The ability of people to safely access education, work and services is a fundamental human right. In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for councils to unreasonably limit access for people with disability or other protected characteristics.
WalkSydney has previously reported how City of Sydney Council has made some of the footpaths around Erskineville Station’s new accessible concourse and Erskineville Public school inaccessible. For example, how the narrow and overgrown western footpath on Bridge St now does not have space for two wheelchairs or prams to pass each other.
So it was surprising to see City of Sydney doing further footpath narrowing works on Bridge St earlier this year. They narrowed the eastern footpath from 2.3 metres to 1.4 metres, and dug up the remaining 0.9 metres to create garden beds.
More plants and trees are always welcome, but there is more than enough space for them in the 7.5-metre roadway. Kerb extensions with garden beds would have the extra advantage of calming traffic on this residential street next to a primary school.
Bridge St is a busy pedestrian route connecting the medium- and high-density residential areas of Erskineville and Alexandria with Erskineville Train Station, Erskineville Public School, and Erskineville Road shops and services. During school drop-off and pick-up times, the footpaths are already so crowded that many people choose to walk on roadway instead.
Development of the Ashmore Estate at the southern end of Bridge St will bring an additional 6,000 residents. Pedestrian traffic is set to grow significantly.
A 1.4-metre footpath is not wide enough for pedestrians to overtake each other or to walk side by side. It causes significant friction between pedestrian flows travelling in opposite directions. But making footpaths this narrow causes particular access difficulties for people who are blind, have low vision, or use a wheelchair or mobility aid.
For these reasons, Transport for NSW’s Walking Space Standard sets the minimum width for a local footpath at 2.0 – 2.3 metres. City of Sydney’s own Inclusive and Accessible Public Domain Guidelines stipulate a minimum footpath width of 1.8 metres.
In a breach of its own Community Engagement Guidelines, council staff did not consult the community before undertaking these works. They did not even seek approval from the elected Council. You can be sure they would have done so had it been the roadway they were narrowing.
When I spoke to the manager responsible, he stated there was no need for community consultation because this was “minor repaving work replacing hard paving with a mix of hard and soft paving”.
I asked him why he was narrowing footpaths when 6,000 more people were moving into the new Ashmore development at the southern end of the street. He wasn’t able to answer, and simply said that they would “monitor pedestrian traffic”. This wait-and-see approach to walking infrastructure provision contrasts with the road and intersection changes the council is making to allow for increased motor vehicle traffic from the Ashmore development.
In response to widespread community anger over the footpath narrowing, the Lord Mayor and council staff attended a site meeting with community representatives in August this year. They saw how the narrowed footpaths were forcing people to share the roadway with cars, trucks and SUVs being used to bring children to the school. (How many of those children would walk to school instead were the council to prioritise walking and safety instead of prioritising motor vehicle traffic?)
They agreed to investigate converting Bridge St into a 10 km/h shared zone and moving the school drop-off zone to reduce car traffic volumes – both of which may take years to implement. Transport for NSW often blocks applications for 10 km/h shared zones.
But, disappointingly, council staff refused to reinstate the footpaths to the minimum width required for two wheelchairs or prams to pass each other (only to create a couple of very short passing zones). They also advised they would not consult the community or disability groups over future footpath narrowing works in the City of Sydney area.
City of Sydney has some excellent strategies for walking, disability access and inclusion, and community engagement. The failure of staff to follow them is indicative of some serious systemic and leadership failings within the organisation.
Moreover, intentionally degrading access for people with disability is unlawful under Australia’s Disability Discrimination Act. It is for this reason that I have referred City of Sydney to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Dr Christopher Standen researches and teaches the health and equity impacts of the built environment and transport at the University of New South Wales.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of WalkSydney or its members.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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