Council plans deemed unsafe for children
The City of Sydney Council is likely to pass the latest Kent St cycleway and student drop-off plans despite safety concerns.
After 16 months of negotiation, the Council could spend $1 million on measures for ensuring the safe arrival of children to St Andrews Cathedral School in the CBD.
The new plans, devised by architects and designers from the school and the Council, involve the removal of a 24-metre-long section of footpath on Kent St to construct a median strip between the road and the cycleway.
The median strip is to enable the safe passage of children who are dropped off by their parents during rush hour on the eastern side of Kent St.
While the Lord Mayor Clover Moore backs the new plans, Greens Councillor Chris Harris said the addition of a median strip does not provide a safer solution for students who must compete with bikes travelling down the cycleway at a rate of one every nine seconds.
“Sure there might be coloured jackets and all that jazz, but you know what 10-year-old kids are like. Eventually somebody is going to get hit,” Cr Harris said.
Instead, Cr Harris suggested parents drop children off on the west side of Kent St and set up a “walking school bus” where school staff or volunteers assist children at the signalised intersection.
“It’s actually much safer to have [the children] cross on the west side because they’re not in conflict with the bikes.”
However, the school’s headmaster, Dr John Collier, said cars that manoeuvre between traffic often block the intersection of Kent and Bathurst Streets, posing a risk for children as young as four trying to get to school.
”Our observation indicates many cars run the red and it’s very unsafe to ask kids to negotiate that kind of traffic,” he said.
Cr Harris agrees that the intersection of Kent and Bathurst Streets is dysfunctional but said the solution should not compromise the bike path.
“The solution is for the police to conduct a blitz on driver behaviour around 8.30am – that would be effective.”
The revised plan, which will be voted on Monday, February 20, is supported by the Inner City Regional Council for Social Development and Bicycle NSW who said safety is paramount during the design process.
When asked about the reduced footpath size and loss of an additional disabled parking space for the median strip, a spokesperson for the Council said: “The safety of children is something we take very seriously.”
“We acknowledge you can’t please everyone all the time but are confident this solution will work for the overwhelming majority.”
Councillor Irene Doutney said at the age of eight or nine she took herself to school and crossed busy streets alone.
‘We’re not helping children become self-sufficient and to learn how to cope in a busy city on their own,” she said.
By Kristie Beattie
