“East West Link”!“Comprehensive” Impact Statement!

Assessment Committee!Panel Hearings!

3 April 2014!!

Tony Smith!for!

313 Kororoit Institute!and!

1092 Moonee Ponds Creek Co-ordination Committee

Kororoit Institute will not make recommendations re particular findings re the CIS. Rather, we seek to provide some big picture context and leave it to the Assessment Committee to do what you are best equipped to do: decide how to frame recommendations with respect to your terms of reference which most effectively represent the problems inherent in the proposal.

I’d prefer I did not need to be here.!!

I’m a constructor by habit & inclination.!!

I’d rather talk about what we could do!than about what we must not do.!

!But the proposed project is so bad!it demands my negative attention.!

!It is a fantasy out of place & out of time.

Can I first acknowledge that I,!and most others here,!

are part of a 226 year occupation!of an ancient land that was!

long cared for sustainably by!humanity’s oldest living culture.

Dealings with issues in places west leave me frustrated with the inadequacy of the standard from of recognition of our original peoples.

This is not about me.!!

But it is necessarily informed by my lifetime!of active community involvement in the area.!

!Late last May becoming aware, then concerned,!

then rapidly horrified by what I learned of proposal.!!

Annoyed it has disrupted near half my retirement,!and feeling obligated to say exactly what I think.!

!But I will try to be more polite here than on Twitter.

While respecting the position of those who are, I'm far from eligible to claim to be directly affected, having only rented a few months in Mooltan Street many years ago and nowadays far away in Keilor Plains.

I’m here wearing two hats:!!

‣20 minutes in global hat of Kororoit Institute.!‣15 minutes in local hat of Moonee Ponds Creek.!

!§ !

A preliminary point about the Project Boundary.!!

Many problems of the project!are problems of the project boundary.!

!Ignoring it and thus them would be dereliction.

This view of the project boundary had to be stitched together from several MapBook pages in the absence of anything like what the Terms of Reference indicated would be the first map therein.

The project boundary and the project!are locked in circular interdependence.

Circularity demands that attempts to use one to underpin the other are flawed and should not be accepted as evidence.

The project and Plan Melbourne are!also locked in circular interdependence.

Circularity demands that attempts to use one to underpin the other are flawed and should not be accepted as evidence.

Suggested boundary limitation is not relevant!to our concerns here as Kororoit Institute.!

!We have restricted our response to!

inescapably unbounded questions of:!!

‣transport network connectivity degradation!!

‣under-costing of social amenity impacts

Kororoit Institute!!!!!!!!!!!

!

!Polydisciplinary gathering of !

academics and broader thinkers,!several with transport planning roles!

!all with shared interest in!

‣Complex Systems and Emergence!‣Organisation Knowledge Management!

!using theory to inform practice!

‣Putting Community Knowledge in Place

Kororoit Institute includes transport academics at The University of Melbourne and Monash University, mature PhD students crossing discipline boundaries for whom we provide advice and some other transport specialists. I'm secretary of the incorporated association which operates the Institute and a researcher.

Obvious?!Benefit?!

!Yes, there would be an obvious benefit to some friends & other individual drivers when using parts of proposal.!

!But that is not the same as the net overall benefit that proponent’s counsel bullied “experts” into conceding.!

!This is the heart of Braess’s Paradox.!

!In a network where individuals chose their own paths,

aggregate performance tends to be sub-optimal.

I'm not going to step back 40 years to math teaching here. A reference and more on Braess's Paradox is in our submission.

Connecting open end of one freeway!to middle of another (and another)!

is at best precarious & likely disastrous to capacity.!!

Local efficiency does not sum to global.!!

(adding my City of Brimbank Economic Development and Transport Advisory hat)!!

West does not gain from jobs commute to or from East.!Meeting in middle provides sufficient cross-fertilisation.!

West’s multicultural capabilities don’t need whitewashing.!!

Western region councils upsold on gold-plated Westlink.

I'm not speaking on behalf of Brimbank Council, nor their Economic Development and Transport Advisory Committee, just applying what I have learnt through that role. Somebody from Ringwood taking a job in Essendon Fields is no benefit to the west.

Everything of interest has its own history.!!

EW proposal both has and ignores history.!!

Its failed decision making is steeped in history.!!

Constraining to East-West was first misstep.!!

Subsequent decision making amplified error.!!

At every step the world said Wrong Way Go Back!but ill-founded political timing “imperatives”!

pushed on regardless.

