Newtown Station January 2012 Update

When plans were finally committed to for the Newtown Station renovations, I couldn't believe that it wouldn't be until the end of 2012 before the works were finished. I guess now it's January 2012 it's starting to become clear that we really won't have an accessible station until the end of this year.

There has however been some obvious progress, and you can see from the photo below that the new station will absolutely dwarf the existing buildings, and indeed the surroundings.

According to the summary posted on the construction site boundary, the lifts will be installed this month and next, and the internal works for the retail are ongoing. Indeed it seems like some progress is being made on the original station buildings; hopefully we won't have to wait until the end of 2012 for them to be ready.

From upstairs at the Townie you can see that the concrete base of the concourse has been laid over the graveyard of the old kebab shop, hopefully sealing in any toxic leakage that may have built up over the countless late nights it was operating.

Hatches Batches and Dispatches V

It's been a while since the last round up of some of the comings and goings on and around King St Newtown. It's getting harder to keep track of the goings on but thankfully I have all of your tips from last month's update and Twitter. The most reported Newtown related news in the last month or so is the possible resumption of houses in Leamington Avenue for RailCorp's proposed Western Express line. The story got a second wind once some discovered the linkage to the famous 'Three Proud People' mural; now unfortunately blocked from view from Macdonaldtown Station by the sound barrier.

New Openings

• Cucina Sopranos on the site of the old Wedgetail
• The Polish restauarant in the old Choclate Dog has a name - New in Town - and gets the mayoral thumbs up - tasty and generous portions.
• A new Vietnamese noodle place called "Pho Sure" opened in the old service station on the corner of Stamore Rd and Liberty St Enmore (nice break from the terrible Thai/Tie puns)
• Dolce and Gelato has had a name change, now called gelato blue. Apart from that all looks the same. 
• Moo Gourmet burgers the latest to take on the site of Mickey's
• King St deli has moved to south king, where there used to be a business centre
• The Bank Hotel has re-opened after the fire 
• A new design shop (cute !) called Lillypad Designs hidden at the back of the newsagent near the Dendy
• Not so new now but not yet mentioned is the nursery next to the controversial car-wash on South King Street;

Development Applications

• The proposed bottlo shop in Newtown Central has a name - Cellarbrations. A chain, of course.
• Speaking of chains, Dominos Pizza coming to (far north) Newtown. Signage looks really garish
• Mostly residential otherwise.

Reviews

• Funky Cafe gets a mention in an SMH article about live music
• Not quite a review, but both Pentimento and Newtown resident and ex-Mr Varga Bar Ben Soutter got quoted in an article about Cafe mobile phone etiquette.
  

Random

• Most visited story the mayor shared in the last month was about ATM skimming on skim street; while Fairfax were too scared to name the bank involved, they did point out that NAB, CBA and ANZ denied it was them and the Pac declined to comment. Go figure.
• A broader inner city story getting too much airtime is the bike lane backlash, led by such likables as former Newtownian (sadly) Alan Jones and the Tele. Sad to say even a Wilson Street local is complaining about the lanes
• Once again, The Imperial is 'opening soon'. Sadly the plans of Sydney Fringe to use the Hub as a venue have come to nothing
• A filtered water fountain has been installed outside the Town Hall (real one, not the pub)
  

Cycling and Newtown - Part I

Newtown has a well earned reputation as the heart of Sydney cycling. Cyclists abound on and around King St, and the 'cyclists highway' of Wilson Street was the site of Sydney's first (I think) contra-flow cycle lane. According the NSW government's statistics web page; Newtown ranks second in NSW (really first, as O'Connor is in the A.C.T - strange that the website claims it as part of NSW) for the number of commuting cyclists.

The City of Sydney Council and Marrickville Council (joint custodians of Newtown) both have excellent cycling strategies online (Sydney and Marrickville). One key difference though is that Marrickville council have recently cut their cycling budget - despite the best intentions of the Greens - whereas Sydney Council are spending millions on implementing theirs.

