Yesterday I sent a rather terse and rude email to my local state member, Carmel Tebbutt complaining that I'd received no response from my email sent last December. It seems being rude helps! Does she not realise she sits in a Labor/Green marginal?
Response from the minion came two hours later. Success? Well, we'll see when the RTA gets around to this.
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 12:36:26 +1000 Subject: Fwd: Wilson Street and Erskineville Road intersection From: Simon Rumble <simon@removed-to-fend-off-spam> To: marrickville@parliament.nsw.gov.au In December last year I send the message below to you and have received no response. I know that being a NSW ALP member keeps you busy accepting bribes (sorry, donations from developers), doing your factional bastardry, jockeying for position so you can be premier next month and having sex scandals, but perhaps you could at least get a minion to send the usual dismissive and condescending response? This bike lane is now over two years old, and the RTA still haven't bothered to give the people who use it a safe way to cross the intersection with the traffic lights. It seems to me that there's going to have to be a death before you'll do something. At that point, I'll remind you of my emails. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Simon Rumble <simon@removed-to-fend-off-spam> Date: 2008/12/16 Subject: Wilson Street and Erskineville Road intersection To: marrickville@parliament.nsw.gov.au Hi there Carmel. I trust you're well. I'd like to see if you can achieve some action on a very dangerous intersection that I cycle through every day. Back in mid-2006, City of Sydney completed a handy contra-flow lane for bicycles up the piece of Wilson Street between Macdonaldtown Station and Erskineville Road. It's a really handy and safe shortcut for cyclists heading towards Newtown, Marrickville and the like, and I see tons of cyclists using it. The problem is that the RTA still haven't installed a bike traffic light at the intersection between Erskineville Road and the Wilson Street contraflow lane. So instead of having some indication of when it is safe to pass through, cyclists have to guess when the signal is right for them (as they can't see the oncoming traffic's signal) and wing it through the intersection. It might be reasonable for the RTA to take a little while to get around to this, but it's now one and a half years since this facility was built! Does someone have to die before the RTA fixes it? If you'd like to see the intersection I'm describing in action, I'd be happy to meet you nearby and go through the problem. Kind regards, Simon Rumble