No alternative to PT

["Peter Perkins" <peterp@tig.com.au>]

Title: Wins and losses in public transport campaign

By Jenny Long

SYDNEY - The campaign against the M5 East motorway and its
gigantic emissions stack planned for Turella has suffered a
setback with the loss of a Supreme Court appeal against a Land
and Environment Court decision that the motorway and stack could
go adespite significant changes to the plan after the
environmental impact study (EIS) was completed.

The M5 East EIS proposed three exhaust stacks from the
underground motorway which is to go through the Wolli Creek
valley. Because of the outcry, the proposal was changed to a
single 25-metre-high stack at Turella to disperse the toxic
emissions of the 66,000 cars expected to use the motorway each
day.

The Residents Against Polluting Stacks pointed out that not only
was there no consultation with residents over the change, but
that the single stack will concentrate the nitrogen oxides,
benzene and fine particles which can cause asthma, cancer, heart
disease and leukemia.

The fumes will be spewed into Marrickville, Earlwood, Turella and
Bardwell Park in Sydney's inner south-west. A report commissioned
by Canterbury Council urged that the stack be unequivocally
opposed as an unreasonable and unacceptable threat to community
health.

The motorway will also bring a lot more traffic into the area.
The Common Cause-No Aircraft Noise party estimates that truck
numbers will increase by 60% at the Tempe Cooks River bridge. The
motorway, it points out, is part of the expansion of Kingsford
Smith Airport.

The issue has caused division on Marrickville Council. In debate
around a motion from Common Cause councillors against the M5 East
and in favour of a new EIS for the motorway and the stack, Labor
councillors supported an EIS for the stack only and lodged a
motion to have the issue debated again at the July 19 council
meeting. The Common Cause motion was passed.

Labor councillors, led by Mayor Barry Cotter, will also attempt
to reverse the council's rejection of support for a second Sydney
airport at Badgerys Creek. Common Cause councillor Sylvia Hale
pointed out that a second airport at Badgerys Creek is
unacceptable as it has never been intended to replace Kingsford
Smith Airport and would only increase air traffic into Sydney.
Badgerys will be a disaster for people in western Sydney,
subjecting them 24-hour operations and noise above 70 decibels.

The campaign against the M5 East is continuing. A ``Stop the
Stack'' rally was held in Tempe on July 18 and on July 3, the
Transport Action Group Against Motorways (TAGAM) held a dinner to
raise funds for the campaign's broadsheet Hell on Wheels. The
dinner was especially memorable for the presence of a
chainsaw-wielding Godfrey Bigot, in the role of ``public
relations man'' for the Roads and Traffic Authority.
First posted on the Pegasus conference greenleft.news by
Green Left Weekly. Correspondence and hard copy subsciption
inquiries: glw@greenleft.org.au;
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