The above dichotomy reveals are more general problem with cycle paths in Sydney. Given the state government's complete lack of interest in cycling, it's left in the hands of local councils. As a result, cycle paths (where they exists) typically stop at council boundaries (or anywhere else where the money happns to run out). The classic example of this in Newtown is the way the Stanmore - Newtown cycleway peters out at the corner of King Street and Mary Street, with an unfriendly one way street between it and the aforementioned Wilson Street cycle highway.

Amazingly there is a detailed plan to fix this intersection and unify these paths (on page 101 of Marrickville's cycle strategy) although no details on timing or funding (nor even whether the RTA would agree to losing one lane of one of the few East - West routes in inner-Sydney).


Sydney Council has recently announced plans for a Cycle Hub at Taylor Square. The planned hub will include showers and a bike repair centre. There are doubts about whether this is the right location for the hub; on the positive side it's on the intersection of three major cycle routes; on the other hand it's not clear it's close enough to offices to be really useful for commuters.


Newtown's Hub would seem like an obvious site for a similar facility (we can't let Surry Hills get one up on us) - perhaps associated with the community centre in my old office (a.k.a the Town Hall) - situated as it is at the intersection of several bike routes. It could act as a de facto bike parking facility for Newtown Station, given that Railcorp will not commit to decent bike facilities. What do you think ?

In Part 2 I'll discuss in more detail some of the local routes in and around Newtown and planned upgrades; in the meantime here are some (hopefully) useful links - let me know if I've missed any !

• Bike Sydney
  BIKESydney was formed in 2000 to help look after the Sydney City Council Area (Australia) and is affiliated with Bicycle NSW.
• Massbug
  Local bicycle group covering Marrickville and former South Sydney Council areas. The group meets on the first Wednesday of the month at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre at 7:30pm.
  
• Bicycle NSW
  Peak cycling body providing advice, insurance, ride events bike shop discounts and Australian Cyclist magazine to members
  
• RTA Cycleways
  The RTA has produced Cycleway maps for Newcastle, Central Coast, Illawarra and Sydney regions.
• Sydney Community College
  Offers short affordable cycling courses to improve your skills and confidence in riding a bike.

Moving the Inner West

Flights to Surry Hills on the hour

It seems like all our local transport modes are in various stages of revision at once. There's a new train timetable kicking into place next month; the State Transit Authority has just launched a consultation phase for new bus timetables for the South and West, and Sydney Council has just released its draft Pedestrian Cycling and Traffic Calming Plan (catchy name that one) for Darlinghurst, Camperdown, Erskineville and the bits of Newtown they control. Not to mention (which I won't this time, I promise) all the hullabaloo regarding light rail and metro in the wider Inner West.

Inner Westies have just a couple of weeks to get their act together if they want some say in all of this. It's too late for the trains, which after a false start a couple of years ago will start operating to the new timetable on October 11th. The relevant changes are summarised here - there doesn't seem to be much changing on the Inner West line at first glance.

State Transit have gone to quite an effort to consult their planned bus route and timetable changes; apart from this informative website, glossy brochures - complete with detailed maps - have been distributed to all households in the region. Changes to the busses in the area have been summarised in 8 categories:

• Sydney CBD focused bus services;
• Balmain, Birchgrove and Glebe bus services;
• The Metrobus network;
• Strathfield bus services;
• Homebush Bay bus services;
• Mortlake, Breakfast Point, Concord, Cabarita,Abbotsford and Chiswick bus services;
• Rockdale, Kogarah and Miranda bus services; and
• Cross Regional bus services;

and I'd really recommend bus users to take the time to read the details and submit feedback; either online or the old fashioned way on the brochures. I've already had feedback via twitter that the new proposal doesn't address the 428 frequency and related over-crowding - if you agree, let them know - it's a rare chance. Feedback closes October 9th.

