REFORMS NEEDED TO STOP DISABILITY PARKING RORTS

REFORMS NEEDED TO STOP DISABILITY PARKING RORTS & INCREASE SPENDING ON INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE DISABLED

'You're being watched' was the warning - but not enough action has been taken to stop the abuse of the parking permits for disabled parking.

In response to growing concern and anger over the evident rorting of the disability parking concession system, Liberal City of Sydney Councillor Shayne Mallard has proposed an overhaul of the permit system to include tighter parking controls, higher fines for abuse of the system and more accessible taxi and community transport schemes.

Councillor Mallard's goal is to restore the community's faith in the disability parking scheme, protect genuine beneficiaries of the system and to recover potential lost parking fee revenue which should be channelled to much needed improved CBD disability amenities and infrastructure such as street ramps and stairway lifts.

"The State government and City must overhaul its parking permit regulations, they are failing all concerned including workers and visitors who are forced to compete for fewer spots, the Council is losing revenue and people with disabilities are no better off with the abuse of their system." said Clr Mallard.

Councillor Mallard proposed not only an increase of penalties but a cap on the unlimited time parking feature of disabled permits ; "instead of unlimited time at a meter of restricted parking space, it should be capped to a maximum time of four hours free parking. Most carers and people with disabilities should be able to attend to their business within that time frame."

Councillor Mallard pointed out that a subsidised taxi fare scheme is available to most people with disabilities. "Perhaps the subsidy for taxi fares or a new Council operated community transport scheme needs to be looked into," Mallard suggested.

Shayne Mallard acknowledged the potential loss of revenue for the Council by people abusing the parking privileges. "It certainly suggests that possibly many thousands or even millions of dollars are being lost here as well as the equitable rotation and sharing of parking spaces in support of businesses."

If implemented Shayne Mallard proposes that the parking meter revenue recovered should be channelled into further infrastructure and services for the disabled . "The City has a long way to go in providing safe level pedestrian paths and corner ramps suitable for people with disabilities. The revenue could be earmarked for improvements to disability infrastructure in the City and not just disappear into general Council revenues."

"If as suggested up to 50% of parking spots are taken up by cars with apparent abused disabled stickers then the RTA needs to be more diligent in handing out such free passes as well."

Councillor Mallard emphasised that any urgent reform to the system must be undertaken in full consultation with disability groups and other stakeholders including carers and the medical profession.

"A 'blitz' on abuse may help, but in the longer term there are some simple changes we can make to reach a fairer system for all concerned , particularly those with a real need for disability parking and importantly restore community confidence in the scheme," Mallard concluded.

Councillor Shayne Mallard

Warning, you're being watched
By Matthew Moore
January 31, 2006

TAKE a walk through any street in Sydney where there are parking meters and you can expect to find more than 50 per cent of cars with mobility stickers stuck to their windscreens.
The stickers allow all-day free parking in disabled spaces, as well as any metered area where parking for an hour or more is permitted. Of course, they are only supposed to be used when transporting a person with a disability.

