When I hear Waterfall Way (drive) in Bellingen, I think road building, road widening, giant fossil fuel machinery, yet another upgrade, congestion, aggro motorists, speeding drivers, 'accidents', dead motorists and roadkill.
WFW is the main road into the SUV-centric town with either no or very few footpaths and cycle paths. A little town where time stands still, where climate change and extinctions are foreign gobbledygook.
As the population growth outpaces local infrastructure, ongoing 'upgrades' are taking place. The latest is to sink a footpath/cyclepath along WFW, on the tree lined Heritage Avenue between the Butter Factory and the CBD. Trouble is, the 'living heritage' has to go. Anyway, these old trees "reached the natural conclusion of their life cycles" They clashed with the “proposed footpath alignment and infrastructure of power lines and road widening” added to their demise. Many trees will have to go so we can “breathe new life into this important entry statement for Bellingen township.”
Standing in the traffic jam motorists seem oblivious to the numerous fossil fuel machines slowing traffic and engulfing wood ducks and people in dust and pollution.
After the 'living heritage' is ripped out, chopped or mulched, the construction of the 2.5-meter-wide shared cement path for pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchairs is taking place.
A thick layer of 'the most destructive material on Earth' is smeared over the soil. Carbon dioxide emissions, climate change, topsoil and urban heat were off the agenda in this mobility design.
Of course there will be an offset for the lost canopy/habitat elsewhere. Where is the energy consumption balance sheet for all the fossil fuel machinery, the concrete, the idling vehicles to make walkability and 'connectivity' possible? Why were permeable surfaces not considered?
I can see golf carts racing along the footpath now and 'enhanced safety' in “the pedestrian-vehicle conflicts near sporting fields," by just parking on the new footpath.
