Sounds of silence a threat to life

COMMENT
Has Sydney gone mad in a frenzy of gentrification? Who are these people who cannot stand hearing the railway they moved in next to?

The Eastern Suburbs Railway, part of Sir John Bradfield’s transport plan, took 50 years to complete, finally opening in 1979 amid a flurry of legal action from Woollahra residents who prevented night work and stopped a station being built there.

If it had not been built, the traffic chaos in the City East would be unimaginable.

While its track is already well silenced so trains run quieter than they do on other lines, drivers have been tooting their horns in and out of the tunnels at Kings Cross and Edgecliff for the past 31 years. It is a fundamental safety measure that saves the lives of people and animals.

When residents of The Toaster moved in and started complaining about trains tooting at Circular Quay station, built in 1956, their attitude was ridiculed. The term NIMBY (not in my back yard) was frequently used.

But suddenly this regular background noise has become intolerable and lives must be put at risk to suit an intolerant few who believe the rest of the world should change to suit their sensitivities.

To seriously complain about guards’ whistles and warnings that the doors are closing, as some North Shore residents did, shows a self-centredness that is simply flabbergasting.

Paraphrasing Simon and Garfunkel, the sounds of silence might be written on the subway walls – but the writers might now be mangled by a train.

What I can’t understand is why those in power like Railcorp and Clover Moore pander to this?

Why this volatile sensitivity to the least tolerant people in the electorate?

Other things the community wants are ignored. Rushcutters Bay, the very place where some want the trains silenced, is up in arms over the amount of concrete Council is putting into the park, and over Council’s attempts to get rid of the area’s favourite tennis coach. Records of community consultation showed the largest bloc of opinion was to leave the place largely alone.

The same with the coming upgrade of Fitzroy Gardens in Kings Cross.

Clover Moore twice stonewalled a public gallery overflowing with angry residents protesting the removal of Rory Miles who has run the local tennis centre for 26 years, until legal complications with a tender put the issue on the backburner for months while Council tries to work out what to do.

No wonder locals have coined the term “Concrete Clover”.

And residents trying to stop the wide concrete path zig-zagging through Orphan School Creek, a supposed wilderness pocket in Forest Lodge, were broken up when  Police arrested one and had her tried.

Clearly, battle lines are drawn between an out-of-touch, despotic council and genuine, spontaneous residents’ groups upset about what is being done to their neighbourhood, and Clover Moore seems happy to blow support from whole suburbs of voters.

But if an elitist few want to put people at risk by stopping basic rail safety measures that have continued in the city for over 50 years, putting people at risk, Clover goes to battle for them.

Go figure.

by Michael Gormly