There's also a new Metro Bus route (M30) that will take you directly from Enmore to Mosman and back should the need somehow strike you. Maybe there'll suddenly be a proliferation of pearls on King Street (or tatts on Military Road).

from the council website

Finally, the Sydney Council have reduced their draft Pedestrian Cycling and Traffic Calming Plan for comment. The mayor attended the original consulting session for this (on a rainy night in Camperdown in March) - I have to say it was very professionally organised and facilitated and it's great to see that notice has been taken of the feedback. I made fun of the name earlier; but the council did explain that the name has been changed from the original 'Traffic Plan' to emphasis the community friendly aspect of the plan, rather that an emphasis on cars - and how to move them as quickly as possible.

The report (click on the 4th link in the further information section) is the most interesting document. It's well worth reading - if you're impatient jump to the recommendations on page 8. It's accompanied by some detailed maps summarising proposed changes - you can also download high-resolution versions of the maps as well.

In summary, the draft plan includes:

• Pedestrian and cycling access improvements across the area, including intersections on Wilson Street and Abercrombie Street
• Working with the RTA to install new crossings missing at signalised intersections and a new crossing along Mallett Street
• Cycleway projects on Missenden Road, Wilson Street and Shepherd Street
• Kerb extensions and additional crossings along King Street, and potential new bike parking.

We have until Friday 25th September now to prepare any comments - once again, I really recommend taking the time to check out the report and submitting any feedback - all the evidence suggests the council takes it seriously, and this plan will be the framework for changes over the next 5-10 years.

And from the photo above, it seems that the Federal government is still investigating sites a lot closer to home for Sydney's second airport ...

Newtown Station

Historic Newtown Station

The Mayor was recently invited to a discussion at the Newtown RSL (I can't bring myself to call it Petersham RSL or worse, @Newtown), called by the Newtown Business Precinct to discuss the state of Newtown Station and surrounds. Railcorp, the RTA and the NSW Government were all invited, but only Deputy Premier and local member Carmel Tebutt showed up, representing, according to the organisers, the absent organisations. The Deputy Premier herself was quite clear (perhaps wisely) that she was not representing the government agencies, promising only to pass on any messages received. Also present were the mayor of half of Newtown (and Marrickville), Sam Iskandar, and Councillor John McInerney, representing Clover Moore, mayor of the other half of Newtown (and the City of Sydney).

Railcorp Property adjacent to Newtown Station

The meeting started with an effective presentation from the organisers, using photos similar to the above, highlighting what a shambles Newtown station was; and wanting to know what had happened to the NSW government promise of making Newtown Station the first all-access station in the state seat of Marrickvile (which covers most of Newtown). 

A more general discussion was held on the run down state of surrounding properties, bus-stop over-crowding and the dangerous nature of high-speed King Street (outside of peak hours at any rate). Owners of local pub The Bank described the extensive delays caused to their renovations by the difficulties of negotiation with Railcorp, compulsory when renovating properties adjacent to Railcorp property.

Dead kebabery under the mayor's office on Railcorp property

The late arriving Deputy Premier had done her homework and was able to provide the latest information. In a nutshell: 

• Existing Railcorp plans for Newtown Station access (which ALP election promises were based on) basically consisted of dropping a lift down from the station entrance to the platform. * Further studies had concluded that this approach was not feasible due to the narrowness of the platform
  
• A new plan was being prepared based on extending the entrance concourse further over the rail lines. This new solution would be significantly more expensive than that planned.
  
• It was highly unlikely that Railcorp would spend any money cleaning up the area or making plans for the station and adjoining property while this process was ongoing - this in response to an audience suggestion to use them as artists galleries or cafes while plans were ongoing.
  
• Next planning phase was due to complete mid-year (3-6 months) after which she would report back to the community on the scope of the latest plans.
  

Newtown Station and abandoned tram sheds

Questions were also asked about the future of the tram sheds and associated land. Apparently the sheds had been sold off by the previous government to a developer but the deal had gone bad and ended up in the courts. Any further decision on their future was pending the outcome of legal proceedings due 'soon'. I have my own idea on what could be done with this property which I will be sharing soon.

Tram sheds from Angel Street

Your mayor will be attending the follow meeting and will inform everyone of the outcome. In the meantime, if you've got any ideas on what should be done with the station and surrounding properties, including the tram sheds, please share them here.