Webb Dock Rail Access -oops we need a new bridge!!!

[steam4me@enternet.com.au (Yuri J Sos/Melbourne AUS)]

In a classic "pigeons coming home to roost" scenario, the stuff-up
over the closure of the Webb Dock railway line is now coming home to
haunt those people laughingly called "planners".

As dear readers will remember, the Webb Dock railway line was closed
and that part between the Bolte Bridge and the rest of the rail system
torn up to make way for the AFL's Docklands Stadium and a Mirvac
land/apartment development on the south side of the river near the
Charles Grimes bridge.  The rail bridge over the Yarra, which was dual
gauge and had once had G classes rumble over it is being transformed
into a pedestrian bridge.

In the obscene rush to stick their snouts in the Docklands trough, the
politicians and developers ignored the need for a rail link to Webb
Dock (when I wrote letters to both the Premier and the Transport
Minister, I got standard patronising "dear boy, you don't understand
the big picture" type replies).

Now it appears that there is a plan to build a new railway bridge
across the Yarra beside and downstream from the Bolte Bridge to
connect Webb Dock to the rest of the system via Appleton Dock.  This
proposal also involves moving the mouth of the Moonee Ponds Creek.

Needless to say, the planners are ducking for cover, saying this is
what we planned all along.  The low level bridge would cut off the
Yarra to sailing ships beyond that point, one of the major reasons why
the Bolte bridge had to go so high.

Myopic planning and incompetence on a grand scale!

Read the article online in "The Age": entitled

"Yarra bridge plan outcry
               Planning and environmental groups are
               up in arms over a plan for a new rail
               bridge over the Yarra. FULL REPORT."

it's located at

http://www.theage.com.au/daily/990630/news/news2.html

Also, the CityLink claimed its first road victim yesterday when a
motorist drove over the Bolte bridge illegally then plunged into the
Burnley tunnel, fatally colliding with a Transurban FWD and a wall.

Regards

Yuri
-- 
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Yuri J Sos
Melbourne VIC AUS

Unless otherwise stated, all locations mentioned 
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