The Herald was flooded with complaints of able-bodied people abusing the scheme after an article was published on Saturday highlighting the problem on one city block in Kent Street.
In the same block, between Market and King streets, it was business as usual yesterday with 15 out of 33 cars displaying the mobility parking tags and avoiding the need to pay.
The manager of one building in the street, who has asked not to be named, said he had noticed a steady increase in the number of cars using the stickers in recent years.
"They are mainly professional people. They are rorting this scheme for the handicapped and depriving the ratepayers of hard-to-get revenue," he said.
"They come in the morning and they don't move all day. It leaves a sour taste in your mouth to see people exploiting the system."
Further up Kent Street in the block north of Margaret Street, nine out of 14 cars were using the stickers at midday.
Around the corner in Napoleon Street, nine out of 19 cars had the park-anywhere-for-free stickers, including a Mitsubishi with a new permit that lasts until 2009.
If the City of Sydney Council is worried about loss of revenue resulting from the scheme's abuse, it is not saying. It made $16.5 million from its parking meters last year by charging $4.40 an hour during business hours, but a council spokesman, Josh Mackenzie, declined to estimate how much revenue might be forgone each day.
One reader, Gordon Pelletier of Cremorne, said: "Go to Paddy's Market, particularly on a Saturday after 7am, to see street after street packed with cars showing disabled stickers. Most of the drivers appear to be able-bodied vendors at the markets who rely on their disabled stickers to park all day for free while they make money selling at the markets."
Ian Muir, of Lavender Bay, said: "On any given weekday in business hours, up to half the cars parked here have disability permits to the point where genuine locals and their visitors are being denied parking."
Roads in Bondi, Chatswood, Ultimo, Haberfield and any street near a university were also nominated by readers as areas in which the scheme's systemic abuse was obvious.
But despite the anger, there is no agreement on how the abuse might be reduced. John Moxon, the vice-president of the Physical Disability Council of NSW, said the Roads and Traffic Authority had invited his group to a forum on the scheme when the Herald began making inquiries about it.
Mr Moxon said that while he was concerned about the scheme's abuse, he thought the only way to reduce it would be to carry out an occasional blitz that caught out people misusing the disabled-parking tags.

Fish ban will damage our international image

The State government has announced that commercial and recreational fishing in the huge Sydney Harbour will be prohibited owing to the dangerously high levels of dioxin found in fish and prawns. There is no indication of how long the ban will be in place and why this life threatening situation had not been detected earlier.

This is a sad set-back for what in recent years had been very positive signs of an improving water quality in the Harbour including the regular presence of whales and the growing numbers of recreational anglers dotted around the shore line. I regularly see families fishing quite successfully off the Finger Wharf and Mrs Macquaries Chair. They will now be instructed to catch and release only and not consume the fish. This will require a carefully targeted message for newly arrived Australians who make up a significant group fishing along the shore. Forcing any fisherman to throw back a legal sized healthy looking fish will be a new challenge for the authorities.

The cancer causing dioxins are leaching into the Harbour from former industrial sites located around Homebush Bay including the former Union Carbide site at Meadowbank near Ryde. Urgent remediation of the western reaches of Sydney Harbour must become a national priority. There is no doubt that news of poisonous fish in our postcard world famous harbour will alarm some tourists and damage our image as an environmentally pristine country. It will make eating fresh fish at Doyles a little bit harder to swallow.

Light Rail better option than London's Congestion Tax

More on light rail. Former City of Sydney Councillor, architect and columnist Elizabeth Farelly puts her weight behind light rail for our city street and surprisingly opposes a London style congestion tax on an equity argument. I agree with her observations that street narrowing (it's ironic that 100 years ago we were widening streets like Oxford and William) has the effect through added congestion to deter motorists making unnecessary trips into the CBD. Push bike sales are going through the roof and you just have to look around our CBD streets to see more people riding bikes. Great picture below from the SMH today.






The cure for blocked arteries

Photo: Quentin Jones
By Elizabeth FarrellyJanuary 21, 2006

As Sydney traffic moves closer to unbearable congestion, it is time to develop the only real solution: light rail.
When I lived in London years ago, no one I knew drove into the city centre. No one would dream of doing such a thing - except, surprise, Australians and New Zealanders. Helplessly individualist, the downunderers figured that getting bogged on Regent Street or Oxford Circus was at least going to be picturesque, given the endless pedestrian throng. What they weren't getting, though, was that London was no longer that kind of city.
Cities, like stars or children, have developmental stages. When they're young and fresh and loose-limbed, cities can be driven around with ease. Locals look forward to the first set of traffic lights and lose hair over a five-car "jam". Past a certain size and density, though, cities can no longer support mass private transport, except of the two-wheeled variety. Ten and even 20 years ago, London was well past this driveable limit. A corollary, though, was that travelling by bus or train, even to the opera, was entirely respectable.
Sydney, nearing the end of its teens, now teeters at the same threshold. We all remember the golden fortnight of the Olympics, when parking was banned and traffic flowed smoothly. Otherwise, though, and recognising that no politician will brave the retail backlash that a permanent parking ban would entail, something will have to be done. Something serious. As the transport consultant Garry Glazebrook says in a report to the City of Sydney council, "Sydney needs a world-class transport system ... to remain a world-class city".
Glazebrook's proposal involves parking limits, integrated ticketing, wider cycle lanes and car sharing. Its main plank, though, is a five-legged light-rail system hooked into the existing one at Central Station. It involves a CBD loop (either two-way on George Street, two-way on Castlereagh Street or one-way on Pitt and Castlereagh streets), with arms reaching to Bondi (via Bondi Junction), Burwood (via Lilyfield), Mascot, Parramatta Road and Maroubra Junction (via the University of NSW). These are the obvious routes for Sydney and would hugely de-stress Central and Town Hall stations, both now nearing capacity. But the State Government remains unmoved, not to say inertial, on public transport and deeply committed to roads.
Most cities facing congestion crises try roads first. Roads, as the instant-gratification response, have ballot-box appeal. They're quick, cheap, popular and easy to plaster on. What they don't do, though, is solve the problem. As the Glazebrook report points out, despite the $10 billion we have poured into major Sydney road projects over the past decade, traffic on other inner-city roads - which could be expected to drop - has actually risen over the same period by 20 per cent.

This, on the face of it, is mysterious. More road space should ease congestion, right? But road spending never reduces city traffic in the long term because making driving easier feeds our all-too-human tendency to do more of it. It is inverse demand management: boosting supply actually boosts demand. So, although Sydney congestion is exacerbated by narrow streets and strict boundaries, even the most generous road pattern (such as, say, Manhattan's) will eventually clog. Roads may defer the crisis, but never prevent it. That's the conundrum.
But if roads are not the answer, what is? London, under mayor Ken Livingstone, introduced the congestion tax. Now, two years on, it seems to be working, up to a point, with initial 20 per cent traffic reductions having stabilised around 16 per cent. Revenues to the city, although less than expected (because of decreased traffic), are about $160 million, and from next year the taxable area will expand across Chelsea, Westminster and Kensington.
But the downside, in equity terms, is that, at $19 a pop, the congestion fee restricts road use to the well-heeled and business-funded, directly undermining the publicness of public space. Try being a single parent on the day-care run and see how an extra $19 a day feels.
Similar taxes are regularly proposed for Sydney. My view, though, is that there are better, fairer ways. Such as light rail.
The core principle of traffic reduction is making driving not easier, but harder. A congestion tax does this, but favours the wealthy. A similar result would be achieved by road narrowing (or footpath widening), but of course this, too, reduces access, albeit in a more equitable way, and relies on congestion to be self-limiting. Devoting a proportion of road surface to light rail, on the other hand, is a neat solution, since it reduces traffic but also increases people flow in a clean, low-noise way.
Light rail can carry up to 300 people a vehicle, four times bus capacity, according to Glazebrook. It runs on electricity, so while not exactly pollution-free it does relocate the pollution to the point of generation, instead of puffing particulates and nitrogen oxides into the face of every pedestrian. And it's low-noise, unlike the filthy, roaring diesel buses to which the NSW Government reverted last year after all those promises of a clean, gas-powered fleet.
Not only that, but light rail is quick, reliable and frequent, with the proposed Sydney system sending off a loop-train every two minutes. It's also fitness-enhancing, in that (like all public transport) light rail supplements walking rather than replacing it, as do cars. With one in four young Australians obese or overweight, this alone should persuade us.

So convincing, indeed, are these arguments, and so thoroughly proved, that about 400 light rail systems now operate in cities around the world, with more than 100 cities having built or expanded their systems in the past decade. Many cities that tore up extensive tram networks - including Paris, London, Strasbourg, New Orleans and Pittsburgh - are now acknowledging the mistake and re-installing light rail.
In Sydney, the decision to replace one of the world's largest tram networks with buses was taken in 1957 by government transport commissioner A.A. Shoebridge, shortly before he took a job with one of the big tyre companies.
So what, in view of all this, stops Sydney joining the re-installation club? Why is light rail in Sydney habitually supported by local governments, oppositions and lobby groups - all of them unable to effect it - but pooh-poohed by those with the power?
The reasons are fourfold: light rail's relatively high capital cost (although, at an estimated $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion, the proposed system is only slightly dearer than the billion-dollar Cross City Tunnel and comparable to the Epping-Chatswood Rail Link); the relatively long roll-out time (which dilutes ballot-box yield for the three-year attention span); probable mayhem during construction; and the all-powerful roads lobby, which uses the monorail as whipping boy.
Still, the construction mayhem is temporary, unlike the retail blight resulting from a congestion tax such as London's. The roll-out time can be beneficial, since it makes the project stageable. And on cost, light rail has three times the carrying capacity of even the Epping-Chatswood link, which makes it substantially cheaper in terms of dollars per passenger kilometre and little more than half as expensive as the Cross City Tunnel.
And the monorail? Well, call me paranoid, but if I were an oil tsar seeking to prove public transport a failure, I'd fund something like the Sydney monorail.
All that notwithstanding, though, with transport systems at capacity and both population and jobs expected to grow by a further 20 per cent inside 15 years, Sydney has reached the point at which light rail becomes the obvious, and in many ways the only, solution. For once the answer is easy. Light rail: do it.

Council's top Mandarin spruikes Light Rail - but where is Clover??

It seems the (not so new) CEO of our Council has spare time on his hands in January - and has strangely developed a writing style from the Clover Moore school. Eyebrows were raised at Council and around town when the op-ed piece below appeared with the CEO's by line. It is quite unusual to see an incumbent government CEO or Director General putting pen to paper to defend political policy of his/her political masters. Perhaps it was a public demonstration of the rededicated loyalty to Clover Moore following those weird SMH Spike rumours of a rift developing. Or more likely an assessment that if the political loner Clover Moore keeps championing light rail then it will never be supported by those at Macquarie Street and Canberra (or Macquarie Bank) with the power and deep pockets to make it reality and not just glossy brochure hype. At the end of the day it should be our political leaders and not mandarins pumping the snake oil. Where is Clover Moore?

To view the City of Sydney consultant's report on an integrated light rail network click here.

Meanwhile bloggers of the right have been in a cyber lather trying to discredit any light rail proposals that threaten their car dependent lifestyles. That right wing thinking blogger Bilious Young Fogey runs the pro bus and pro multinational car company line against Light Rail for Sydney. Backing up the Right is Councillor Michael Lee's brother with his anti light rail - pro bus agenda (note he was the head of Sydney buses) published in the SMH earlier in the week and discredited by letter writers and Clover's nom de plume Mr Seamer.


All aboard the light rail to the future
January 19, 2006
Sydney needs to act on a looming transport crisis before it chokes on its own growth, writes Peter Seamer.

ANYONE who catches a bus during peak hour, and often outside of peak hour, will have experienced the problem of waiting for passengers to board, buses queuing to reach the stop and watching crowded buses sail past.
Sydney's mix of public and private transport systems - heavy rail, buses and a growing clutter of cars and trucks - is approaching crisis point.
The experience already this century shows the city is not coping with the exponential growth in traffic congestion.
Certainly, the provision by the State Government of more train and bus infrastructure at the suburban hubs will help. But of itself that approach offers no convincing answer for the future, especially when the Government's solutions are geared to a 2017 time frame but are not addressing the pressing problem in the heart of the city, where you have a 350,000 daily workforce and more than 400,000 visitors - and these numbers are growing.
Integrating transport modes is not only an obvious answer, but it can be done.
Light rail 21st-century style is part of how Sydney should tackle a problem that threatens to undermine the viability, vibrancy and versatility of its CBD.
Trams can have an equal or greater capacity along any one line and are much easier and quicker to load, as they can have several doors. They are particularly good for inner-city trips, which are short and require high volumes.
In terms of capacity, the sustainability commissioner, Peter Newman, wrote in the Herald last year: "Roads are also limited by their sheer physical capacity. A road lane can carry about 2500 people an hour; a busway about double that - a level now reached and even exceeded on the busways in the city centre.
"Light rail can carry between 7000 and 10,000 people an hour - which is why this must eventually replace the congested bus services along many corridors - while heavy rail can carry 50,000 people per hour, 20 times the capacity of a roadway."
High-speed buses travelling centimetres from pedestrians along our main city routes are not only dangerous but create other problems. A big city like Sydney needs taxis to be able to load and unload quickly on all of our streets, for example. Bus lanes limit access by taxi, car and bike.
In inner Sydney, such as George Street, often at prime times, many buses run half full to nearly empty because many passengers get off at, say, Central or Sydney University. You therefore need far fewer vehicles than you do with buses. Interchanges work when you have high-density, frequent light rail services.
Light rail has been introduced to more than 100 international cities in the past 10 years. In the Toronto CBD, for example, which has three main sources of co-ordinated public transport - heavy rail, buses and light rail - the system carries 40 per cent more passengers and 30 per cent more boardings per capita at 30 per cent lower cost than Sydney.
Today's light rail has travelled a long way since the Bondi tram.
Importantly, light rail can also be delivered within 18 months of approval. Construction can start before the next state election, with completion soon after.
The City of Sydney has undertaken preliminary investigations into the use of Castlereagh and George streets, and visual mock-ups of these streets identify how they can be accommodated.
Making Sydney increasingly a place for bus "freeways" doesn't answer the increasing problems we will have with transport in central Sydney as early as the next decade.
Every year that goes by without us seriously addressing our transport shortage puts us further behind our competitors in Asia and Europe.
Peter Seamer is chief executive of City of Sydney council.

Does driving make you fat?

Today's Sydney Morning Herald reports what most of us have observed - people who drive to work are more overweight. This is usually when compared to active transport options such as walking or riding a bike to work. However the study concludes that using public transport is also better for your health and waste line. One assumes that is because public transport involves combinations of walking or cycling to the bus stop and train stations. The health benefits to the community are well documented and need to be included in any calculations on the cost benefits of public transport infrastructure.


Sydney Morning Herald - Thursday 19 January 2006
Fat chance of losing weight for commuting drivers
By Julie Robotham Medical Editor

DRIVING to work can make you fat, says NSW research that estimates for the first time the proportion of people overweight because of car dependence.
People who took their cars to work were 13 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese than those who walked, cycled or used public transport, regardless of their income level, the survey of 6810 employed people found. The further people had to drive each day, the greater their weight increase.
The study was the first in the world specifically to examine the effects of different types of commuting on weight, said Chris Rissel, the director of the Health Promotion Unit of Sydney South- West Area Health Service. The findings were consistent with previous US research that looked at the number of hours people spent in their cars, finding the chance of being overweight increased 6 per cent for each additional hour they spent behind the wheel, associate Professor Rissel said.
The NSW study revealed that even short, regular car trips significantly reduced people's opportunity to get sufficient exercise in the course of their working week.
"Movement is cumulative. It is incremental physical activity during the day," Professor Rissel said. "Still, about half the population don't get [sufficient exercise]." Adults should aim to take about 10,000 steps a day, he said, and even a short walk to the bus stop or train station could help them achieve this.
Overall, 49 per cent of the workers in the health survey were overweight or obese, and two-thirds drove their car to work. Seven per cent walked, 2 per cent cycled and 6 per cent worked at home.
The findings are due to be published this week in the International Journal of Obesity.

Happy New Year - NSW Finances Going Backwards Fast

Welcome to January 2006.

Back at my Council desk rolling up the sleeves after a refreshing New Year's break in Queensland. I trust all eCouncillor readers are similarly re-energised for 2006 !

I thought you might be interested in the Media Statement below issued by one of the hardest working State Liberals, Peta Seaton MP, Assistant Shadow Treasurer. Peta highlights what we all are hearing from businesses around the State and country - that NSW is losing the investment race against Queensland and Victoria. That because of the laziness, high taxation and lack of reform from the NSW Labor government business is moving investment to other states.

As your Liberal Councillor on the City of Sydney I hear this message all the time as Lord Mayor Clover Moore and the NSW Government put the hand break on business growth in Sydney.

