We think we're going to get the North-South Motorway within a decade, and an east-west link is then going to become imperative to link it to the SE Freeway. That's half of the ring route, it just needs a north-south link on the east side (eg Portrush Road) and east-west on the north (eg Grand Junction Road or the disused Northfield railway alignment). The northeast corner might be 12km from Victoria Square - that's less half the distance of the northeast corner of the Melbourne Ring Road to its city centre.

If we get the Globelink freeway, then we'd technically have a ring route once the Cross Road replacement was commissioned, but Truro and Monarto do seem to be a long way out for a ring route.

[Ho Really]

[...] to encourage their use the notion of building roadways above, through etc is absolutely ridiculous. [...]

No it's not funny! It is absurd.

Cheers

[Ben]

At tonight’s council meeting clr Moran moves the following three items:

Immediately decline the crows redevelopment bid even before the public consultation has ended

Immediately move to defer the central market arcade development to save $15m

Lobby the state government to move the supaloop to an alternative location such as tailem bend.

https://dmzweb.cityofadelaide.com.au/ag ... ouncil.pdf

[timtam20292]

What a stupid woman.

[Bob]

Don’t let Anne Moran get under your skin – she is for the most part irrelevant, not many people take her seriously.

Every so often she takes a contrarian view on key issues of the day to make sure her name appears regularly in the media, to ensure her profile is kept up.

I wouldn’t worry too much about her comments, always take with a grain of salt.

[Nathan]

From Cr Simms Facebook page:

CITY COUNCIL UPDATE
Last night at City Council, the Team Adelaide faction:

- opposed Anne Moran’s motion to stop the Crows’ unsolicited bid for the Parklands
- dumped Clr Moran from the Council Assessment Panel (after 25 years) and Clr Phil Martin from audit committee and the CEO assessment panel
- appointed the Deputy Lord Mayor to the Central Market Authority (another paid board appointment for him)
- opposed my motion for a City of Adelaide People’s Panel to give the community more input into Council
- effectively killed the East West Bikeway

To cap it off, the meeting didn’t finish until 1.30 am as a result of Team Adelaide’s monthly meeting regime. The new appointments were made just a month after they blocked my motion for a merit based appointment process.

Our community deserves so much better than this ugly factionalism.

Hopefully more detail to come later today (InDaily?) about what was discussed about the EW Bikeway. That they can't deliver it has been a massive failing of this council.

[Nathan]

East-west bikeway punctured as city councillors bicker
https://indaily.com.au/news/local/2020/ ... rs-bicker/

The Adelaide City Council’s plans for its long-overdue east-west bikeway have again stalled, as councillors demand more reports and voice concerns about a cycling corridor’s impact on council-owned car parks.

During an eight-hour Town Hall meeting last night, councillors aligned with the Team Adelaide majority faction and independent Jessy Khera voted to examine how a separated bikeway could “limit traffic flow along the three proposed east-west corridors and how they may affect the city’s U-Park revenue”.

They also requested that the council analyse the economic return of the Frome Street bikeway, how it has impacted real estate prices in the city and whether a bikeway along Grote and Wakefield streets could boost spending at the Central Market.

Opponents described the move as a delay tactic that would make building the east-west bikeway “impossible” to achieve by the June 2021 deadline.

Since 2016, the council has stalled on choosing a route for the $5 million State Government and council-funded east-west bikeway.

The former council endorsed Flinders and Franklin streets as the preferred route in 2017 – an option also favoured by the council’s transport planners – but that corridor has since been sidelined by current elected members aligned with Team Adelaide, who last night expressed support for building the bikeway along Grote and Wakefield streets.

Team Adelaide councillors rejected a motion put forward by non-Team Adelaide affiliate Helen Donovan that asked the council to progress with the Flinders-Franklin option “to ensure this (the bikeway) can be achieved within the timeframes declared by the bikeway funding deed”.

Area councillor Robert Simms said it was “very important” to focus attention on Flinders and Franklin streets as staff had “already indicated that they’re done a lot of work… behind the scenes”.

