Thursday, November 15, 2007

Vent - Sydney Traffic

Having a little vent today... took me 2.5 hrs to drive into work today!  And I paid close to $14 in tolls to do it!  Plus $18 in parking!
 
The traffic on the M4, M7, M2, Lane Cove Tunnel route was horrendous... it is a weird feeling when you crawl through an electronic toll booth at about 10km/hr.
 
Then when I got to the office (late), I had to jump in a cab and cross the Harbour Bridge for a meeting... was heading down to Sussex St and near the QVB I saw a young guy (about 18) whacked in the head with the side mirror of a turning bus.  The guy was standing on the kerb, head turned away from the traffic talking to a mate, when the bus turned in front of him and the left side front mirror cracked him in the back of the head.
 
The bus kept going and I watched as the guy seemed at first stunned, then clutched his head and got really wobbly legged.... his mates were laughing at first, but where then showing concern.... not sure what happened, but the cabbie I was in got a green light and we took off.
 
How can we have such a fucked up traffic system when the roads are useless to the point that they cant hold the traffic - even on a Motorway - and then the streets are too narrow for buses to go past without whacking people in the head.
 
Anyways... I am off to the Gold Coast tonight... I certainly need the de-stress!

3 comments:

Goreon said...

Easy. Shithouse infrastructure investment.

All levels of government are responsible for it and all are to blame - state, federal and even local councils.

They're all reaping more money from the taxpayer than they ever have, yet our infrastructure has never been worse?

Fuck your tax cuts - invest the 30 billion bucks back into public works ffs!

In addition, the population explosion doesn't help. We are allowing over a quarter million new people into the country each year ON TOP of the biggest baby boom since the 1950s. It's putting stress on the infrastucture quicker than it can be upgraded.

Finally, it's November. People are still at work, TAFE is still in as well as uni. No one is on holidays yet and those that want to take them don't start for another month or so. That combined with the wind down rush before Xmas = a SHITLOAD of traffic on the roads.

Anyone got a decent paying job regional? I'd be happy to leave the overpriced shithole that is $ydney!!!

As for the bloke that got whacked, dun worry, easy law suit there and probably 20 grand in damages. The bus driver is fucked for not even stopping though...

Anonymous said...

Surely there are no problems in NSW, after all we voted labor back in.

Anonymous said...

It's quite possible that the driver never realised that he'd hit someone. Does the name "Madeline West" ring a bell for anyone?

dm's right about the infrastructure though, although the bad decisions date back to well before this level of trafic and population could have been dreamed of. Basically, Sydney CBD is f'ed, and there's not much that can be done about it, without building a second road netowrk in the air. As for the freeways, well...That problem we do have down here in Melbourne. Especially the eastern whcih dumps into nowhere'sville

Annachie