Botany Bay and Catchment Alliance

IPART will be finalising its recommendations over the coming months.  Responses to the Draft recommendations can be read at www.ipart.nsw.gov.au (click on Other Industries).  IPART is yet to address the issue of empty containers and the need to increase Customs and AQIS examinations.  It recommends that the State Government ask for Auslink funding to fix homegrown rail freight problems at the expense of funding for a national project such as the Inland Rail from Gladstone through Parkes to Melbourne.

IPART, the RTA, Sydney Ports and others recommend the introduction(beyond the trial) of Super B Doubles onto our roads.  The Port is not in a Greenfield site - it is surrounded by some of Australia’s oldest suburbs and it is inappropriate to be introducing these monsters (with BTriples to follow) when individuals are downsizing to bicycles and smaller vehicles.

Residents around the Port Botany area have been crying out about the dangers of parked trailers/skels on Foreshore Road and now we have yet another death.

P-plater dies in car inferno. By Kara Lawrence DAILY TELEGRAPH November 19, 2007 12:00am

A TEEN P-plater is believed to have died instantly when his car crashed into a trailer parked on the road- side and burst into flames near Port Botany early yesterday. (more…)

Freight about to crash 4/2/07 - ABC Background Briefing

As consumers demand more and more ’stuff’ the impact on the freight industry will be enormous. The number of trucks on the roads will double in two decades. This will have important implications for traffic, roads, pollution, and energy use.  Steve Skinner reports.

THEME

Stephen Skinner: Welcome to Background Briefing on ABC Radio National, I’m Stephen Skinner. And today we’re talking about freight, and lots of it, billions of tonnes moving around the country every year. (more…)

The Federal Department of Environment and Water Resources has released a new factsheet on paticulate matter . Small particles as mentioned in this factsheet are found in industrial pollution and diesel exhaust.

Following the Burnley disaster in April another crash to illustrate the additional risks of tunnel travel.  3 lives were lost in Burnley and millions in tolls and repairs.  Now a similar disaster in California.  Burnely tunnel warnings ignored:  http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21587866-5012713,00.html

 LOS ANGELES (Reuters 14/10/07) - Three people were killed and at least 10 injured in a multi-vehicle crash that caused a fire inside a tunnel and forced the closure of a major freeway in the Los Angeles area, authorities said on Saturday.

The fire broke out late on Friday, following a traffic pileup involving as many as 15 trucks inside a tunnel under Interstate 5. The highway connects Los Angeles to many of its northern suburbs and San Francisco.

More than 1/3rd all vehicle emissions come from freight related tasks and this proportion is growing and within a few decades will overtake private vehicle emissions.  It’s a figure that puts into perspective our dependence on road freight as well as the impacts.

 Welcome to the future of container shipping.  The next assault on Botany Bay will come with the dredging of the shipping channel to allow the mega container ships entry.  The biggest at present is the Danish Emma Maersk which can carry 11,000 - 14,000 TEUs, 397 metres long, cruises at 27knots and only needs a crew of 13. ……and a draught of 30 metres.  Built to load up mana from China for delivery in Europe.

9 October 2007

Media release  Contact: Andrew Macintosh (02) 6162 4146 or 0403 804 540

Shipping’s falling market share is making greenhouse emissions worse: New Report from The Australia Institute (more…)

If you have a spare couple of days and a spare $2300 you too can attend the NSW Transport Infrastructure Summit billed as
Planning and investment for a sustainable future: 1st & 2nd November 2007. Sydney Harbour Marriott, Sydney.

Take a look at the list of speakers below.  Genia McCaffery(representing Local Councils) will be the only ‘rose’ amongst the ‘thorns’ yet again.  If those ‘thorns’ were serious about bottlenecks and congestion they would go in search of a sustainable national vision.  We are not going to get sustainability by overscaling the Sydney freight operation.

$5.8 billion will be spent on transport infrastructure in New South Wales over the next 4 years in a quest to reduce congestion, free bottlenecks and attract investment. (more…)