Deeper background to Errington being inappropriately confined to East-West is in our submission, with references.

Section of the widely recognised 1969 VicRoads plan superimposed on a modern map. The Eastern Freeway was long proposed to continue into Alexandra Parade, but that continuation has been long and successfully resisted by Fitzroy and Collingwood locals and consequently deleted. Beyond that there was never a plan to continue beyond the then Tullamarine Freeway, nor to go near Royal Park. Rather, the 1969 plan implies demolishing The University of Melbourne's then Faculty of Engineering.

Ancient personal memories of escarpment!and baseball at Ross Straw Field.!

!Awareness wetlands admired!

but had left that area with trusted others.!!

On hearing of proposal last May,!it didn’t sound right, so decided to take a look.!

!Immediately noticed various other sensitivities.

My first photo tour of Royal Park West last May. There have been many more since.

Elderly Chinese Home Victoria with EVO Apartments under construction.

First round community information session at Hockey and Netball Centre with "Design to be finalised".

Elderly Chinese Home Victoria!!

First round of information sessions:!“Design to be finalised”!

!Neil Moreton, Melb Uni Baseball Club,!

reveals saga of EVO apartments.!!

Government finds $90m to go away.!!

1882 Royal Park Railway Cutting!teaching site for Geology for 120 years.!

!Every step says Wrong Way Go Back!

These were part of the first set of Wrong Way Go Back signals that I noticed, but have since learnt there were more than a few earlier and many more subsequently. The problem of the timetable-driven push-on-regardless approach is discussed further in our submission.

Geology teaching site for 120 years proposed to be destroyed by cut and cover.

All here would be disturbed by the tagging of this sign, but one side continue to promote much greater vandalism to Royal Park, an asset which can only be compared to Kings Park in Perth.

Amongst the first trickle!of documentation from!the proponent, buried in!an obscure appendix,!they laid bare their intent!to obliterate everything of!“potential environmental!sensitivity”.

The Friends of Royal Park Parkville logo included here to show White's Skink.

Proponent publishes map showing!area of environmental sensitivity!coincident with project boundary.!

!Melbourne Zoo, Zoo tram, Zoo train.!

!Higher ramp between sound tunnel!and Debneys Park flats it protects,!

directly above adventure playground.!!

Bent Street Apartments; ALT/Lombards.!!

Well practiced opposition at Yarra end.

We don't hear as much about the ALT Apartments on the Lombard site, but a viaduct is proposed to fly close to their windows.

Many didn't realise it wasn't still a disused warehouse, but the Bent Street Apartments are an excellent example of the urban renewal well underway south of Macaulay Road. They were just that fraction earlier in their cycle and rejected for the escape clause offered EVO owners. Row of gorgeous renovated terraces next door are proposed for compulsory acquisition.

Elliot Ave ramps fail traffic modelling,!so long feared Cox Plate exit!

dressed up as Ormond Road off ramp!with no corresponding on ramp.!

!Brand new Guide Dog Training Centre.!

!Cricket ground allocation knock ons.!

!SP AusNet West Melbourne Terminal.!

!No end of reasons to step back down!decision tree in quest of alternative.

Exit & entry from CityLink to Moonee Valley Racecourse has been long held local fear, mobilising people already activated by proposed over-development of racecourse. Talked to proponent at an early meeting about SPAusNet, who had met with MPCCC last April about their expansion, and was told proponent was working on it.

Guide dogs in training. Guide dog puppies. Royal Park Reds who have become collateral damage against all sound principles of sporting club tenancy management, the broader context of which was well covered by Alex Kahn. SP AusNet West Melbourne Terminal.

Where are?!!

PTV, VicTrack!!

Metro Trains!!

Yarra Trams!!

It’s a serious imbalance in planning & advocacy!when it is left to PTUA to promote public transport. !

!PTUA’s definitive role is to critique the finer details.

Yarra Trams managed to get their message through via the recent shut down of Mt Alexander Road for maintenance outside Essendon Depot and consequent demonstration of what the "Demon diagram" shows would happen continually in the south-eastern quarter of the City of Moonee Valley should this proposal proceed.

In my lifetime, Melbourne’s population has grown!from 1.23 million to 4.17 million.!

!So it is irresponsible not to face up to!

the simple extrapolation that it will pass 10 million!within what should be a minimum planning horizon.!

!While there will be some decentralisation,!

the core engine room will need to accommodate!maybe an extra 1.5 million daily workers/visitors.!

!Freeways and car parking can’t do those numbers.

Heavy rail must cater for at least 100% of increase.!!

City & suburbs served by effectively 4 track pairs.!!

Can add two by breaking Loop & one with Metro.!!

With technology improvements, might get away with!another ten track pair alignments thru expanded core.!

!Proposed road tunnel & viaducts will be in the way!

and need to be decommissioned quickly.

Plan to break out pair of Loop tunnels for through line is slated for final stage of PTV 25 year plan. Everybody interested in rail has their own variant priority list which we can't afford to go into here.

Unexamined alternatives!!

Transport Integration Act should have forced wider.!!

Minimal data shows peak delay at Nicholson Street.!!

Heidelberg Road always a source of problems.!!

Extend success of 401 & 402 to Clifton Hill lines.!!

Signalised use of existing ramps!versus shaving minutes for a few.!

!$8 billion represents $1,500 per Victorian.

Proponent provided data from 5-6 runs east & west at peak and inter-peak across Alexandra Avenue to Elliot Avenue route which indicated the only significant delays were approaching Nicholson Street from the east at morning peak and from the west at evening peak.

PM PEAK

AM PEAK

Traffic via Upper and Lower Heidelberg Roads on eastern side, St. Georges Road, High Street and Plenty Road more to the north and others in between is as much responsible for the Nicholson Street delays as true East-West traffic. Train lines offer opportunities to test low cost options to address North East traffic ahead of Doncaster Rail.

402 7 days!Footscray

401 Mon-Fri!North Melb

Very successful 401 shuttle bus from North Melbourne Railway to Royal Melbourne and Womens Hospitals and The University of Melbourne is complemented by the 402 bus which connects with all northern group train lines and will increasingly cater for regional rail users as the new lines bypass North Melbourne.

402 7 days!Footscray

401 Mon-Fri!North Melb

Vic Park

Jolimont

401 could be extended to Victoria Park Station, fitting well with Rob McGauran and others' ideas for a bus exchange there. Similarly 402 from St. Vincents past Mercy and Freemasons to Jolimont,

A moment to reflect before moving on.

Valuing Community Assets!!

‣Founding Strathmore Cricket Club!‣Building Strathmore Sports Club!

!Ground allocations for Cricket Association!so knock on to Royal Park Reds offensive.!

!Investment by community and councils!

vastly exceeds any notion of book value.!!

Return on investment timeless,!continuity of purpose & tradition priceless.

Debney's Park Playground between Sound Tunnel and flats.

Sound Tunnel and flats from Royal Park above Upfield line.

Flemington Community Centre.

Debneys Park Adventure Playground!!

Breaking down years of social isolation!!

CityLink-sponsored Clean Up Australia!Planting days around “Gateway” pond!

!Sound tunnel versus double glazing!

!Wider community sharing playground!

and Flemington Community Centre

Early emails from my niece, then close to graduating with a major in Urban Design and Planning from The University of Melbourne, and my long time friend Anna Lanigan, the "frog lady" who often calls in to Red Symons breakfast show.

Treatment pond.

Trin Warren Tam-boore wetlands!!

Community dividend/repayment!from 2006 Commonwealth Games.!

!Irrigation of parks and boulevards.!

!Premiere inner Melbourne site for birds.!

!Including treatment pond in!

Project Boundary adds insult to injury.

Choice is “pretty confident most veterinarians won’t try to sell you something you don’t need”.

Unrelated quote from Choice provided excuse for needed comedic distraction and it really has seemed we were being sold an expensive inverted bridge by a vet.

When this proposal is abandoned, as it must be,!it will at least leave one link previously inconceivable.

Proponent has already achieved a long unthinkable East-West Link between Collingwood and Essendon via Twitter and should quit while they are ahead.

Opportunities for true compensation!!

By the time of CityLink we understood downside!of concreting creek alongside freeway construction.!

!Failed to use opportunity for affordable rectification.!

!

Repeat?!!

Before looking at another overlooked wildcard,!should revisit Sophie Sturup’s analysis of this mess.

Naturalistic repurposing of concreted creek should have been tackled during CityLink construction, but was not written into the contract. It is appropriate to bundle all on-ground works into construction contract, but agree with Bonnie Rosen that redressing social impacts should be responsibility of parties with more relevant capabilities.

(T)hese projects rest on the fact that someone with the authority to do so has declared that they will be done. Thus the legitimacy of the project is directly linked to the people who said it would happen. (…) (E)veryone operating in the project (…) cannot question the project's legitimacy (…) without removing their ability to operate in the project (…) !Mega projects do not come about as a result of identification of a problem, and then the application of a solution. The process of creating a mega project includes the problem and solution being jointly conceived. This happens as the stories or rationales for the project, and what can be conceived as being done jointly emerge (…)

Hearing Sophie Sturup at an RMIT forum relieved me of any need to separately explore the socio-political reasons why such a bad "MegaProject" could retain traction. Her notes for her recent address to Carlton Residents Association are provided with her permission and her note that they are not yet part of a peer reviewed article.

Alienation of sections of Royal Park is nothing new.!!!

CSL touted manufacturing success $30+B valuation.!Good fit for Sunshine medical-educational precinct?

Commonwealth Serum Laboratories was a worthy excision which has complemented development of the Parkville medical and educational precinct, now clearly successful enough to leave the nest and fly freely.

CSL Limited overshadows sedimentation pond on Royal Park Creek aka Main Drain.

Taking the Transport Integration Act seriously.

CSL and a neighbouring facility could be ripe for relocation to, respectively, the Sunshine North health and education precinct and amongst a cluster of similarly secure facilities further west.

Taking the Transport Integration Act seriously.

CSL and a neighbouring facility could be ripe for relocation to, respectively, the Sunshine North health and education precinct and amongst a cluster of similarly secure facilities further west.

Where are?!!

Victorian Baseball Association!!

Zoos Victoria!!

Melbourne Water!who are the responsible authority!for 4 Km of Moonee Ponds Creek!

from Victoria Street to Dynon Road

Slide 24 and this do not attempt to list more than a sample of those conspicuous by their absence from these hearings. Having watched baseball at Ross Straw Field almost 50 years ago when it was the only purpose-built field in Melbourne, the Baseball Association's neglect of its own heritage particularly offends.

In global summary !!

‣No obvious/demonstrated net benefit even before construction, social, environmental & preliminary costs!

‣Social costs run far beyond economic measure!!

§!!

Having shown proposal and proponent unfit for!new century/millennium by Kororoit standards.!

!Now switching to local hat for!

Moonee Ponds Creek Co-ordination Committee.

Kororoit Institute only asks the Committee to take on board these two key points when framing your response. They are compounded by the proponent's failure to take seriously the opportunities and obligations of the Transport Integration Act. We further recommend that you take the opportunity this first exposure of the revised Major Projects Facilitation Act provides to separately consider and report on its operation and appropriateness, especially its contribution to the perceived rush to poor judgement at every stage of proposal development and the trashing of historic expectations with respect to planning reservations.

City of!Melbourne

City of!Moreland

City of!Moonee!Valley

City of HumeMelbourne

Airport

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Moonee Ponds Creek and environs

Putting Moonee Ponds Creek at the centre, stripped of tributaries save the Yuroke; its position with respect to Maribyrnong, Yarra and Merri; rail, freeway and intervening major transport incursions; and waterways' role as boundary markers between municipalities. MPCCC was constituted by the four municipal councils covering the catchment and the Friends of Moonee Ponds Creek who you will hear from separately next week.

City of!Melbourne

City of!Moreland

City of!Moonee!Valley

City of HumeMelbourne

Airport

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Moonee Ponds Creek and environs

Exploring Possibilities Jacana Wetlands

Jacana Wetlands, shown at the time of recent Western Ring Road widening, illustrate what Melbourne Water can do at its best to restore natural functions and values to disturbed waterways.

City of!Melbourne

City of!Moreland

City of!Moonee!Valley

City of Hume

Land Management

Fragmentation

Vanberg Road Trail Gap

Old quarries & toxic

dumpMelbourne Airport

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Moonee Ponds Creek and environs

Exploring Possibilities Jacana Wetlands

Moonee Ponds Creek challenging issues

East West Link

MPCCC strives to respond to major issues and minor.

Nobody is talking about restoring!Moonee Ponds Creek to its natural state.!

!In the 1960s few knew better than to concrete.!

!But by the time CityLink was built, it was crazy!

not to attempt better while heavy equipment there.!!

If this project were to go ahead, we fear that failure!will be repeated without explicit contract inclusions.!

!And without a role for community in monitoring.

A view from the Melbourne Star Observation Wheel. Relative to the cellular phone tower at centre left, the Guide Dogs centre is immediately left of the foot of the tower and, due to parallax, the Bent Street Apartments appear to be just left of the top of the tower. This is a useful angle to envisage the proposed Part B running parallel to CityLink on the left and its overshadowing of Moonee Ponds Creek and the adventure playground between Flemington estate and CityLink. The flat open green area in the distance appearing level with the top of the flats is Moonee Valley Racecourse.

Main objective for creek corridor is amenity.!!

Hydrological capacity matters < 0.1% of year.!!

Allowing poor water quality to stay unchallenged!impacts lower Yarra and Port Phillip Bay.!

!Creeks once only seen as future freeways!

now likely used for bicycle and walking trails.!!

Connecting sporting venues and parklands.

Creek corridor can provide public health benefits.!!

Community education re waste water, environment.!!

Point of contact with the natural world, constrained.!!

Scope for interpretive history, especially re transport.!!

For Friends, a sense of personal ownership and care.!!

Creek could even become a nicer place to be.

1869 John Noone photograph from the tower of Dr Fitzgerald's residence in Lonsdale Street looking north west, with William

Street in foreground and “West Melbourne swamp” in distance. Melbourne Star observation wheel is inside near edge of Lagoon.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/167598778?versionId=182666414 No copyright restrictions apply. One would not call Lake Hindmarsh, Lake Albacutya, or even Lake Eyre a swamp. Had such a lagoon survived it would be seen today as a great asset to inner Melbourne.

1969 John Noone photograph from the tower of Dr Fitzgerald's residence in Lonsdale Street looking north west, with William

Street in foreground and “West Melbourne swamp” in distance. Melbourne Star observation wheel is inside near edge of Lagoon.

1860 1883(left): http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/2912 Section of 1860 Geological Survey held in University of Melbourne Library digital repository. Open access. (right): http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/2913 Section of 1885 New plan of Melbourne and suburbs also held in University of Melbourne Library digital repository. Open access. Change of description from lagoon to swamp reflects changing views as to what the growing Melbourne might (ab)use it for. Demonisation of natural systems in quest of industrial/transport development.

1901http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/17392 Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works Plan No. 52 Melbourne, Essendon, Brunswick and Flemington & Kensington also held in University of Melbourne Library digital repository. Open access. Acknowledged in conversation with the proponent that we could not restore even this section of Moonee Ponds Creek from Royal Park Main Drain to Ormond Road for the whole of the project's $8 billion.

The kilometre of narrow squared concrete channel which divides the cities of Moonee Valley and Melbourne is particularly unhelpful to fish and bird travel. Gold plating does not help here.

“Lets see, I reckon put like walls down here that kids are allowed to graffiti. There’s not a whole lot of other places. Like there’s a few places in the city. Kids have to go all the way into the city. Most of the time when kids go into

the city, older people like try and steal their stuff, like that.”

Placeholder for 35 second video grab not intended for wider viewing, with transcript of unidentified interviewee. The scooter riders are jumping between the cities of Melbourne and Moonee Valley because they can.

How to strike a balance between retaining dystopian aspects where such kids take control (of their own lives),

separating commuter and recreational trail traffic, treatment wetlands on significant tributary drains?!

!It it isn’t in the contract this time it won’t happen soon.!

!Even the Office of Living Victoria (ab)uses Moonee Ponds

Creek as a boundary between its Central, Northern and Western regions, mirroring municipal no go areas.

Let me wrap up by redressing yet another error foisted on the Assessment Committee by the Proponents’ supposed experts:!

!Cleaned water from Trin Warren Tam-boore wetlands does flow via the continuation of Royal Park Main Drain into the Moonee Ponds Creek and thus into the Yarra and the Bay.!

!Improving water quality entering streams and the Bay are key strategies set out in state Government's Healthy Waterways!Strategy and the Victorian Waterway Management Strategy.

If ongoing errors of judgement!were to allow this fatally flawed!

project proposal to proceed past planning,!it would be essential that!

a resourced and reconstituted!Moonee Ponds Creek Co-ordination Committee!

have a strong oversight role,!under younger leadership.

MPCCC requests that the Assessment Committee recommends that if the project proceeds that a balanced program of storm water treatment, bank and bed renaturalisation, trail and public amenity enhancement and retention of modern historic representations of dystopian concrete, be mandated in the contract with respect to the Moonee Ponds Creek corridor, together with an ongoing role for the community of interest in developing the detailed design and ongoing monitoring.