Don’t cut our lifeline, plead travellers

About 100 residents met on Saturday in Elizabeth Bay and voted to stage a protest in Martin Place outside Channel 7’s Sunrise studios in a campaign to reverse cuts to the 311 bus route.

At stake is a loop through steep roads that are too narrow for new wheelchair-friendly buses which will soon replace the present smaller buses.

“They can’t have the loop because they can’t fit the disabled buses so there’ll be no transport for the disabled people down here!” said resident Jill MacKay to the crowd. “How bloody stupid!”

Speaker after speaker told the same story of having moved to the area and selling their car because they thought they could rely on public transport.

Scott Carlin, curator of Elizabeth Bay House which is on the loop, said visits had dropped since the red Explorer Bus had stopped using the route, and successive cuts to the 311 service had also hurt the Historic Houses Trust property.

Jana Masarova told how she had depended on the bus when her husband Stan suffered a stroke. “He was in St Vincents for four-and-a-half weeks and I used the bus to visit him every day with my son Martin who is only four.”

“Stan is the driver in the family so we still depend on the bus. It’s our lifeline,” she said.

Speakers at the rally included Sacha Blumen from 2011 Residents Association who organised the event, Crs Chris Harris and Irene Doutney, Jo Holder from Darlinghurst Residents Action Group and Adrian Bartels, president of the Kings Cross Partnership.

Six-year-old Josephine Richards who uses the 311 bus to get to and from Darlinghurst Public School had a clear message for the Transport Minister.

Resident Jill McKay noted that the introduction of wheelchair buses would cut out service to disabled people in Elizabeth Bay.