Blue Mountains Cultural Centre’s Destroyed Pedestrian Refuge Island

Blue Mountains {city} Council seems focused on pedestrian safety of late, finally.  This is a positive development for the benefit of improving the safety of locals and visitors alike.

So, we note new speed humps in Katoomba town centre area.  However, none of which are actual speed humps that require vehicles to slow down without experiencing the most minor of gradual of rise inconvenience.

This one we noted on Monday 19th June 2023 on Katoomba Street.

Some afterthought saw this graffiti warning plonked for a while – long since gone.

These are useless Monty Python Speed Humps that do nothing and only extravagantly waste more ratepayers’ money from those in Council’s ivory tower.

 

The problem also with such useless speed humps and which probably have wasted ratepayers thousands, is that to pedestrians it looks like a pedestrian crossing, but not to drivers.

It is positioned immediately across from Davies Lane that connects Katoomba Street to the car parking area at the rear.  So, rather than Council helping to make this busy high street safer for pedestrians by slowing down vehicles, conversely it dangerously lures pedestrians into the path of drivers unaware, many being unfamiliar visiting sightseers.

More patients for Katoomba Hospital.

So, if  pedestrian reasonably interpreting this speed hump to be a pedestrian crossing were to get hit by a vehicle, will Council have a public liability culpability?  Yep.

It was clearly designed by a bureaucratic committee kept up in Council’s ivory tower who never venture across the highway into the real world.  Government can be so disconnected.

Similar ‘why bother?‘ shallow speed humps have been constructed by Council in Katoomba in busy Bathurst Road and Parke Street.

Here’s another one toward the top of Katoomba Street showing a pedestrian walking across from the Commonwealth Bank.

Whereas a one-minute Google search by this author reveals that an effective speed hump (in Australia) that actually looks like a speed hump to both motorists and pedestrians alike is this one.

This one is ‘high-vis’, a decent deterring speed bump that would effectively slow down vehicles, especially for trucks.  It is probably traffic authority standard compliant. It is simply bolt-able into the bitumen road, and would probably take under two hours to be installed by a suitably-experienced work crew.

Would it therefore be cheaper than Council’s over-engineered concrete ‘why bother’ number shown above?  Go figure why Council didn’t invest a minute online!

A CCTV camera should need to be installed to prevent the Hazelbrook vigilante vandalism experience recurring. Read this article: [^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8020550/humps-dumped-before-christmas-as-council-listens-to-resident-anger/]

Then there’s this serial shocker.  It’s the tokenistic and altogether useless pedestrian refuge island in nearby Parke Street in Katoomba that is supposed to provide a safe refuge for pedestrians crossing the street to the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre.

 

This so-called pedestrian safety refuge was part of the design plans for Katoomba’s new Blue Mountains Cultural Centre (shown across the street) which was first opened back in November 2012.   This pedestrian refuge was such a bare minimum design as to be useless and serve to only provide a false sense of security to pedestrians crossing here across Parke Street.

Subsequently…

 

As a local, this author uses this crossing on a regular basis and so after observing this damage, promptly reported the problem to Council to have it fixed, if not upgraded so that the refuge island was effective in protecting pedestrian safety.

On 17th March 2023, one reported this damage to Blue Mountains Council’s Customer Service department with all the necessary details and one obtained a reference number: CSR 458937.

This, one followed up same day, with an email to Council as follows:

Attention: 

Glenn Sherlock 

Programme Leader for Transport Infrastructure

 

Blue Mountains Council 

RE: Cultural Centre’s Destroyed Pedestrian Refuge Island – 30 Parke Street, Katoomba (CSR 458937) 

I report to you the recent destruction to a Pedestrian Refuge Island situated outside the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre (30 Parke St, Katoomba).

It was constructed at the time of the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in 2012 (11 years ago).  Please see before and after photos.  The second one taken by me today. 

I reported this to Council yesterday, so it is on the system (CSR 458937).

I use this crossing regularly.  I estimate the damage occurred in early February 2023, probably hit by a wayward truck, given the height of the impact dings on the two loop barriers.

May I suggest that given Council’s current transport infrastructure programme observed with the new speed hump works in Katoomba nearby on Parke Street and Bathurst Road outside the Katoomba Family Hotel, that this damaged Pedestrian Refuge Island be factored in for upgrade, rather than just replacement. 

The two aluminium loops would frankly fail stop a wayward car, let alone a truck, from mowing down a pedestrian waiting on this refuge island.  Given the increase in road traffic up and down Parke Street (notably more supermarket delivery trucks) since ALDI supermarket opened in 2010, there needs to be a more robust and safer infrastructure installed at this popular pedestrian island. 

Also, the concrete curbing around the refuge island has been damaged multiple times over the years, probably by mainly delivery trucks over the past decade.

It needs repair and bright white painting applied for extra safety. 

I point out that we have had a spate of dangerous driving issues (criminals racing to evade police)  in this area as local Katoomba police should attest, and I invite you to enquire with them to confirm this. 

I use this refuge island weekly to access into town.  Also, there are a number of elderly residents who do so too. 

I realise there is a pedestrian crossing outside Coles Katoomba nearby, but it is a 100m round trip down and up from this site. 

Feel free to call me to discuss. 

Yours truly,  …

That was back on 17th March 2023.

Some five months hence, on 3rd August 2023, this photo of the same damaged pedestrian refuge island was taken by this author while about to cross Parke Street here.

 

Some seven years prior, this author had previously reported vehicular damage to this same pedestrian refuge island to Blue Mountains Council on 8th February 2016 (CSR 222785).

Months later the same thin dodgy aluminium loops were replaced. But to what end?  The pedestrian refuge island was again taken out by some reckless speeding driver.

Now this is serious pedestrian safety, if government cares a stuff.

 

What value is life compared with the cost of safeguarding life?  Let’s get proactive, not sorry.

It doesn’t require a terrorist attack to wipe out pedestrians.  Locally, we have a share of speeding drivers, intoxicated drivers, drivers who disregard the rights of people using pedestrian crossings and just drive through regardless without any compunction or penalty.

Despite driver give way laws, it has become sensible custom for pedestrians to presume driver will not give way at a pedestrian crossing or intersection.  Indeed, it has become safer for pedestrians to avoid pedestrian crossings and to J-walk across a street taking the initiated to time it to avoid getting hit by drivers.

Driver courtesy and respect for pedestrians has long gone out the door.

 

Postscript:

24th August 2023: 

We observe that on Monday 21st August 2023 (three days ago) the subject Parke Street pedestrian island refuge had been replaced by the same style of twin light-weight looped bollards (photo below), as were there previously.

 

It must have been a coincidence that Council’s repair after more than five months, took place just over three weeks from the date of this article of ours we published 6th August 2023. Nice one.

But Council’s inadequate copy-cat bollards are again entirely inadequate to protect pedestrians on this refuge island in the middle of this busy urban Parke Street. These replacement bollards are the mirror same twin bollards that have been previously run-over and destroyed by either a car, truck or bus – twice!

They are tokenistic and offer a repeat of nil protection for any pedestrians standing on this refuge island – any vehicle doing up to the legal speed limit on this urban street of 50 kph, save for a bicycle or motor scooter.

Anyone injured by a vehicle whilst using this pedestrian refuge (or the misleading speed hump in Katoomba Street) is welcome to use this article as evidence for a compensation claim  that Council is well knew that this refuge island is substandard for its intended purpose and that this hazard exists.

Should a pedestrian/pedestrians be killed by a vehicle whilst using this pedestrian refuge, then the immediate family is similarly welcome to draw upon this article.

This author is yet to see a bicycle or motor scooter along Parke Street, but often sees one of these monsters hurtling down Parke Street and also taking time-saving short cuts along nearby residential Cascade Street.

 

This semi-trailer is more than a daily occurrence along Parke Street, since Council approved not just a new ALDI supermarket for Katoomba but also an adjoining Woolworths and Coles supermarkets.

On Thursday 24th August 2023, we since raised a follow up complaint to this effect with Council (CSR reference 485048).

Council’s “all care and no responsibility” greenwashing pedestrian safety again.

“Pedestrian trauma accounts for 17 per cent of all deaths on NSW roads and nine per cent of serious injuries. More than 1,900 pedestrians are killed or hospitalised from road traffic crashes each year and in 2018, 67 pedestrians lost their lives.”

~ NRMA