Tom Flanagan, Lismore

Following a sustained public campaign led by the North Lismore Progress Association (NLPA), the Lismore City Council has abandoned its preferred route for a northern “bypass” that would have seen heavy traffic routed between the town and the Richmond River High School and then down North Lismore's main street.

Under the council plan, this traffic would have continued on to a roundabout at the intersection of Ballina and Union streets — the same roundabout that takes the existing congested traffic from Ballina Street that the bypass was supposed to ease!

Residents opposed the plan because of the hazard it presented to high school students and other pedestrians, the disruption the traffic would cause to North Lismore’s village atmosphere — the fact that the proposed “bypass” did not bypass North Lismore but would divide the community in two — and the lack of sense in taking the bypass traffic back to a congested roundabout.

The successful campaign was organised through the monthly NLPA meetings and involved a survey of residents, letter writing, posters publicising the bypass along the proposed route, and culminated in a public meeting attended by 100 people.

At the meeting, mayor Merv King claimed that the council did not have a preferred route, despite the fact that a full environmental impact statement was being carried out for only one route.

The meeting passed a resolution condemning the proposed bypass route and calling on the council to conduct a wider community debate about Lismore’s traffic and transport needs. There were no votes against. The eight councillors present — a majority of the council — either voted for this resolution or abstained.

At the council's December meeting, an urgency motion to withdraw the proposed route was carried unanimously.

[Tom Flanagan is a member of the North Lismore Progress Association and the Socialist Alliance.]

From Green Left Weekly, January 21, 2004.
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