Make Bellingen a carpark! Pt. 2

 Make Bellingen a carpark! More roads, wider roads and more parking Pt. 2

Pedestrian access to the toilets, Church St.

Parking on tree roots and garbage, Church St.

Make Bellingen a carpark! More roads, wider roads and more parking

Bellingen car park, Creek Ln,  still with trees. Google image 03.2023

Sprawling suburbia is deprived of public forms of transport. Private fossil fuel mobility is encouraged and choosen. The town runs on petrol, plonk, meat and timber. Motorists' expectation is carpet to carpet mobility to not get their R.M.Williams muddy. In between there is a lot of AC idling and cruising to find a big enough parking spot. Monstrous SUVs speed though town to fight for parking. Tree roots are crushed by the weight of 2,000 kilograms of vehicles. The oversized tanks park right across the access route to the toilets as well.
With the growth of the obese-sized vehicles grows the hunger for more and wider roads. It is insatiable. Above all parking, getting stuff or dumping the kids or dogs is the most important issue in town.

Roads are congested and aggressive, frustrated motorists harass non motorised living entities and smaller, slower vehicles. The jam-packed CBD roads are rich in ambient particulate matter pollution. The Al fresco crowds seem to suffer from anosmia and look the other way when large bull haulers and timber trucks fly through the narrow main street. 

There are already many free car parking opportunities to store private vehicles in public spaces. But now there is a brand new car park smashed into the landscape. Residents seem blissfully unaware that in the middle of a climate emergency many native mature trees magically disappeared and the soil surface was sealed. One just smeared asphalt over the 'dirt'. A very large area of impervious surfaces has been constructed after months of heavy fossil fuel equipment made a racket next to the adjoining park and creek. The new treeless hardscape will not provide any shading canopy and there will be no extra cost of blowing nasty leaves from the car park.

New car park adjoining creek and park, Bellingen

This diy urban heat island will increase temperatures, leading to heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Deprived of shade (which previously existed) in a concrete, tar and asphalt environment it will directly influence the health and welfare of residents and wildlife. Rain and runoff will run over the hot surfaces, drain into the creek and increase the water temperature there. Biodiversity will exit, despite the beautification of three lomandras.

Leafy affluent neighborhoods are shady and have resilient mental health. Bare degraded surfaces go with deprived neighborhoods. They do harm to all people and other animals.

Car park beautification, 03.2023

Car centric culture demands more of the same: 'Fix the roads' (lobby), free parking everywhere and no speed checks OK! It is desperately hanging on to dinosaurian ways. 

Elsewhere in the civilised world they are phasing out private fossil combustion mobility in urban centers. They are creating equitable public spaces that are safe for all participants. Enforced speed reductions are now widespread. Shady footpath (What's that?) and cyclepath infrastructure joins sustainable public transport. Bicycle parking racks encourage pollution free mobility. Road trauma in the form of 'the daily death toll', maiming and roadkill could even be eliminated as well.

It is not called ’ man-made climate change' for nothing.

 

Community Climate Action Plan
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/Community/Sustainable-Living/Community-Climate-Action-Plan
"We are now in a critical decade for urgent action with the window to keeping global warming to below 1.5°C and to averting devastating climate impacts rapidly closing."

Bellingen Shire Climate Emergency Program, 2020 – 2030
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/files/sharedassets/public/files/environment/adopted-corporate-carbon-plan-final.pdf

“Are we building harder, hotter cities?
https://pce.parliament.nz/publications/are-we-building-harder-hotter-cities-the-vital-importance-of-urban-green-spaces/ 

Update:  Residents elsewhere swap parking spaces for extra trees "We are really starting to see trees become essential elements of streets”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-25/trees-replace-parking-spaces-hobart-street/102135698

Make Bellingen a carpark! Pt. 2