Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Statements on tabled papers and petitions

Sunshine super-hub

Petition

Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (17:05): This morning I tabled a petition with 366 signatures of local residents who use Sunshine station and drive on the surrounding roads and who will be affected by the government’s plan to build a super-hub at that station. I would like to acknowledge and thank a local resident who was concerned and who started this petition on his own initiative and spent countless hours outdoors talking to people at the train station and in the shops in the surrounding areas.

Let me give some background to this project. Everybody knows that the west is expanding. New suburbs and housing estates spring up every year. Demand for public transport is set to continue increasing and outstrip our ability to service it. The government has therefore planned for the Suburban Rail Loop to pass through the west and go through Sunshine station. They have also finally planned to have a train going from the CBD out to the airport, and that train will also go via Sunshine station. We will be having lots of trains going through Sunshine, so the government has decided to call it a super-hub. We have been told that the station will double in size. To go with the super-hub they have come up with a master plan. The government claims that this master plan was informed by community and stakeholder engagement from August 2021 to April 2022, but unfortunately much of this consultation missed out on talking to actual residents who use the station and drive in the surrounding areas on a daily basis.

The government’s plan puts ideals before reality. They have imagined a fantasy where everyone is riding a bicycle or catching a bus and there are trees everywhere and people walking all around all the time. It is a very nice idea, but is it realistic? They want people to use the train station, but they are removing the station car park. Will everyone be riding their bikes to the train even when it is raining in winter? What about mothers with children in prams?

Now I come to the real problem that is the basis of the petition. They are trying to force people into using bicycles by closing the northbound ramp of Hampshire Road in order to turn it into a cycling and walking path. This is a terrible idea. The northbound ramp of Hampshire Road has a specific purpose. Hampshire Road splits into two. The southern ramp leads into the Sunshine commercial centre and the northbound ramp alleviates congestion by directing traffic away from the commercial centre and up to Harvester Road. But the government wants to close the northbound ramp and turn it into a bicycle and walking path. The pictures in the brochure do look nice, but the reality for residents is not nice at all. If this ramp is closed to cars, traffic will have to go back along the southern road and into the commercial centre, causing increased congestion in an already congested area.

There is another problem. The purpose of closing this ramp to cars is to turn it into a cycling and walking path, but it is not compliant with disability access requirements because the gradient is simply too steep. The Australian standards for walkway gradients allow a maximum gradient of 1:14. Both ramps are non-compliant, with the southern section being 1:12 and landings approximately 1:10. Mothers with prams, elderly people or those carrying shopping loads will struggle to go up the ramp because of how steep it is. Closing the ramp to cars will only make traffic worse elsewhere in the area, and it will not be accessible to many people in the community because of that gradient.

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Council call on the government to withdraw the Sunshine station master plan proposal and reopen the community consultation process to allow for genuine consideration of alternate, accessible means to facilitate active transport routes that are inclusive of all community members whilst maintaining the overpass’s current utilisation.