Wellington Street
WITH blackspot funding sought on a record of five casualty accidents and 13 property accidents for a five year period to June 30, 2015, on the stretch of Wellington Street proposed for a change from two lanes to one lane, it would be interesting to have the accident statistics and severity for the Southern Outlet between Howick Street and Youngtown.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
While I am advised that the changes in Wellington Street are part of a package of measures to discourage the use of Wellington Street and Hobart Road, and promote the use of the Southern Outlet as the route to Youngtown, I wonder whether council has looked at the possible negative consequences of such a move, ie encouraging local traffic onto a busy highway and thereby exposing them to many more heavy vehicles and fast moving traffic, as well as bypassing the Kings Meadows shopping centre.
While I accept that any crashes or injuries are too many, I am sure there are many busy streets and roads in the Launceston area that have a far greater crash record that have not been signalled for Black Spot funding.
Rosemary Armitage MLC, Launceston.
River deterioration
THE South Esk River at Perth has been deteriorating for 30 years under the watch of the now Northern Midlands Council.
Staff within councils works department who refuse to accept the damage willows cause to waterways goes a long way towards this deterioration combined with the stormwater that council allows to flow unpiped into the river causing massive erosion of the riverbanks with some of the silt ultimately finishing in the Tamar River.
These two issues need urgent attention to help arrest the deterioration of both the South Esk and Tamar Rivers.
John Stagg, Perth.
Gorge
ROBIN Frith (The Examiner, April 13) expressed concern as to the effect of extra flow through the Cataract Gorge. I am fully in favour of the proposal for a number of reasons but I share Mr Frith’s caution as to our expectations.
Firstly on turbidity, a flow of 18 cumecs is sufficient to fill the yacht basin with clear freshwater and turbidity will be reduced. Elsewhere, turbidity will be unchanged unless flows exceed that amount. Turbidity is a natural feature of long estuaries including the Tamar and is not necessarily an indication of poor health, or excessive quantities of silt entering the system.
Secondly on silt distribution, whether raked or not, the net effect of this proposal will be the transfer of silt from the yacht basin to the Tailrace. With flows varying from less than 10 cumecs in dry periods to hundreds of cumecs during floods, the amount of silt in the yacht basin will vary with the flow, just as it did pre Trevallyn Dam.
Mr Frith asks, ``Will increased flows down the Gorge do anything more than just take it a little further down river before it returns next summer?’’ The answer is no, silt will travel no further than it does under the present flow regime.
Ian Kidd, West Launceston.
Refugees
REFUGEES that come by boat are the risk takers that we need to start up the businesses of tomorrow. If they were allowed to settle in Australia, their children would be better at school than most Anglo-Celtic Australians. Future governments would also not have to pay compensation for locking them up in off-shore prisons.
Leon Cooper, St Leonards.
Energy
WHY does Senator Nick McKim insist on sounding silly by grabbing meaningless numbers out of the air? His latest claim that the emissions from the state's diesel generators is equivalent to 156,000 extra cars on the road is clearly nonsense. The total power output of the proposed 200 generators equates to the combined power output of roughly 2000 cars only.
R. Johnston, Riverside.
Politics
THE blame game in politics is never-ending. Liberals are blamed for total mismanagement of our power, so Peter Gutwein responds with blaming Labor for selling water to Victoria.
The point that is always conveniently ignored is that mismanagement is continuous in Tasmanian politics - we bounce from one disaster or idiotic decision to another. If no one party is better or worse than another, then it must be our system that is at fault. Our politicians seem to need someone, other than the general public, to advise them if their decisions are totally mind-numbingly stupid.
The latest example, of ordering the sale of the only alternative power source when we had a water crisis , takes the cake - but is an entirely typical type of decision considering the level of intelligence that has reigned in Tasmanian politics for so long.
Jo McRae, Lenah Valley.
whyalla Steelworks
THE Whyalla steelworks problems are not unique to Australia. Steelworks are in decline in many advanced and emerging countries. The Port Talbot steelworks in Wales is also in crisis, burdened by the same problems as Whyalla - high costs, the world economic downturn and and competition from Chinese steelworks.
However, Port Talbot has another cross to bear. Ed Millibands 2008 Climate Change Act and EU charters create another tax burden to industry. Will Bill Shorten rule out introducing another cost layer to Australia's steel industry by introducing a carbon emissions tax, or will he let another industry slide into history?
Ray Ironside, Prospect.
Newstart
HOW about we stop picking on the unemployed. The pittance paid to singles and couples on Newstart is such an incentive, along with the harassment and forced slave labour called Work for the Dole, for people to want to stay on it instead of working. I don’t think so.
How about we start picking on families on decent incomes who still get taxpayer money, the business people who write off all their taxable income, the tradies who run their business in the red or the people with multiple investment properties. Shall I go on? The jobs simply don’t exist, so give unemployed people a break.