But Deputy Lord Mayor Alexander Hyde, who is part of Team Adelaide and who amended Donovan’s motion, said further analysis was needed to ensure the council made an informed decision about the location of its second separated cycling route.

"This is a series of barriers and hurdles that essentially blocks the progress of this and takes it out of any reasonable timeframe"

He said a bikeway along Grote and Wakefield streets would attract people who are “probably a bit of a hipster with a baguette sticking out of their basket” to the Central Market.

“I’m not trying to frustrate this, I’m trying to give you a way out of the woods because time and time again people don’t compromise in this place and when you don’t compromise you become so brittle that you can’t bend, you break,” he told the chamber.

“I can tell you now – Flinders-Franklin, nah uh.

“I’m rescuing it (the motion) for you.”

Hyde said the council needed to scrutinise how much car parking could be lost if it built an east-west bikeway after a report found building the route along Pirie and Waymouth streets could result in a $750,000 per year loss in parking revenue.

“What about the UParks that are bringing in a substantial wack of our commercial revenue, how is it going to affect that?” he asked.

Independent councillor Jessy Khera praised Hyde for raising “eminently sensible questions” that would “overcome the lack of political will to actually deliver a bikeway along Wakefield (street)”.

The council’s transport planners have previously said that a Grote-Wakefield bikeway would provide a “lower-level of service for bike riders than a bikeway along Flinders-Franklin”.

"The noose is tightening around the east-west as we speak and I am trying to give you a way out"

Donovan last night described Hyde’s move as making a “joke of the whole process”.

“This is a series of barriers and hurdles that essentially blocks the progress of this and takes it out of any reasonable timeframe,” she said.

“This is impossible to achieve.”

Simms added that he was “horrified” at the “shameful” and “utterly embarrassing” request to bring the east-west bikeway plan back to the drawing board.

“His excellency (Hyde) is continuing the quest for a Goldilocks bikeway – not too hot, not too cold.

“The reality is the perfect option doesn’t exist and he just doesn’t want to see the bikeway happen.”

But Hyde insisted he supported an east-west bikeway.

“Your extremism in pursuing the Flinders-Franklin option has made it so, so difficult to support you,” he told his opponents.

“The noose is tightening around the east-west as we speak and I am trying to give you a way out.

“If I wanted to kill this it would be dead already.”

Hyde’s amendment passed with the support of Khera, Franz Knoll, Arman Abrahimzadeh, Mary Couros and Simon Hou.

The amendment asked council staff to ensure that the east-west bikeway be delivered within the June 2021 deadline.

[Nathan]

Quotes from Cr Hyde confirm he's a Grade-A disingenuous arsehole.

He said a bikeway along Grote and Wakefield streets would attract people who are “probably a bit of a hipster with a baguette sticking out of their basket” to the Central Market.

“I’m not trying to frustrate this, I’m trying to give you a way out of the woods because time and time again people don’t compromise in this place and when you don’t compromise you become so brittle that you can’t bend, you break,” he told the chamber.

“I can tell you now – Flinders-Franklin, nah uh.

“I’m rescuing it (the motion) for you.”

“Your extremism in pursuing the Flinders-Franklin option has made it so, so difficult to support you,” he told his opponents.

“The noose is tightening around the east-west as we speak and I am trying to give you a way out.

“If I wanted to kill this it would be dead already.”

[SRW]

Quotes from Cr Hyde confirm he's a Grade-A disingenuous arsehole.

“I can tell you now – Flinders-Franklin, nah uh.

“If I wanted to kill this it would be dead already.”

FFS, and I thought Antic was bad. I know this is small-fry, but it is so indicative of the intellectual decline of the right. There's no coherent ideology any more, just juvenile power games to win some imagined culture war at any cost. Good, considered governance be damned.

[Norman]

Someone should get John Oliver's Last Week Tonight on the case, the amount of dillydally, stalling and time wasting is a disgrace. And it's all documented!