Campbelltown has two main exit routes heading towards Sydney.
Thu, 11. August 2011
Playing Bridge
One is the freeway, the other is a single carriageway road that leads from Glenfield across the Georges River and past the Holsworthy army barracks. When I first arrived in Campbelltown in 1976, it did not take me very long to work out that the Glenfield Avenue causeway was in desperate need of replacement. Here was a main traffic artery which was closed every time there was a decent rainstorm because the river flooded it (and that happened more frequently in those pre-drought days). I wrote to the local State Member at the time and was given the brush-off.
The causeway is an inadequate, narrow, submersible, dangerous slab of concrete with a winding approach on one side, which was a prescription for disaster in a city of 40,000 residents. We now have a population that has quadrupled since then - and it is still inadequate, still narrow, still submersible, still dangerous and it is still a prescription for disaster. To say the causeway is dangerously narrow is no understatement, as everyone who uses it would testify. The one sad death that did occur there can be directly attributable to the failure of local MPs to lobby over the last forty years for it's replacement with a bridge commensurate with it's status as a main arterial thoroughfare.
With heavy rainfalls, the road is closed, forcing commuter traffic onto an already choked freeway. It amazes me that no cars have been swept into the river during these floods, although years of drought may have have reduced the potential for this to happen. Has the drought also contributed to the lack of effort from local MPs to get the causeway replaced with a bridge? Does less flooding equate to less of a problem?
Campbelltown Council has always recognised the problem. Older residents will remember that Cambridge Avenue was once a very narrow road that zigzagged past the back fences of houses in Fergusson and Goodenough Streets, Glenfield. That winding road was dangerous in itself and the Council of the day had the foresight to close it off and replace it with a modern, open and straight road corridor that led directly from Canterbury Road to the causeway.
By rerouting the road, Council was making a statement that this was an important traffic exit route from Campbelltown and I thought at the time that it would just be a matter of time before the bridge was built – but that was thirty years ago. Campbelltown City Council cannot afford to spend thirty million dollars to build the bridge on it's own. The money must come from the State and/or Federal government. However, I would like to hear more of our councilors agitating for a new bridge.
We now have a population of 150,000 and it is up to our local representatives to lobby hard for this bridge and the closure of the causeway. Unfortunately, the local State Member, Dr McDonald twice brought the then Premier (Ms Kennealy) out to visit the new multi-storey car park at Glenfield Station apparently without taking her up the road to see the disgraceful causeway.
I tried writing to the local Federal Member, Mr Ferguson prior to the election last August, asking him: “Do you believe that the narrow, dangerous, outdated, strip of amphibian concrete known as the Glenfield causeway is of an acceptable safety standard to motorists in the twenty-first century; and if not, will you immediately pledge to replace it with a modern bridge during the term of the next Parliament?”
Maybe I was asking a bit much but his response was more disappointing than I hoped: “I certainly appreciate the problems with the maintenance of our roads and, in particular, the issue you raised about the Glenfield Causeway. However, I would be misleading you to give you a firm commitment at this stage that I could get it fixed.” Barely any recognition of the extent of the problem, let alone any commitment to make an attempt at fixing it – but who knows, maybe he will surprise us yet.
The Chronicle recognises the problem and has tried to give the issue some impetus but nothing ever changes. Forty years of successive State and Federal MPs failing to act and the current incumbents have yet to make any public acknowledgement of the issue, to the best of my knowledge. When it comes to vitally important infrastructure like this, maybe it just isn't sexy enough.