WalkSydney

The cost of crossing the road is out of control

A $44 million plan. Five houses replaced by 29 new homes, six storeys, 15 months of legal argument. And in the end, the entire thing came down to 23 metres of footpath in Mosman.

Under the NSW Government’s Low and Mid-Rise housing reforms, you can build six storeys within 400 metres of a town centre. Between 401 and 800 metres, the limit drops to four storeys, and that can be the difference between a project that stacks up and one that doesn’t.

So, how far is Awaba Street from Spit Junction?

The developer said 383 metres, straight across Ourimbah Road. The Council said 423 metres, because a sensible person would walk 40 metres further to the traffic lights rather than cross four lanes carrying up to 1,000 vehicles an hour.

The Land and Environment Court agreed with the Council, finding people would “reasonably and practically” take the longer route. The appeal was dismissed, the developer paid $15,000 in costs, and 29 homes fell off the plan.

The 250 people nobody mentioned

The developer’s own evidence showed that about 250 people cross Ourimbah Road at that un-signalised spot every day.

The court has now decided that this isn’t what people reasonably do. The 250 people crossing there didn’t get the memo, and tomorrow morning they’ll cross there again, on a road the Council has just told a court is “inherently unsafe.”

The homes are gone. The dangerous crossing is still there.

The elephant on Ourimbah Road

Count who was in the room: a developer with a $44 million project, a council, a Land and Environment Court Commissioner, traffic engineers, planners, barristers, and 105 objectors. A Professor of Urban Planning weighed in afterwards, with a state housing target hovering overhead.

Nobody seems to have asked the obvious question: why don’t we just put a crossing there?

It isn’t a bridge, a tunnel, a motorway or a new Metro. It’s paint, a few poles, signs and a few lights.  We’ve been building them since at least the 1950’s.

Meet the Council: judge, jury and road owner

Ourimbah Road is a regional road, which makes the Council its roads authority. So the body that argued its road is too dangerous to cross is the body that could make it safe to cross.

The Council could have said, “Fund a zebra crossing or a signalised crossing and the site’s inside 400 metres.” Instead it said, “Our road is dangerous, so no homes,” and called that a “positive outcome.”

Everyone else

The developer commissioned traffic reports, filmed 250 people crossing and pulled a decade of crash data, all to argue the crossing was already fine. That’s a lot of effort spent defending a gap in the traffic when it could have gone into paying for a crossing.

The Commissioner can’t direct a roads authority ( the local council). But a judgment can say, “This whole outcome turns on a crossing that doesn’t exist.. So maybe put your heads together and come up with a solution.” That’s one sentence, and it’s free.

And the Professor? Her remedy is “site-based planning that takes into account the existing constraints.” The four-lane road is treated as a constraint, like a cliff or a river, rather than something with poles, lanterns and paint. .

Active transport planners: criminally underpaid

If the combined might of NSW planning and the local road authority treats a new crossing as unthinkable, designing one must rank alongside brain surgery, because its so complicated to cross a road!  Pay active transport planners like neurosurgeons. Include the helicopter.

Or maybe the truth is duller. Nobody in this system has the job of joining “this crossing is unsafe” to “so fix the crossing.” The court judged the case in front of it. The developer argued about the tape measure. The Council won the case and kept its road exactly as it was. No one was a winner here. Not even the Nimbies who still have to walk further .. to get to the other side. 

We have a housing crisis and a walking crisis, and in Mosman they met at a 40-metre detour. Nobody introduced them.

Next time 29 homes hang on 23 metres, can someone ring an active transport planner before calling the barristers? We’re cheaper, we’re handy with paint, and we promise to find a solution that kills two birds with one stone – homes and making it safe to cross for the same fee.