Anyone who has traveled from Redfern station to the University of Sydney is familiar with Lawson Street. The footpaths on Lawson Street are crowded, and the City of Sydney has a plan to widen them. Unfortunately, this involves removing mature trees and planting new trees in the parking lane. Local residents have started a petition to “Save the trees on Lawson Street, Redfern” at Change.org. The petitioners write:

In 2015 plans were made to remove trees from the footpath in Lawson Street, Redfern, to make way for human traffic from the train station. Since that time there has been extensive planning and the human traffic will be diverted to Little Eveleigh Street. There is no longer a good reason to remove these trees.

These trees are home to wildlife including birds and possums. The residents of the street are overwhelmingly in support of keeping them.

To our knowledge, they have not done a wildlife study and also have not consulted with residents or traditional owners.

We object to their removal. Let’s keep these beautiful paperbarks where they are.

While not all the human traffic will be diverted once the new entrance at Redfern station is opened, and the signs posted to the trees are not strictly correct about it being for a bikeway (which is to the east of this location, as shown in the picture above), and there should be a wider footpath, it should not come at the expense of existing mature trees if that can be avoided, and there are alternative designs, which would sacrifice either more parking or a movement lane for traffic (e.g. making Lawson Street a one-way pair for cars with Little Eveleigh Street/Ivy Lane), which the residents and their cars may or may not appreciate.

Update: The Trees have been saved: