Presentation to Transport for NSW by
ReConnect Redfern and REDWatch
On 6th August 2019, REDWatch and Reconnect Redfern presented
a community option for a southern concourse at Redfern Station to Transport for
NSW (TfNSW). This was followed by a discussion of the issues between local
residents from Little Eveleigh Street, The Watertower, Councillor Philip Thalis
and TfNSW staff. You can see the PDF
of the presentation on the REDWatch website. These notes are to add some of
the presentation details not taken up in the slides.
Following the presentation of the four options by TfNSW at
the Redfern Community Centre, REDWatch met and decided that the best way
forward might be to try and formulate a community option that addressed the
concerns of REDWatch and the residents from both sides of the railway line who
had come together under the banner of Reconnect Redfern. REDWatch Co-ord member
Damion Minton undertook to lead the project and did much of the work but was
overseas at the time of the presentation, so REDWatch spokesperson Geoff
Turnbull was asked by Reconnect Redfern to do the presentation.
REDWatch has had a long involvement monitoring Redfern
Station and North Eveleigh. You can find historical proposals and studies for the
upgrade of Redfern Station on the Redfern Station tab at www.redwatch.org.au
The material in the presentation reflects a number of
meetings both by REDWatch and Reconnect Redfern and numerous conversations with
local residents and key institutions.
Key Community Priorities
The groups decided on five key priorities:
1)
Support the improvement of Redfern Station
accessibility including to platforms 11 & 12 and to a bus rail interchange
2)
Improve pedestrian rail commuter flow, reduced
congestion and improved safety to all platforms including to platforms 11 &
12
3)
Enhance public pedestrian and bicycle
connectivity to key local destinations was a key concern. This aspect was
considered inadequate in the TfNSW proposals. The TfNSW Future Transport
Strategy 2056 says “The Strategy and Plans also focus on the role of transport
in delivering movement and place outcomes that support the character of the
place and the communities we want in the future.” Movement and Place are considered a key
aspect of future transport planning, and guidelines are currently being
developed by the NSW Government Architect. Currently it is the community view
that key Movement and Place considerations are not adequately dealt with in the
TfNSW options. Key public pedestrian and bicycle connectivity needs to link:
- Australian Technology Park (South Eveleigh)
- Redfern business district and transport hubs
- Proposed North Eveleigh technology and
innovation centre - Carriageworks
- Sydney University
4)
Protect and promote heritage and local culture
5)
Retain local residential amenity
Major issues to be addressed
The groups also decided five major issues needed to be
addressed by any option:
1)
Connectivity between North and South Eveleigh
2)
Accessibility to platforms 1 to 10
3)
Accessibility to platforms 11 and 12 and to bus
train interchange
4)
Impact on Little Eveleigh Street. This includes
- Discharge of commuters directly on to a
residential street within a few metres of front doors - Interaction with the major two-way bike way that
will see increasing use - Little Eveleigh St is the main access point for
East North Eveleigh and future construction - Without parking, delivery and trades people would
be impacted - It is the access for Foundry residents to their off
street parking - A raised walkway to the rear of Southside
residences would impact those residents
5)
Impact on Marian Street. This includes
- No footpath on Marian Street for pedestrians
- Pedestrian interaction with Watertower parking
- Kiss and Drops activity and other traffic conflicting with pedestrian
movements
The point was made that residents of Little Eveleigh and
Marian Streets had a strong reaction to the visuals from the TfNSW options that
showed only a few people in the proposed treatments rather than a peak hour
representation. The point was made that traffic and pedestrian studies use peak
time movement assessments and that TfNSW needs to do similar analyses and model
how the proposed treatments would work with the interactions between bidirectional
flows and interactions with cars and bikes. Reference was made to the
experience of residents trying to move towards the station of a morning in
Lawson Street against a tide of students travelling to Sydney University.
Background and
Context
The background and context focused on the broad “Movement
and Place” issues:
1)
Lawson Street is the only way across the railway
line for pedestrians, bikes and vehicles
2)
The twin arterial of Gibbons and Regent Streets is
a barrier that separates Redfern Street from Redfern Station – In the early
2000s a number of studies on tunnels and overpasses were done by The Premier’s
Department to try to address this major problem
3)
The lack of a bus rail interchange sees
communisers having to cross the twin arterial roads to catch most busses
4)
The railway line itself is a barrier between
Darlington and the University, and Alexandria and South Eveleigh.
5)
The need for station accessibility and safe use
of all platforms including platforms 11 & 12
The presentation then showed a number of illustrations from
the Redfern Waterloo Authority (RWA) Built Environment Plan One, The North
Eveleigh Concept Plan and from the exhibited “Eveleigh Heritage Walk” to show
that a pedestrian and cycle connection between North and South Eveleigh had
been a key component of RWA planning for the area. This connectivity is missing
from the TfNSW options. It was pointed out that:
1)
The pedestrian and cycle bridge was expected to
be connected to the rail concourse in some form (see floor space ratio map)
2)
There are strong heritage interpretation reasons
to reconnect the former Eveleigh Railyards from North to South as historically there
was a bridge at this location.
3)
The Australian Technology Park sale agreement to
Mirvac included a covenant that a cross railway bride could land at South
Eveleigh. This was one of a number of covenants pushed by REDWatch and others
at the time after a City of Sydney risk assessment of the ATP sale.
4)
This connection will be very important in the
future for students travelling from the Waterloo Metro station to Sydney
University.
5)
A bike connection would allow a Southward
connection toward Alexandria to connect to the main Wilson Street bike path and
take some pressure off Lawson Street and problems for bikes trying to get up
Gibbons Street past the station and the pedestrian holding area.
None of the RWA options directly addresses how this cross
line connection connects to the station. Station upgrade plans had stalled by
2008 when the RWA proposed its “Eveleigh Heritage Walk”.
The TfNSW Options and
Issues
Each option was assessed against the “Major issues to be
addressed” discussed earlier and this assessment was shown on the slide with
ticks and crosses.
No option presented connects currently to platforms 11 &
12 or to a bus rail interchange as TfNSW is looking to sell the site above
platforms 11 & 12 for an over station development and does not want to
pre-empt what a developer might want to do.
The TfNSW options are:
1)
TfNSW Option 1: Little Eveleigh Street
Connection – The key issues with this model are discharge into Little Eveleigh
and Marian Streets which create the problems earlier mentioned.
2)
TfNSW Option 2: Ground Level Pathway (Wilson St
Connection) – This option avoids Little Eveleigh Street but it is not a direct
route, goes down and up, and does not address problems at Marian Street.
3)
TfNSW Option 3: Aerial Walkway (Wilson St
Connection) – This option avoids Little Eveleigh Street, but to make it more
direct, goes over the top of the heritage building and places a privacy barrier
at the rear of South side Little Eveleigh St residences. It does not address
problems at Marian Street.
4)
TfNSW Option 4: South Eveleigh to Wilson St
Connection – this is the only option that addresses Marian Street issues but
even TfNSW argues this is not viable as it does not provide a single concourse.
Community Option 5 Journey
The community options were presented as the Journey that
people had gone on to develop the proposed option.
Journey – “H” Design – This was an early option from The
Watertower. It was in line with the RWA proposal for a bridge between North and
South Eveleigh that linked to a southern concourse. It puts the concourse where
it needs to be for the platform constraints and the non-paid North South
connection where it needs to be and links them. Transport has argued that this
is three bridges and it is only building
one bridge as part of an access upgrade. There is a lot of support for this
option.
With TfNSW ruling out this option, the community then set about developing a
hybrid bridge model that tries to make one bridge fulfil both purposes. This is
a difficult task as the concourse stairs need to be as close as possible to the
platform buildings while the North South connection ideally needs to be as
direct as possible. Whatever option emerged from this compromise it had to
sacrifice some of the desirable features of the “three bridge option”.
Journey – Hybrid Option 2 + 4 (modified) – This was an option
after the four TfNSW options were released. Again it came from the Watertower
and it is a marrying of Options 2 and 4. The aim was to make a viable option 4
given that TfNSW had not succeeded. TfNSW also sees this as a two bridge option
although it is doubtful it involves less construction that their own option 4.
Journey – (Cracknell & Lonergan Architects v1) – This
option was produced by Cracknell & Lonergan Architects in response to a
brief prepared by Damien Minton after discussions with REDWatch and Reconnect
Redfern. It captures the essence of the 2 & 4 hybrid in a more ascetically
pleasing form, but it did not address how it connects to Wilson Street.
Journey – (Cracknell & Lonergan Architects v2) – This
option was a response to a Reconnect Redfern meeting asking why can’t we go
through the heritage building and adaptively reuse it. This was seen as an
acceptable alternative to a flyover option that was higher than people’s back
fences. While Cracknell & Lonergan drew this as going through the building
lengthways this was not necessarily the intention of the meeting.
It was felt by REDWatch and Reconnect Redfern that this
proposal was close enough for a concept drawing for presentation as the
community option 5. It shows how to combine both a pedestrian and bicycle
cross-railway bridge with a paid concourse. It is not an ideal outcome but it
fits with TfNSW’s stated aim of only having one bridge. It meets the concerns
raised by REDWatch and Reconnect Redfern.
In closing the presentation, reference was also made to the $100m
budget for southern concourse work. During
the preparation of the preferred plan REDWatch was contacted by a civil
engineer, who said they undertake railway work. That person advised that $100m
was a lot of money for this work – It is almost the equivalent of three Tibby
Cotter bridges. They also said that they believed the costing was for a
concrete bridge and that a metal bridge using the lift cages for support would
provide a much cheaper alternative. REDWatch in not in a position to verify
this but as cost is likely to be an issue we have provided this information.
TfNSW’s response to the proposal raised concern about its
width and size, however Councillor Thalis showed the meeting a number of wider
suburban concourses that have both a paid and unpaid concourse.
There was a strong call at the meeting from residents for a
master-plan for the site and for a high level connectivity plan that shows how
the concourse, North Eveleigh and the over-station development are expected to
work together to deliver on the “movement and place” goals promoted by TfNSW
and The Government Architect.
The meeting was advised that we would soon see a newsletter
from TfNSW about North Eveleigh that will provide some of the information we
are seeking. We await this further detail and a further meeting with TfNSW when
it has considered the community proposal and the other input from the latest
exhibition.
Geoffrey
Turnbull
Spokesperson
REDWatch