From: "Lev Lafayette" <lev@levlafayette.com>
On Mon, June 30, 2014 5:24 pm, Peter Ross wrote:
Back to the East West Link, the winners are obvious. And the way it was "planned" and gets rushed through makes it quite obvious that nobody cares about the outcome for Melbourne and Victoria.
Well, they've been 'planned' since the freeway was initially on paper. There is the famous protests in 1977 which prevented the freeway being extended past Gold St, Collingwood.
From today's newspaper:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/east-west-link-project-approved-with-royal... "Much of Royal Park's heritage-listed grounds have been spared the bulldozer after Mr Guy axed the Elliott Avenue interchange from the design. The road will instead be built with access to Flemington Road, "subject to further detailed design work", Mr Guy said. Refinements to the design of the nest of flyovers at the tunnel's western end in Parkville will also be required." It reminds me of Joseph Heller's "Closing Time", where someone's son, an unemployed designer, gets a job from his mate to draw pictures of a fighter the company is tendering for. How should he draw it with no technical knowledge about aeroplanes at all? "It does not matter. It does not need to fly. All we need is a contract with the government." That's the level of expertise required to decide how to spend many billion dollars in Victoria. Regards Peter