Phone 4342 2070 Fax 4342 2071

2002 (c) Peninsula Community Access Newspaper Inc

 

Why cycle when you can walk?

 

I find it hard to believe that our local councillors (or anyone else for that matter) can support a proposal to lay a solid pathway along the Brisbane Waterfront Reserve.

Nobody would deny that the 3km stretch of undulating, wooded grassland from Blackwall Point to Lions Park, with its spectacular water views and colourful bird life, is one of the Peninsula's most attractive features, and deserves to be widely appreciated.

My wife and I, both in our late seventies, walk along it regularly and consider ourselves very fortunate to have free access to such a peaceful and picturesque amenity where the going underfoot is no more taxing than walking along our own street (where, incidentally, a pavement would be more than welcome).

Who, we wonder, needs a pathway when the grass is so short and springy?

The rather doctrinaire arguments put forward by Bruce Abrahams, Geoff Pearce, and Lynne Buckholt in your last issue could be used to justify a solid pathway along, say, Umina Beach.

And what would be the point of a cycleway?

Why would anyone want to cycle along the waterfront reserve when they can so easily walk along it?

The purpose of a cycleway is to enable cyclists to get from A to B (eg, home to school, or home to railway station) without tangling with the motorised traffic.

I myself cycle every morning round the quiet backstreets of Umina to fetch my newspaper without feeling too much concern for my safety, but to get to the waterfront reserve I would have to cross the two busiest roads on the Peninsula - and so would any kids who thought such a cycleway (from nowhere to nowhere) worth a visit.

As for those unfortunates who are unable to walk and simply wish to admire the views, or watch the birds, there are already car parks at intervals all the way along which give easy access to the reserve.

A few well-placed benches at the water's edge would be a good idea, but, by an objective reckoning, a solid "share pathway" would surely be an expensive folly bordering on environmental vandalism.

It can't happen, can it?

Peter Scott, Woy Woy