If you would like to receive Peta's very regular media statements then send her a note via this email link. Peta.Seaton@parliament.nsw.gov.au

regards
Shayne


MEDIA STATEMENT
13 January 2006

NSW APPALLING ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE A LEGACY OF IEMMA’S TAX POLICY AND SPEND ADDICTION

Labor’s addiction to irresponsible ‘tax and spend’ policies has produced some of the worst economic results to date on Morris Iemma’s watch, underlining why bank experts have dubbed NSW ‘The State of Disappointment’ and questioned Labor’s ‘economic competence’, said Assistant Shadow Treasurer Peta Seaton.

‘ANZ commentators were right on the money with their assessments’, said Ms Seaton, referring to yesterday’s comments in an ANZ Bank publication comparing different states’ economic performance.

Ms Seaton said today’s ABS ‘Australian Economic Indicators’ (Cat 1350.0) shows further decline in NSW’s economic performance recorded in September-November 2005, in the months after Morris Iemma took the top job.

‘On building approvals alone, (Table 9.7) Queensland and Victoria attracted $900 million more investment in construction than NSW – amounting to thousands of jobs and supply opportunities outside our state’, said Ms Seaton. Queensland and Victoria between them built 5,000 more homes than NSW in the 2004-05 period.

‘These statistics are a measure of the families and businesses who are struggling in NSW to get value from their investments, and find new opportunities, because of the impact of ten years of high state taxes and wasteful Labor spending’, she said.

‘Labor’s economic vandalism has resulted in;
- NSW unemployment being higher (5.3%) than the national rate (5.1%) in November 2005
- a 20% decline in the value of residential building approvals
- a decline in the registration of new motor vehicles
- decline in state final demand, now lower than the national rate and falling by 0.8%, while the national rate has grown.

‘We all know that Sydney and NSW produces some of the smartest and hardest working businesses, and that we compete hard against other states and the world.

‘The lazy NSW Labor Government has coasted on the back of the success of hard working businesses and families, and now is eating into the hand that fed it and dragging NSW down a black hole because of its own lack of economic discipline’, she said.

‘Since Morris Iemma became Premier, things have got worse with around $700m of new state taxes and charges since he took the top job, all of which continues to force job seekers, homebuyers and businesses to look at other states with more competitive prices and taxes.

Ms Seaton said the ABS Building Approvals figures showed an alarming difference between construction activity between NSW and competitor states, as a result of NSW lack of competitiveness.

‘Queensland built more homes overall than NSW in 2004-05, despite the fact that NSW is a larger state. This shows the rate at which Queensland and Victoria attracting new residents and investments, compared with NSW with its high property and business taxes, and bloated sluggish planning approval system’.

ABS/ Building approvals 2004-5 (Table 9.7)

Number of approvals
$ Value of approvals
Difference with NSW ($)
Difference with NSW (numbers)
NSW
37,894
$7.5 bill


Victoria
42,464
$8.0 bill
$500 mill
4,570 homes

Queensland
38,436
$7.9 bill
$ 400 mill
542 homes
TOTAL


$900 mill
5,112 homes


‘Every additional home built in Queensland and Victoria is an opportunity lost for NSW, and translates to fewer jobs and job opportunities for NSW job seekers and families.

‘The lack of business confidence and activity in NSW can be traced back to Labor’s greedy tax grab on the property sector when it was going strongly, with the vendor tax being a near-death blow for the sector which was naturally slowing.

‘Additional Labor state taxes (payroll tax and land tax extensions) since Morris Iemma was installed as Premier has kept the building and investment sector in the doldrums, which significantly accounts for our high unemployment rate’, she said.

‘No wonder bank experts have labelled NSW ‘the State of Disappointment’, when our once great State has been damaged by Labor’s tax and spend addiction’.

Peta Seaton MPMember for Southern HighlandsAssistant Shadow TreasurerShadow Minister for Reform of GovernmentShadow Minister for the Illawarra

Phone: 0248 613 623 Bowral OfficeFax: 0248 613 546Phone: 029 230 2261 Parliament HouseFax: 029 230 3355